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Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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Originally Posted by TXShar
We are searching for places to retire..........Currently in Central Texas. Too hot in the summer and becoming too congested for my taste. Lots of traffic issues, lots of growth.......SO if you are still working it's great place to live and earn a decent living. But in retirement I want a slower pace.
I love the Mountains, drier air, cooler nights, slower pace, friendly people, near a city so you can get whatever you need without living there. OH........decent cost of living which rules out places like Denver (which I love but can't afford)
Any suggestions?
I am pretty 'mtn centric', (30 yrs in CO, near Estes Park, now in PNW (WA)) but keep a home in the Hill Country TX for a nice and frequent retreat (It is a rented farm with a spare cabin for me, so no cost or trouble. I keep a cheap 50 mpg 'grease-burner' car in TX. (and quite a few 50-100mpg vintage motorcycles). I fly back and forth at will. (~$100 each way (spouse flies for free on SWA companion pass))
For Mtns and city and reasonable cost, you are quite restricted (unless you want Blue Ridge humidity)
Colorado Springs / Woodland Park is good compromise if you need to be near an airport.
SLC and Logan, UT
Los Alamos, and Taos, NM (smaller towns nearby for cheaper digs.)
Wenachee, WA (Cashmere is nice, 10 min away, GREAT regional public transit and senior services, no income tax). White Salmon, WA is worth a look. The west Columbia Gorge is pretty nice. (<1 hr to PDX (best airport in USA for it's size, 4 yrs in a row) 20+ colleges, unlimited food trucks, plenty of medical, 50F sleeping nights in summer.
Columbia Falls, Missoula, Bozeman
Spearfish or Sturgis, SD
Coeur d'lane, Moscow, and Sandpoint, ID
Hood River, Bend, Klamath Falls, OR (get a small town nearby)
Much of No CA, and a little bit of NV.
Couple places in AZ SE, or North side of state.
My little spot in PNW is pretty sweet (tho rainy). 20 min to international airport or tax free shopping and vast entertainment / cultural, yet I am in a 'national Scenic Area (No additional neighbors, no new homes allowed, can see for 50 miles even on a rainy day) Hiking, hunting fishing, recreation out the back door. yr round gardening possible. LOW CoL (except for MY property taxes, not everyone is in my boat... in court every yr with tax assessor for 20 yrs). I have a rental home with same cost basis 30 sec away and taxes are 1/10th as much.
Last edited by StealthRabbit; 11-29-2016 at 02:14 PM..
We retired last year and ended up moving to the Greenville SC area. We moved from Western NY partly due to weather (snow) and taxes. I came to the conclusion I could save $5+k/yr in taxes by moving and not have to deal with the snow.
We looked in many places, wanted to go south enough to get out of the snow, but still have four seasons. Florida was a possibility, but we talked to friends there and insurance, higher heat, other things ruled that out. We also noted people moving out of Florida to the Carolina's (since many came down from north, they were nicknamed "half-backs").
California would be ideal - too expensive in a wide range of ways. Considering the Midwest and West, many states had issues with healthcare, real estate costs, weather (tornado alley). I was on a business trip in Oklahoma City and remembering looking at the TV at 2am looking at all the tornado "hits" wondering if I would survive the night. No thanks.
Long story short, we ended up with Greenville SC.
One driver in decisions was access to healthcare. Not that we have any major issues, but going forward expected that to be more of an issue. As an example, I worked with several western state governments and found a deficiency of providers. New Mexico indicated they were short 2000 drs and ~5000 PA/Nurses. People in the frontier areas were air lifted to ER care. In many cases in those states traveled to other states for specialists. Again moving in maybe different than being there all your life as many drs are not accepting new patients. We did not find that an issue in Greenville.
Cost of real estate was better in SC as well, we built a house here at ~$200k at 2400 sq ft. ($82/sq ft) with upgrades such as hardwoods, tile, sun room etc. Real estate taxes are ~$1500 vs ~7500 in NY. You do pay property tax on cars ~$700 for our cars.
We are also close to the coast, Charleston/coast (3.5 hrs), Gulf (8hrs), Smokey mts (45min). Mountains are quite visible from here. The mountains also protect the area from tornadoes though we do get thunderstorms. Locals do indicate we can get ice storms occasionally. We did have a day or two of snow in January - nice to look at . Then back to T shirt weather. It is hot in the summer (June-August), sun is more direct as well. Spring and Fall are really nice, more extended than up north.
Overall a reasonable choice for us.
We are also in Greenville. We love it. We moved here in November 2013 from Oklahoma City. You were very wise not to retire there, lol. I am originally from California, but, we left there in 1993. We've lived in Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and now here. This is the end of the line for us! We make a lot of trips back and forth to Florida, and love that it is only a day drive.
I did one of those Sperling cost of living comparisons. I compared where I am (Syracuse, NY) to Greenville, SC. It said in order to live in Greenville and have what I have now, I need to make approximately $5,000 more. Not going to happen.
I did one of those Sperling cost of living comparisons. I compared where I am (Syracuse, NY) to Greenville, SC. It said in order to live in Greenville and have what I have now, I need to make approximately $5,000 more. Not going to happen.
I am sorry to hear that, and surprised! Were you able to research lower cost housing options? There are many no fee or low cost senior activities around here. It is endless. We very rarely pay for any activity. There is more to do here than time. For us, the cost of living here is very low. We feel our utilities are reasonable too. I wonder how reliable the Sterling cost of living comparison is? I am not familiar with it.
I am sorry to hear that, and surprised! Were you able to research lower cost housing options? There are many no fee or low cost senior activities around here. It is endless. We very rarely pay for any activity. There is more to do here than time. For us, the cost of living here is very low. We feel our utilities are reasonable too. I wonder how reliable the Sterling cost of living comparison is? I am not familiar with it.
It is Sperling, not Sterling.
Go in and do a few comparisons. It's interesting to see how they run.
If cost of living is that much higher, I can be sure living costs would be more than I can handle.
Go in and do a few comparisons. It's interesting to see how they run.
If cost of living is that much higher, I can be sure living costs would be more than I can handle.
Thank you, I will. I will use my last city as a comparison. As a side note, I get NO notifications from this site even though I have instant email notification checked. Therefore, I have to continually check threads to see if there are responses. ####ETA, I went into my settings and I had notifications turned off. Problem solved. I should have researched this sooner, lol.
We are searching for places to retire..........Currently in Central Texas. Too hot in the summer and becoming too congested for my taste. Lots of traffic issues, lots of growth.......SO if you are still working it's great place to live and earn a decent living. But in retirement I want a slower pace.
I love the Mountains, drier air, cooler nights, slower pace, friendly people, near a city so you can get whatever you need without living there. OH........decent cost of living which rules out places like Denver (which I love but can't afford)
Any suggestions?
We are currently in Houston and searching for mountains too. We have finally decided on NW Arkansas for several reasons. The cost of living is MUCH better than other places we have looked into (Eastern Tennessee, West North Carolina, New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, and a few more). Some places may have been right on the price points, but very far from the grandkids back in Houston. So, we are Arkansas bound come June... Good luck on your search.
This is much further off than this year or even next year. Most likely time frame would be 2030 - 2036.
So obviously, research we are doing now will have to be updated multiple times. But we have a general plan.
Unless either A we hit a windfall or B some amazing national leveling of regional real estate differences occurs, we are going to cash out of our mega, insane, high COL / overpriced hillbilly shack, move to a lower COL hood / area, and bank the difference.
Initially it was lower COL area, because even the lower COL parts of the Bay Area were higher than other areas we have been considering.
Now, some of those areas have gone up enough that there is now overlap between them and some of the less sexy parts of the Bay Area. So, the Bay Area but a cheaper hood is now a possibility.
Other places we are considering are Pac NW, SoCal, and a few locations on the East Coast. Those places must seem strange to people retiring from the Mid West or even parts of the NE, but our current digs are so overpriced, that nearly everything is cheaper than where we are now.
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. Then back to T shirt weather. It is hot in the summer (June-August), sun is more direct as well. Spring and Fall are really nice, more extended than up north.
