I would like to hear from retired people who are happy where they are living....moved or not after retirement (relocate, community)
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If finances become an issue (unlikely) I think I'd rather move to the mobile home park in my town than leave the state for another house. Just another choice.
I love where I live because it is between two large cities. I can reach either of them within 20-30 minutes. I like the fact that there is no state income tax. Most of my relatives live close enough that I can reach them in less than a day. I was born in Texas and attended high school and college in Texas.
I think it's a fine state and I have lived in many states being a military kid. My house is paid for. I have no major expenses, knock on wood. Compared to a lot of other places Texas is not an expensive place to live. Generally speaking, the people are friendly.
My husband and I just retired in July and moved from Central PA to Northern MI. We are avid boaters and snowmobilers and when we were ready to retire we could move anywhere since we have no children. We both each have a brother who we only see maybe once a year so family was also not a concern. We took almost 2 years exploring different areas on the internet and at first were going to move north of Seattle. We were almost sold on moving there with the sound for boating and the mountains for sledding but they are on a major fault line for earthquakes and even though we are not afraid of major snowfalls we were concerned about earthquakes so we kept looking eastward. We would have loved to live in the mountains of Colorado or Montana but there was no big body of water for our boat. Our next search was around the Great Lakes. Wisconsin came up first but the houses seemed expensive. There on the other side of Lake Michigan was the state of Michigan....We searched around Michigan on the internet for about 6 months and with home prices so low in the northern part of the state we were sold.
That was back in July and our house sold in PA the first day on the market with multiple offers. We have never looked back.
PA's winters were always dreary with more ice than snow, we rarely had a white Christmas and the back yard was always grey in winter and high humidity in summer. Moving to Michigan has been a dream. We bought a beautiful custom designed home and paid well under market value since the job market here is very bad. 2 major corporations moved out of the area in recent years and many younger people had to leave the state for work. Their loss was our gain since we came here to retire and not work. Christmas here looked like a Norman Rockwell painting and keeping up with shoveling is great exercise. We aren't golfers but there are beautiful golf courses everywhere. Right behind our house is the 12th green and we are thinking that we will learn to cross country ski. There are dedicated biking trails around Petoskey/Harbor Springs that are paved and have glorious views of the lake...The water here is so clear we swear you could drop a quarter and see it 30 feet down.
Traverse city is close by and it is a magnificent foodie town. The downtown has quaint plentiful shops and a beautiful airport that is Frank Lloyd Wright inspired. The whole area is extremely dog friendly. It is not uncommon to see dogs in Home Depot and Lowes, we are told you can take a dog anywhere that there isn't food sold. The dog park is less than 5 min from our house and the local ASPCA allows you to bring your dog and bathe them for free. They provide towels and shampoo and have a great stainless steel raised dog bath area that makes washing super easy.....
The locals get free tanbark courtesy of the city who collects leaves and grinds them for processing. You drive up in your pickup and they have a front end loader that scoops up the tanbark and loads it for you. I used to pay big bucks in PA for tanbark that wasn't half as dark as this stuff. I love to garden and with slightly sandy soil which is so easy to dig I planted almost 1,000 bulbs in the fall. PA had rocky clay soil and trying to plant anything without a backhoe was a real chore. Since we are just east of the next time 7one in the summer it stays light out almost until 10 pm. The humidity is low and falls are glorious with color.
Snowmobiling is top notch and the trails are groomed more often than the favorite place we used to go on vacation in New Hampshire. We just came back from a quick get away in the UP and they groom the trails once or twice a day. At home we can sled to beautifully groomed trails right from our house.
We haven't gotten a chance to boat until next summer but the locals say it is fabulous. We are paying less to dock and store our boat here than we did on an Army Corp of Engineers lake in PA and here we have indoor heated storage so we don't even need to winteri7e the boat.
The people here are so friendly, inheritance tax is better than PA and there are no crowds.
Life is great here and we have never second guessed our decision, we LOVE it...
We'll be moving out in a couple of years. We couldn't find one place we wanted to live so we're down sizing to an RV. Lots of pent up desire to travel. So we will probably winter in Texas, and then travel west and north for the summer. Family is in the north, so that's when we'll get out visits in.
OP. You might consider something similar. That way you can travel around and find what you might like, settle there for awhile to see if you like it. If you don't, pack up and try some place else.
Going on seven years ago we moved in retirement from northern California to the Ozarks. My wife had lived in the region for most of the 70s and between my father's military career and my own eight years in it, I was very familiar with it. We missed having four distinct seasons all in one place and the southern culture. Now we have precisely what we sought. As a bonus, the COL is significantly lower than California's as are taxes, fees and housing costs. The abundance of nature surrounding us is a huge plus. Happy? You bet!
East Tennessee is our adopted home. We're about 20 miles SW of Knoxville. We moved here a year and a half ago (can't believe it's been that long already -time flies when you're having fun). We live in a planned, not gated, not age restricted community (Tellico Village) that is primarily occupied by retirees, most of whom are transplants from all over. It's a beautiful place, and the opportunities for fun and friends are everywhere. It has a 4 season climate, with just a dusting or two of snow a year. It gets a little humid, but not Florida humid, in the late spring and summer, and we do get those pesky thunderstorms for about 4 months a year. It's really only hot-hot in late July/August. Tellico Village is a gorgeous neighborhood with 3 golf courses, situated along a long narrow lake. Last year we won the Real Estate Scorecard Bliss Award ( Real Estate Scorecard Announces 2013 Bliss Award Winner - Best Tennessee Community of the Year )for the happiest community in Tennessee, and in previous years we have won similar awards. This is a place where you can be as busy and involved as you want, or not if that is what you prefer. Check out the website....www.tvpoa.org
I can never decide. I love where I live. Until January that is. Then I become so unhappy all I want to do is move. I think I will have to become a snow bird. It is the only answer for me.
I have recently retired and I know that I want to move out of Florida, back to a 4 season climate. I would like to hear from folks that are retired and are happy in their location.....staying after retirement or those that moved to a new location after retirement. Happy and living now in.....?
Florida for us. Been here for most of our adult lives, and now retired to the west coast of Florida.
Looks like my house will sell very easily to a cash buyer, as is, so now I have to figure out where I want to live. I will be travelling to the Midwest this spring.
Do you have some ideas as to where you think you might like to live? Other than "not Florida", but that's a start, knowing where you *don't* want to live.
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