Property? As in a lot on which to build a house? Or a retirement community? Condo? Single-family home? What are you looking for?

Maybe think of another country. U.S. is becoming a police state. The people are loosing all their rights. I donâÂÂt think that was is happening is going to change soon

lol, i'm starting to agree about another country. But right now we're looking for a lot, a house, retirement community, we're open to all of that. Not a condo though.

Check out states a little farther south, "south" not meaning the deep south. Virginia, North and South Carolina all are good choices.

The mid west has almost everything a person could want except fine theater, opera, etc.. There are hilly places with lots of trees, flat land like where I live, which is boring for me because I like nature. Nature is only a 6 hour drive or less from here. One thing you may not have considered is the cost of property. In the mid west homes are considerably cheaper allowing more funds for you to do other things. My nephew who lives in Ohio was really impressed with this city of 360,000 people, fewer rude drivers, rush hour is not stop and go like in larger cities. My home cost $145,000., with 2800 sq ft, half of that is basement. The first thing I hear from people on the coasts is how friendly people here are.

thanks for the responses. EmmaR - where do you live? I'm open to the midwest, but I need it narrowed down a bit to which states would be good for retirement.

Well, it would help to know what you mean by "good for retirement". Taxes? Community amenities? Weather? Access to medical care? Prices? No place is perfect, but you should try to be realistic in listing your priorities.

Here is a link that might be useful: Best Place to retire

duplicate

This post was edited by sushipup on Fri, Mar 1, 13 at 12:13

Have you considered a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC)?

Karen, I live in south central Kansas, not far from the Oklahoma border. Oklahoma would be my choice if I were to move again. It is much cheaper regarding property tax. I looked at some new homes near Stillwater in the $145,000. range that was finished beautifully.

My home is in a patio development and I like that they take care of the outside and that they work at keeping the dues down. I do not like the president and board members because they think they can come on your property and change anything they don't like. I don't think they will bother me though, I will call the police. Their article 5 in the convenents is not legal.

I would suggest Oregon or Washington state.
Beautiful country, nice people overall.
Oregon has zero state tax and can find nice houses on an acre or 2 of land for under $150,000.

That is where we are headed asap.

Central Oregon for us.

It would be a beautiful place to live. I had no idea you could get that kind of deal money wise. My niece has been looking there and found a place cheap enough, but it's not a place I would want to live. There is no way I could afford a house there like I have now.

I don't know if this would be what you're looking for, but I live in a rural county of New Brunswick, eastern Canada. It's lovely, much like upstate NY and northern New England. It's safe. The gardening zone is 4a. It's near the border with northern (Aroostook County) Maine and has a nice, quiet border crossing.

I put together a Tumblr with websites about the province to satisfy friends' requests for information. I've included the link, in case you might find it useful.

Good luck with your search!

Here is a link that might be useful: Websites about Carleton County, New Brunswick

This post was edited by jeaeva on Sat, Mar 9, 13 at 12:51

The best place for you to retire depends on your savings as well as your retirement benefits. Browse on the net and you'll find the best places to retire that were categorized according to budget.

It also depends on your priorities. Is living in a certain area more important or is living in a low cost area and having more spending money for travel.

If you have established friends, aquaintences, and relatives nearby, consider staying where you are, but maybe changing to a property that better fits you next phase of life.

However, if you have a strong desire to move from where you are, consided Virginia and North Carolina. The Alantic coastal area is a big draw for some folks, but for me, I want to stay far enough inland to blunt hurricane storms. I'd advise going far enough inland to get up on the piedmont to break the summer heat. In Virginia, look in the Shenandoah Valley; In North Carolina, look at the region from Hickory to Asheville to Hendersonville. The town of Franklin in the west part of NC is as far west as I would go. and you may find the Franklin is a little too remote for your liking. Do not consider Cashiers or Lake Toxayway. These two places are populated by the rich and they are there only in summer. They leave in fall to miss the winter. These two places have high elevations and do get winter.

We are in the Piedmont area in NC and can not wait to get out asap.
Summers are hell, buggy, humid, winters are just cold without the pleasure of good snow.
Most people are a bunch of religious Reich wing Tpublicans. The NC state government has just recently gone to a Totalitarian Reich wing nutter regime so things will start getting real bad here quickly.

We want beautiful country, real mountains, summers that don't go over 90 very much and even if they do isn't humid, real winters, good state government.
and most people aren't a bunch of Tpublican loons, mostly Democrat, Liberal and atheist/agnostic and that is Oregon and Washington State.

Taking the above suggestions one step further, can you share a list of your must haves? My sister, although not yet retired, moved to Asheville, NC.
I agree that if your whole support system is where you live, do you really want to be miles and miles away?
Are you very friendly and make friends quickly? Some people think that because now that they are ready for the active social life, that it will just appear.
I would strongly suggest living in an area before buying. We have friends who built a home in Colorado, only to find that were completely shunned by the locals. They had to leave that house and move back.

I agree that there are a number of issues to recommend spending a year at least, to experience all of the seasons, in an area that you're considering.

You'll learn a lot, during that time and have a much better informed basis for your choice of whether to settle or not.

Do you have family or loved ones who may be willing and able to offer assistance as you become not fully able to care for yourselves ... and would it be important to establish yourselves near them, earlier rather than later (keeping the relationship green, so to speak)?

ole joyful

I would suggest you try visiting the places that you are thinking of spending your retirement and see for yourself if this is the ideal place for your needs and expectations.

I have family around me that loves me and I want to be far away from them. When my Mom lay dying not 12 feet away from a grand daughter who was smiling as she went through the house saying..."I want that and that and that.................

I am leaving my money to a friend and I smile when I think of her and her daughters going through my stuff finding little treasures. If it were my "loving" family going through my things, well, I can cry just thinking about it.

Karen - Go to "Upstate New York" in the Garden Forums (linked below). There are two lengthy posts regarding living in NY State. NY doesn't tax SS, pensions, etc. :-)

OT Best place to live upstate, and
Great places to live in upstate NY

Here is a link that might be useful: Upstate NY Gardening site

Karen, if you're thinking about a gated retirement community, it used to be hard to see "behind the gates" of these places and research the options. Now there are a few good websites to help you find what you're looking for. You can browse by location, pricing, and amenities, such as golf, fitness, walking trails, etc.

Here is a link that might be useful: Gated Communities

Karen, I may have to rethink my recommendation. I woke up this morning to a winter wonderland . Ice every except on the streets thankfully. I think it's called hoar frost. I saw 2 broken trees, Bradford or Cleveland pear trees. But what the hey, I still recommend this part of the country, winter or summer. It's great. Of course I wish central Kansas had a small mountain or two. LOL If you believe movies they do have. I just watched one that showed a mountain in the back ground. I saw one like years ago at a theater and the audience just exploded with laughter at seeing the mountains in the back ground.

Well, Texas is where it's at, affordable housing, low taxes, no state income tax and a governor who knows what being an American is. Sure, hot summers, but everything is air conditioned, so no need to suffer. However, many people from the east coast don't like our way of life; that's okay, but check it out!

Nunyabiz1, you may want to rethink this a bit, but then maybe not.. For some reason I get the idea you live in California...but maybe not. Oregon is a beautiful state, no doubt about that, and so is California. (lived there, both states, done that).

I thought what we're talking about is retirement, what's best for each of us, including moneywise and how to use our retirement dollars wisely.

Why is Texas in better financial condition than most of the rest of the nation? Easy. Texas is the ranked number one in efficiency and it promotes a reliable tax base, rather than increasing government programs. Call Rick Perry stupid, but for us it has worked great, unlike many states.

You may compare us to a third world country, but most of us are quite happy with the lifestyle we are able to have. But, each to their own, and like I mentioned earlier, it's not for everyone.

Nunyabiz1...I am not a Texas resident, but take offense to the way you referred to that state! Why do you think you need to bring politics into this "retirement" discussion? Our country has its flaws and no one is perfect, but I would not want to live in any other one.

I recommend the Hot Topics forum for political discussions.

Here is a link that might be useful: Hot topics

Hi.

Born in Oregon (+1 to living there)
Raised in Washington State (+1 to living there...state differs a lot from sunshine-y eastern WA to rainier Puget Sound)
Currently live in Oklahoma (+1 to friendly and inexpensive midwest)

Good luck making your choice.

OR....You are right about Oklahoma. That is my home state and I would be living there if I did not love my home and the location so much. Another reason I would not move is because it would make my HOA President happy!

State politics is a BIG issue as far as retirement goes.
Weather or not you may have Medicare, medicaid, or ANY kind of breaks or help etc. largely depends on whether or not your state government is progressive democrat or reich wing nutters out to destroy anything that could remotely help retirees and those on lower income.

I did live in California most of my life, however had to come to NC to help my mother for the past 18 years.
She recently passed away age 95 so we are leaving this reich wing hell hole asap.

I lived in Oregon for 6 months and loved it.
Most areas in California that I would like to live is FAR to expensive for us.
Our old house in Newport Beach that my family bought in 1975 for $25,000 last sold for $1.7 MILLION. We could not possibly find anything there even remotely in our price range, even for rent.

We just went on a 27 day cross country trip, camping along the way. Went back to my old stomping grounds and saw our old house.
Would move back to Southern California in a heartbeat if we won the lottery.

However we have to exist on our retirement which is only about $4,200 a month, plus fortunately cost of living raises per year.
So we spent 5 days in Bend Oregon on this trip to get a feel of it, for my wife to see it and to look at homes we can afford. She absolutely fell in love with Bend and why wouldn't she bend is like Shangri-La compared to Raleigh NC.

We found several homes just south of Bend ON the Deschutes River with a dock, about a 1/2 acre of land usually, 2+ car garage, plus large workshop plus HUGE RV parking garage the size of a blimp hanger and all for under $200,000. I just now was actually looking on Zillow at a couple places in Florence Oregon right on the coast for the same price range and right on the water.
Oregon is literally like being on a different planet compared to NC.
Nice weather,(if you are east of the Cascades) very few bugs, low humidity, gorgeous country side, blue as blue can be politically so you know the state legislature isn't sitting there doing nothing but trying to come up with ways to screw you 24/7 like virtually every single red state is.

Unless you are very well off with LOTS of money in the bank and a big retirement of at least $100K+ per year then you are a damn fool to live in a red state and or vote for Tpublicans.
Sadly politics rules virtually everything we do, especially if you are lower income making less than $150K a year.
That is just a fact we must live with and a fact you had better acknowledge and accept when looking for a place to retire.
There are no Republicans left only Tpublicans and 100% of them are stark raving insane and have no more care for the bottom 98% than they do an ant on the sidewalk.

I only hope my wife and I can sell our house asap before this positively insane batch of nuts that are now in 100% totalitarian control of the NC legislature drag down the state even further.

Nunyabiz1, I'm sure I join any number of other citizens of NC in wishing you Godspeed in your quest to relocate. In the meantime, sushipup offered you really good advice. By all means, go check out Hot Topics.