Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Thank you for your thoughtful and helpful responses. I am currently honing in on Ventura and Santa Barbara. I think SB may be too expensive tho.
Keeping in mind your caution of traffic and over crowding, whats your thoughts on my current front runners?
FYI, budget is 1-1.25m. Looking for 3b/2b with outdoor space- say 1500 square feet. Could be apartment, townhouse or freestanding. Not isolated but within easy drive or walk to amenities. A nice view would be the cherry.
We've seriously looked at Healdsburg, orange, culver city, Huntington Beach and Oxnard and have taken a pass for various reasons. Paso Robles is also on my list only having visited once 10 years ago for a week and liking it.
My hunch is that you would probably get the most helpful responses by going directly to the California Forum.
The people on the retirement forum seem a bit more grounded and are clearly more mature��.
I like yous guys the best.
The CA Forum attracts a lot of CA-haters;some of whom are truly bizarre, and or grandiose, and have probably never even set foot in the state. Others lived in CA a long time ago and have to constantly remind current residents about how "great" the state was "back in the day." Still others are angry because they must leave CA due to the high COL in the coastal areas; and spend their time bashing the state. Some of them are actually "mature" in age only, and also post on this forum.
CA residents will sometimes challenge their garbage, but it gets to be tiring dealing with trolls. I suspect that many of the most frequent trolls are "mature" retirees since they have more time on their hands than do those of us who are working.
Still, if you can weed through the nonsense on the CA Forum, you can get firsthand experiences from residents of the areas that interest you. If you play it too safe by avoiding it, you will likely get secondhand accounts, or mere hearsay, about what it is like to live here; some of it well-meaning, but inaccurate.
I would suggest Ventura. The Ventura County forum isn't too active, but they have a few really good posters for up-to-date info. I lived in Ventura for a couple of years back in the mid-1980s and also in Thousand Oaks for 35 years, leaving the state in 1994. I do go back to visit the area every couple of years. On your budget, I suspect you could find something near the water or in the foothills overlooking Ventura. I've always loved downtown Ventura and would be my first choice to live in retirement if I could afford it.
Last edited by smpliving; 05-12-2017 at 01:32 PM..
Thank you for your thoughtful and helpful responses. I am currently honing in on Ventura and Santa Barbara. I think SB may be too expensive tho.
Keeping in mind your caution of traffic and over crowding, whats your thoughts on my current front runners?
FYI, budget is 1-1.25m. Looking for 3b/2b with outdoor space- say 1500 square feet. Could be apartment, townhouse or freestanding. Not isolated but within easy drive or walk to amenities. A nice view would be the cherry.
We've seriously looked at Healdsburg, orange, culver city, Huntington Beach and Oxnard and have taken a pass for various reasons. Paso Robles is also on my list only having visited once 10 years ago for a week and liking it.
If you are willing to be 90 miles from the LA CBD (Santa Barbara) or 60 from it (Ventura) they you should be OK otherwise. Do note, again, comparing with the areas of similar radius from NYC, there is nothing like the BOSWASH rail network. There is one line. From SB it's Amtrak. From Ventura there is a choice of Amtrak or Metrolink (the latter, even though a regional commuter, is nonetheless on a highly inconvenient and infrequent schedule).
I live more than half of my adult life in various Ventura county cities, (i.e., Fillmore, Ventura, Thousand Oaks, Moorpark, Simi Valley), and rue the day I moved. Mostly because I know that I have been priced out of the housing market. Some of my happiest years were while living in the county. Close enough to L.A. for the occasional outing. West of the L.A. Basin, so much less aerosol pollution. The county has a vibrant, "fresh" attitude. Awesome place!
Best climate in the 48 states, mountains, beaches, generally safe cities.
I think if your investment portfolio is minimum $3M, then you can deal with the higher cost. In general, I agree with your comments and rejected Cali as a retirement location after considering its pros and cons. For people already living in Cali and with a property owned over time and property taxes low (I would say portfolio of $2M+), very little financial incentive to move as you have the buy/sell cost and moving cos if you leave.
That's where we hope to be at in about five years-not including home equity- should be close if not quite there barring a severe financial downturn.
Not that there are not plenty of other great places out there to retire, few have all or nearly so the qualities that are most important to us as where we are at now. Great neighborhood in a great, safe city, coastal location just a couple or so miles from the water, even less to downtown with plenty of cultural opportunities as well as all the great historic core neighborhoods/communities here. When we need a little more or different we train it up to L.A for a fantastic and easy weekend or the airport is an unbeatable $11 and 10 minute Uber/Lyft ride from our front door and we can be along the way to being across the country or direct to Europe and Asia!
We owe about $100k on a beautiful, historic (modest sized) house on a wooded arroyo worth ~$1M, property taxes are $2,400, 100% offset solar and $7-20 mo. natural gas. We both work about 6 miles away from the house getting in admittedly heavy rush hour traffic for a mere 2-3 miles each way- other than that we walk, transit or ride share to most of our fun city activities. We drive so few miles already- my 2001 car has 63k original miles- we are looking forward with great excitement to the upcoming transformation of transportation options coming on line in many tech friendly and forward thinking cities like ours, just as we will want to be driving less. We'll still keep a car for occasional road trips but bring on autonomous driving cars quickly!
I can easily see the drawbacks of many other areas in the state and especially if you haven't established yourself here already with housing and well paying jobs with a history or a viable future of saving for retirement. It is far from perfect but if you are so lucky to have checked off all those boxes and are enamored with where you are and can see your area improving in the future far more than deteriorating, than there are very few places that can beat it.
I don't plan on retiring here - no tax breaks for seniors, plus high cost of housing makes it too hard to buy a decent smaller house in a suburban area and pocket the equity in the one you sold without incurring much higher property taxes. Instead, I can go to another state, get as nice as a house for much cheaper and pay less tax. Plus, both my electric and water/sewer bills are inflated with high fixed costs that are independent of my usage. Finally, I don't care to wait for the whole public pension/MediCal/welfare funding bomb to explode, as it must some day absent increased taxes.
I don't plan on retiring here - no tax breaks for seniors, plus high cost of housing makes it too hard to buy a decent smaller house in a suburban area and pocket the equity in the one you sold without incurring much higher property taxes. Instead, I can go to another state, get as nice as a house for much cheaper and pay less tax. Plus, both my electric and water/sewer bills are inflated with high fixed costs that are independent of my usage. Finally, I don't care to wait for the whole public pension/MediCal/welfare funding bomb to explode, as it must some day absent increased taxes.
I have no reason to question the accuracy of your reporting about your utility bills, but it concerns me that people reading your post will assume that your statement applies to the state of California as a general rule. There are many different providers of electricity, for example. I have Southern California Edison, and my monthly electric bill is about $22. In the hottest months of summer it can be as high as $40. I haven't looked up what the monthly fixed charge is, but it can't be very much if my monthly bill runs what it does.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
