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If you own an extremely small (about 300 sq ft) co-op in NYC without mortgage, your basic cost of living (monthly co-op fees, Medicare, food) is under $20k per year. More than half of that are monthly co-op fees. Pre-Covid, you could find that kind of micro-coop for $300k-350k in good parts of Manhattan. During Covid, the prices of those went down to $250k in some cases, not sure if they recovered yet. NYC is actually just fine financially for single retirees who don't need much space and do not earn much taxable income.
If one merely crossed over any water from Manhattan Island in any direction the price drops quite a bit. I'm just over the East River, a few subway stops in... maybe 15 mins from midtown, I have an 850sqft coop apt & pay just a bit more than $8K in annual fees now that my (very reasonable) mortgage is paid off. The apartment value has more than tripled in not quite 20 years.
Plus no vehicle costs - buses/subways (senior discount) are less than 10 min walk from my door, it's a short Uber to 2 airports. I have grocery stores, scads of restaurants & pubs, cafes, a weekly greenmarket & a Home Depot all within 5-10 minute walk from my door. Medical & cultural opportunities in nearby Manhattan.
My brothers live further out in the leafy suburbs in sfh & the property taxes are unbelievable: $11-16K/yr I believe. And they need vehicles for everything (& everybody). I was surprised when I went shopping at the same brand grocery store & the prices were higher in the 'burbs than here in NYC for several things, didn't expect that. Their kids are grown now & they don't need those big houses.
I figure my monthly non-discretional costs, excluding groceries, come to about $1K/mo. And as mentioned earlier, NYS doesn't tax SS & gives a $20K allowance for pension/IRA withdrawals (hello Roth conversions).
Point being I simply don't know where I could move to & enjoy anything remotely as interesting as this for similar money, the threads on "cheapest places" almost always end up costing more when all non-discretionaries are added up. It's not perfect: I would kill for a patio or outdoor space, I have no view, I dislike the winters more & more - I will probably snowbird starting this year. But good value can be found around here, especially now , if one likes urban activities & "the cheapest" isn't a necessity.
It depends if you buy or rent and factors like cost to heat and cool your dwelling. I would say SE Kansas and SW Missouri as well as NE Oklahoma. That corridor has some of the lowest housing prices in the country, has lots of safe communities and mild climates.
The droughts of that region chased my family away. My mother's family were all in Oklahoma before the Dust Bowl. My father's family were all in Missouri before the Dust Bowl. That mistake cost them all they had.
Mississippi IS cheap. We've lived here 20 years or so, and chuckle at the perception that a lot of folks have about "South of The Mason Dixon line". That covers a huge area, and obviously, a lot of different people. "Wokism" at its best, I guess.
But even though it is cheap, most people would not like it, and would never connect with the local population. That's because a very large portion of Mississippians have never lived anywhere else. My wife's family is like that. They have lived here for generations and few members have ever left. They know everyone in town, and everyone knows them. Unconnected strangers remain unconnected. I have seen several newcomers (women, usually) get discouraged and leave.
There is a lot more to retirement than "cheap".
I'm 75. Retired.
We actually seriously considered Corinth Mississippi for retirement. Visited it a couple of times and while we didn't wind up there, I could think of a whole lot of worse places for retirement.
The other caveat is that Kansas, unless this has recently changed, also charges the full sales tax rate on all grocery food items. Only a few other states have that in place. A few retirees might find the low real estate costs in Kansas enticing, but Kansas doesn't retain population of any age range as out-migration continues to be in the top 10 of all states every year. Climate is not really a net positive at all either. Also, if a retiree didn't like a property in rural Kansas/Missouri/Oklahoma, etc and wanted to move elsewhere, the appreciation would be very little in these rural areas that don't have reservoirs or outsiders.
Oklahoma charges sales tax on everything also. I live alone and maybe 125 a week on groceries. So $10 a week in sales tax. I could move to a state that does not tax those items and save maybe half? If you have a large family its different. But again retired people usually don't have that situation.
Climate. Compared to the rest of the country east of the rockies. I don't think its any worse. This half of the country can get tornadoes. The coastal areas add to that hurricanes. Most of the states can get ice storms. Summers it can get hot but not as oppressively so like Texas and the south. And most winters are fairly mild with not much snow. But this thread was about cheapest places to live not cheap places where the weather is perfect, and everyone wants to live there. There are no cheap places like that. You have to compromise on something.
And outside of buying a house in a urban area of a rust belt state the housing prices here are probably the best in the country.
... And outside of buying a house in a urban area of a rust belt state the housing prices here are probably the best in the country.
Before the pandemic began I routinely saw homes listed on Zillow starting at $40k for 4bdrm. Zillow was sending me a weekly update of local home prices.
Looking at Zillow today I see one 5bdrm home asking $39k, and only a couple in the $49k area.
Last edited by VTsnowbird; 04-25-2021 at 04:52 AM..
Reason: no trolling please.
I am sure countless people here have already crunched the numbers and done the math. Bottom line: which states are the cheapest for retirees taking into consideration housing costs, COL, taxes (including on retirement income), etc.?
I go with Mississippi.
When my parents moved from Tennessee (no state income tax, etc) to Mississippi (for work, not retirement), they were **loving the even lower COL in MS. compared to TN... which itself isn't super expensive. Of course, Mississippi doesn't have the same cultural stuff that some areas of Tennessee do, but life is full of trade offs.
That is a very localized phenomenon. Go somewhere that does not experience tornadoes.
I have owned five homes, none of them was been located in a tornado region.
I have lived where there could be tornadoes, places with earthquakes, places with wildfires and places with hurricanes. I have never personally been effected by any of those. Meaning damage to property. But if you have insurance if the unlikely happens its covered. There are bigger worries in life.
Before the pandemic began I routinely saw homes listed on Zillow starting at $40k for 4bdrm. Zillow was sending me a weekly update of local home prices.
Looking at Zillow today I see one 5bdrm home asking $39k, and only a couple in the $49k area.
Where I see lots of California plates now. I was in the drive thru at McDonalds the other day and the two cars in front of me both had Cali plates. Prices are going up but still cheap relative to other high price areas.
Last edited by VTsnowbird; 04-25-2021 at 04:52 AM..
Reason: edited quote
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