I did it backwards. I first looked for my retirement location and then I decided to retire and when. As a renter, I also considered when my lease would be up so I could minimize paying month to month (more expensive) after my yearly lease expired.
I started researching locations 1 year and 3 months before I retired and visited the first and only place I rejected after visiting about 10 months before I retired. That was a worthwhile visit. It helped to cement what I did and didn't want that I hadn't considered before. For me, the biggest factors I hadn't considered before, and which were important to me, turned out to be population density (number of people per square mile in the town) which is not the same as population and visitors/tourists/snowbirds (think traffic).
Visited the town I settled on 5 months before I retired. Came home and told my boss when I was retiring and then I had to wait until the suburban apartment complex I was moving into was finished being built which turned out to be 6 weeks after I retired.
Every few years I modify and post this suggestion:
How to Research Retirement Relocation
Moving in retirement is not just about fleeing the perceived intolerable conditions (examples: snow, taxes, high cost of living, traffic, etc.) in the town you are leaving. It’s also not just about pretty, cheap and good weather in the new town. It’s about moving to a new place that offers you things to do when you will be home now for a big chunk of time in the daytime. How are you going to fill up a 40 hour former work week with other daytime activities? Don't compromise because of cheap and pretty. Example: If you like to go to plays and ethnic restaurants frequently, don't move near the ocean or to the mountains just because it's pretty there or it's cheap, if you have to drive 30 - 50 miles to do the things you like to do.
1. The very first thing you should figure out is
what’s important to you. It shouldn’t just be the anti-intolerable condition because a few months after you are settled in the new place, you’ll be asking yourself, “Is that all there is?” You may take some things for granted and not realize they are important to you because you’ve always had them. Sometimes you don't discover what's important to you until you visit a place that's not suitable.
2.
For the things you like to do and the things you like to have, the new place should offer those things in the abundance, variety and quality that you are used to having.
3. When doing online research,
compare the data for where you live now to the places you are considering because you know what it feels like where you live now. Data is good to figure out if the potential new place is better/worse or has more/less or is less expensive/more expensive than what you are used to. Use research to make your visits to potential new retirement locations more productive. Instead of driving around from town to town like a chicken without its head on a one week visit, use research to rule out towns that are absolutely not right for you before you visit, so you can spend more time in the towns that have a better potential to be right for you.
4.
When you ask questions in a forum like City Data’s state forums, ask specific question that won’t elicit a feelings response. Examples: “Do you get a lot of snow?” and "Is the town overcrowded?" are not good questions. A responder formerly from Florida may think 6 inches is a lot of snow and a responder formerly from Minnesota might think 2 feet of snow isn’t much. Instead ask something like, “How many inches of snow do you get a year?” so you are the one deciding if it’s too much snow, not the responder. “Is the town overcrowded?” may get a different response from a person formerly from Chicago versus a person formerly from Smalltown, USA. So ask, “What’s the population density (population divided by square miles) of town XYZ?” so you can decide if it’s too crowded instead of the responder. Compare the answers to where you live now.
5.
Subscribe to the local newspaper or read it on line for at least 6 months. Specifically read the local/community news, the community calendar of events and the town planning information. What do people do in the town for fun? Does it sound like your idea of fun? What's important to the people in the town? Are they the same things that are important to you? Does the town celebrate traditional holidays or are their fairs/festivals generic? Is either important to you? What kind of crime is in the town and where is it? Mark the street map you picked up from your visit (see item 8). Are they planning to widen the road or build a new school, hotel or mall around the corner from that house you were considering? (If you are considering a big city for your new location, skip this tip.)
6. If you want to know what’s in a town (stores, restaurants, government facilities, hospitals), you can
check the online yellow pages for that town and then research the websites of those places.
7. If you are relocating to escape some intolerable condition
don't overcompensate. Just because you can't stand traffic, rude people and crowded conditions in your current city of 800,000 it doesn't mean you are well-suited to ABC Mountain Town, population 2,000. It will feel like paradise for the first 3 weeks then what do you do with yourself? Consider a smaller city than where you live now. Just because you are trying to escape shoveling snow, doesn’t mean you’ll be happy with 6 months of 90 to 100 degree temperatures.
8. When you visit,
don't visit like a tourist, visit like a potential future resident. Visit the supermarkets and clothing stores. Do they have what you like (products, brands)? If you are religious, attend a service. If you like to golf, play while you are visiting. When you are in your hotel room, watch the
local nightly news show. If you can attend a local event do it and take a look at the people. Do they look/act like your type of people? If you like to garden, visit the local nursery and look around. If you like to read, visit the library and bookstores. Do they have the variety of the type of books you like? Are the books new enough to suit you?
Buy a street map at the local gas station convenience store and mark it with your observations while you are driving around. (Example: the run down part of town/the traffic congested part of town). Bring a camera/camera phone.
9.
Going on vacation to a town is not the same as living in that town no matter how many years you've visited. Driving 30 miles down a mountain road in July to go to an annual fair is not the same as driving down the same icy mountain road in January to go to the supermarket every week. What time of the day are you most likely to be out doing things? If you are a night person and the town shuts down at 6PM in the off-season maybe the town isn't right for you even though you spent the last 10 years vacationing there for 2 weeks in July. That pretty beach place in July may have roads prone to flooding in September. How would your spouse fare solo in the potential new location, if something should happen to you?
10.
If you see a house or apartment you might consider, go sit in your car and observe the area at night when kids are home from school and adults are home from work. Maybe, after people get home from work and kids get home from school, the nice quiet place is really noisy.
11.
Assess your potential town and home in terms of the impact of up and down fuel prices. Maybe living 20 miles from the things you like to do
often, is not such a good idea, Maybe oil is a bad heating choice. Maybe unloading a home heated that way will be difficult 5 - 10 years from now. Maybe you can afford a McMansion after you sell your house up north but will you be able to unload the potential home when you're ready to leave if it's oil heated, for example?
12. If you are close to your family ask yourself,
"If I move to be near my children, am I sure they are staying put?" If you plan to return "home" for frequent visits, where's the airport? How close are you to the Interstates? How long is the drive? How expensive is the air fare?
13.
Don't be discouraged about retirement based on what you see in retirement destination magazines or retirement books. The magazines are trying to sell things to upper middle class people (by their advertisers). Ask yourself when was the last time you read a retirement magazine that told you how great the hunting was in Town X or how many baseball diamonds there were in town, how the bass fishing is, or where you can see bluegrass and country bands play in the park? If you came from outer space and read retirement magazines you'd think the only things important to all retirees are museums, marinas, the theater, shopping and golf. There are plenty of both kind of places but the magazines only address one kind of retirement. Also, consider that a lot of retirement book authors live in big cities. What you consider to be a great retirement may never have even occurred to them to address in their books.
14.
How hard is it to get a doctor to take you as a new patient? Specialists for a condition you might have? Find out before you move. Where's the hospital if you already have a serious condition?
15.
Use YouTube and the "Google Images" search engine to see videos and images of the towns you are considering. Note: Google images
https://images.google.com/ is a search engine that just looks for photos/images on a page where your key words are mentioned so along with the correct images you are searching for, you may get others that have nothing to do with what you want. Example: You image search for Maintown, OH but on the same webpage that houses photos of the town, there is also a photo of the mayor. Both images may come up in the results.
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... Arizona - Colorado - New Mexico ... But "no farther East than Texas".
