Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
It used to be that the cheapest places to live in the USA were in the interior of the country and in the southeast. If you just got away from the coasts, prices went down and it was easy to buy a lot of home for relatively little money.
While that is still true - the median home price in Oklahoma City was $135,500 in 2010's 3rd quarter (National Association of Realtors) - now there are bargains in south Florida and Nevada as well (Cape Coral/Ft. Myers was $100,000, Las Vegas was $138,100 in the same period). Forbes Magazine just came out with their list of the "Best Places for Bargain Retirement Homes", based on taxes, price of real estate, and stable home prices. The prices in these bargain communities show
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Published on January 11, 2011
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
January 4, 2011 -- Many baby boomers we run into are perplexed about where they will live in retirement. A big concern often centers around the bewildering number of choices - how can they find the town that matches their personality and their dreams for retirement? They often have an easier time ruling out regions or states than have choosing a particular retirement spot.
In our opinion an often overlooked choice for retirement is what is alternatively called the New Urban, Master Planned, or Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND). These communities - some totally new, while others are older towns that have invested heavily in urban planning - deliver on many of the requirements held by so many baby boomers. Those include walkability, easy access to
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Published on January 4, 2011
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
December 7 -- Harrisburg, PA; Syracuse, NY; and Waco, TX are not used to being selected as "best places to retire". Yet these towns were among the top 10 on a new list of best places for retired military personnel from USAA and Military.com. The USAA lists provide a perfect illustration of why choosing a place to retire based on criteria that make sense for you is better than relying on any random list.
Retired military personnel share many common retirement needs. Many of them, particularly officers or senior noncoms, will get a substantial pension. Moving to a state where that pension won't be taxed could be worth thousands of dollars a year. Likewise, retired soldiers, sailors, airmen, and
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Published on December 7, 2010
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
As our faithful readers know well, we are avid admirers of lists of the best and the worst places to retire. The more arcane the list topic, the better: (Best Places to Start Over Again, Best Places You Never Heard of, etc.). Recently we came across a list from money-rates.com of “The 10 Worst States for Retirement”. While the website undoubtedly put some careful research into developing their list, we couldn't disagree more with the results.
Money-Rates.com started off with a reasonable methodology, selecting 4 factors to help screen the list:
Economic (Unemployment, tax burden, cost of living)
Climate (Humans like 68 degrees, so the authors preferred places with the least
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Published on November 23, 2010
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Editors Note: This is part of our series comparing various states as places to retire. Don't miss the first, Florida vs. Arizona Retirement, or the second, Delaware vs. Maryland vs. Virginia vs. New Jersey. There are many more "Dueling" comparisons listed at the end of this article. We welcome ideas for future ones.
Updated April 23, 2021 -- The Carolinas are a red-hot retirement destination; both North and South Carolina are popular with baby boomers for retirement. As great places to retire, both have become as popular as Florida. In this comparison we will evaluate various factors for both states that affect retirement, letting you draw your own conclusions from the facts. As always, reader input is extremely important, so we encourage you to use the Comments section below. (Note: The first version of this article was originally published in 2010 and since then has been updated many times. Because it goes way back to 2010, there are a LOT of comments which are worth reading. The latest comments are at the bottom.)
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Published on November 15, 2010
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Note: We now have Part 2 of this series, which summarizes the many (over 248) comments made to this article. Obviously, we struck a nerve here!
Nov. 9, 2010 -- You might be the kind of person who wants to retire somewhere warm. You’ve identified some states where the climate is a lot better than where you are now, and where outdoor recreation is possible12 months of the year. You’ve also done your research and have chosen a state that that is tax-friendly. Chances are, the states that meet those criteria are in the South. And that probably gives rise to other questions.
Even if you have never spent any significant time in the South, you probably have an image of what life might be like be like there. Without the benefit of experience, however, that image is probably off the mark. In this article we will attempt to answer some questions to help you become better informed: Will the people in your new community be friendly? Will you, a Yankee, fit into the social and cultural ecosystem of your new southern home? Will you be able to contribute
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Published on November 9, 2010
Comments 369
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Maybe it's the chilly fall air, but whatever the reason, new "Best Places to Retire" lists are falling off the trees these days. This article will give you a run-down of some of the "best" we have seen lately.
Smartmoney.com's "The New Best Places to Retire". Smartmoney's reporter asked for and received input from Topretirements on this list, which profiles 9 great places to retire. We like their list because it contains almost as many surprise picks as predictable choices. In the end San Luis Obispo just squeezed out Santa Barbara to make the list as #9, (as we recommended,mostly on the basis of lower cost). Three of the nine towns on their list included the usual suspects:
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Published on November 1, 2010
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
October 11, 2010 -- A reporter from Fox News (FNCImag.com) interviewed us today on the 10 best places to retire. She also had some related questions on how to find the best place to retire. The results of the interview, 2 separate articles, came out today on FoxNews.com
The first article, "Where You Will Retire", is the more interesting of the 2. Noelle Watters asked some thought-provoking questions that gave us the platform to offer some friendly advice on a few questions every retiree should be informed about. Her questions included: "What makes a place a popular retirement locale (lots of different factors), "Does weather play
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Published on October 12, 2010
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Updated March 28, 2016 (Original article was October 5 – 2010)– This is the second in our extensive series comparing various states and regions as retirement destinations. You can find links to all of the comparison articles under “Further Reading” at the end of this article. Our approach in…
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Published on October 5, 2010
Comments 106
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
September 13, 2010 -- Consider us sentimental, but we feel kind of bad for the towns that don't quite make our various "best places" lists. After all, how would you feel if you were #101 on a list of 100 best places to retire? It's not like the quality of the experience is that different among the top tier places to live in retirement. And, given that everyone has their own individual tastes and requirements, #115 might just be a lot better fit for you than say, #2 on the list.
So to indulge that feeling, and more importantly to help expand our members' knowledge, here is our list of the "next best places to retire" - from #101 to 125. Oh yes, we will tell
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Published on September 13, 2010
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