|
|
View Poll Results: Where would you like to move in the good old USA or Internationally | |||
I would never move I live in paradise. (Where do you live) | 13 | 20.31% | |
i would never move out of the USA but I could see myself living in? | 12 | 18.75% | |
If the country has problems I would consider moving internationally. My points of interest are? | 12 | 18.75% | |
I would love to live internationally at some point. My points of interest are? | 27 | 42.19% | |
Voters: 64. You may not vote on this poll |
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
07-23-2020, 07:41 PM | #241 | |
NFL's #1 Ermines Fan
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: My house
|
Quote:
I went to way more trouble to research that than I should have, but i had no idea such a system existed. |
|
Posts: 142,670
|
07-23-2020, 07:46 PM | #242 | |
NFL's #1 Ermines Fan
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: My house
|
Quote:
It seems like these are pretty common in South Florida because I ran across them several times. I thought this wasn't one of them, but after digging a little I'm pretty sure it is. So I've found four really unusual location-specific hidden fees that are enormous. They don't exist for all properties in those places, but when a place seems like a good deal, you have to look for these things. 1. Hawaii has the leasehold system that essentially destroys your home equity over time. 2. Southern California has land leases where you own the house but not the land and pay a huge monthly rent on the land. 3. South Florida has required country club memberships that include upfront fees and annual fees. 4. Some resort communities like Colorado ski towns list prices, but it's for fractional ownership of 8 or 12 weeks per year. Those are clearly identified in the descriptions, though, even if they're not easily identifiable during the search. |
|
Posts: 142,670
|
07-23-2020, 07:49 PM | #243 |
NFL's #1 Ermines Fan
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: My house
|
Now I'm wondering if the annual country club fee for the Delray Beach house is per household or per person. Surely it's for the household, right?
|
Posts: 142,670
|
07-23-2020, 07:58 PM | #244 | |
Supporter
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Scott City KS
|
Quote:
|
|
Posts: 57,710
|
07-23-2020, 08:04 PM | #245 |
NFL's #1 Ermines Fan
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: My house
|
Ah, okay. I couldn't actually find location-specific average humidity figures, so I'm just assigning zones based on a national map that I found. It's probably highly variable in the coastal areas and an inexact science on my part in reading the map.
|
Posts: 142,670
|
07-23-2020, 08:39 PM | #246 | |
www.nfl-forecast.com
Join Date: Sep 2000
|
Quote:
I've been casually thinking about retirement locations the last few years. The trade offs are really challenging. Even though my priorities are different than yours, I still am hoping your top 20 will reveal some hidden gem I had not previously considered. My key trade offs are: Beach front vs walkable community with culture. I really don't want to have tons of time on my hands being isolated in suburbia or a rural area. Cool location (beach front or walkable/culture) vs. Living space. My wife has an art studio now, but wants to expand rather than contract it in the future. Can't really afford to have a large living space in a cool location. I'm more willing to put up with miserable summers than any kind of winter whatsoever. I an either find shade and not move or go inside and soak up the AC. |
|
Posts: 45,662
|
07-23-2020, 09:13 PM | #247 | |
Would an idiot do that?
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Arizona
|
Quote:
Wasn't aware of the land leases. |
|
Posts: 56,579
|
07-23-2020, 09:24 PM | #248 |
Cool as a Cucumber
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: on the edge
|
Are you sure you aren't underestimating the humidity to comfort levels? We haven't had less than 50% humidity for quite a while and the last week it's been much higher. It was 99% earlier today and it's currently 80%. This is no bueno Rainman. Outdoor events are awful during the summer here. My cousins from Denver and CO Springs have been here this week and they are melting.
|
Posts: 3,823
|
07-23-2020, 10:16 PM | #249 | |
NFL's #1 Ermines Fan
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: My house
|
Quote:
Last edited by Rain Man; 07-23-2020 at 10:46 PM.. |
|
Posts: 142,670
|
07-23-2020, 10:46 PM | #250 | |
NFL's #1 Ermines Fan
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: My house
|
Quote:
On your tradeoffs, that's very interesting, because this started out purely as a financial exercise. I built a financial model because I was pondering how long I would have to work to replace my income (not counting our Sandbox millions at some point). Once I built that model out, it evolved to how I would handle IRA strategies and stuff to optimize finances, and that led to thinking about relocating to free up home equity. From there, I started building in the various factors of relocation such as cost of living and taxes and stuff. One thing that I don't have in the model is some of the lifestyle stuff you're talking about, like beaches and walkability. In part, this is because those attributes are going to vary from house to house within a location to some extent, and I figured retirement is still far enough off that it wouldn't be productive to look for specific sample houses with those features. So I kind of built it in implicitly by just picking general locations that I thought were candidates based on the lifestyle we want. But there are some general differences in the cities on my list, so I've pondered adding some qualitative factor to the model about that. It might change the rankings a bit, but in part the cities are on my list because I think they might be acceptable places to live, so maybe it doesn't matter. For us in the end, the two big factors are affordability (on my end, how many more years I need to work to move there) and climate (for my wife). Once we find a place that checks those boxes, then I'm trusting that we can find a nice walkable neighborhood and/or a place with nice aesthetics. The living space tradeoff is kind of built into the model with my housing grade, but to my own tastes. My wife says she'd be fine cutting down our living space a lot to live in a great place with a nice climate. I'm much less interested in doing that. We have a lot of space right now, and while I could downsize a bit, I think we'd be uncomfortable living in half our current space. So I'm generally downgrading a city on housing stock if I can't get 2,000 square feet for my budget, which I think would still be comfortable. I'm not interested in maximizing living space, though, because that usually entail living in an uninteresting place and paying for more space than I need. One weakness in my model is the sample house selection. I'm generally targeting houses in the $400k to $500k range, just to be consistent. However, there are some places (particularly some that are still coming up on the list) where I could probably meet my goals with a cheaper house. That would pull the score of those places up since it would help affordability. I kept a consistent price range partly for convenience, and partly because I can account for it a bit in the housing stock grade. As for the climate, one reason that I started doing this is that my wife and I have both had bad falls on ice in the past couple of years, and my wife is kind of done with winter. She actively dislikes it, and she really likes warm weather. I actually don't have an issue with cold winters (well, other than falling on ice) and would prefer a cold winter over a hot and humid summer. So part of this exercise is looking at different climates and learning what the options are. I may be overweighting climate a bit in my scoring, but honestly climate is one of the two big reasons that we'd consider relocating in retirement. Last edited by Rain Man; 07-23-2020 at 10:55 PM.. |
|
Posts: 142,670
|
07-24-2020, 07:01 AM | #251 | |
Supporter
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Scott City KS
|
Quote:
Here’s my understanding. But I’m a flat lander in ****ing Kansas. I think Splatbass lives there. Definitely trust pretty much anyone else’s word over mine. The prevailing winds in Hawaii come from the east so the humid winds coming off the ocean hit the east side of the island, rain going up the elevation and the west side is in a rain shadow. East side tropical, west side (Honolulu) arid. If I am remembering correctly. |
|
Posts: 57,710
|
07-24-2020, 12:54 PM | #252 | |
www.nfl-forecast.com
Join Date: Sep 2000
|
Quote:
I'm also looking at staying put as a home base and live medium term (2 to 6 mos at a time) in cool, affordable international locations. That would combine the small footprint when abroad with a larger space (that could accommodate an art studio) when we were in the states. I think that could be a very cool way to retire that wouldn't get boring. |
|
Posts: 45,662
|
07-24-2020, 03:07 PM | #253 | |
Supporter
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Scott City KS
|
Quote:
Be careful writing off humidity if you intend to do outside stuff in retirement. As we age, some of us struggle with heat more. Heat is generally a stress and as we age and our bodies break down, it becomes important to reduce stress on our bodies. Humidity amplifies that greatly, because as we sweat, it doesn't evaporate and cool the body down as intended. Accordingly your body has to sit in the heat and stress. Accordingly, people choose to retire in low-humidity environments. Arthritis is also a factor, so people choose to get out of the midwest so the climate variability is lower. Maybe I'm sensitive to it because I hate heat anyway, but there would have to be tremendous overriding factors that would lead to moving to an environment with humidity. RE: Housing. I wouldn't put a blanket square footage number on it, so much factors into the design and usefulness of the space that just a numerical cutoff doesn't really tell much. I would lean towards open flooplans, wide accesses (ADA approved), and as few of stairs as possible. Also limit the number of bathrooms/bedrooms, since you probably won't have a bunch of people staying. That can contrast greatly with a lot of big houses around. The other thing with big houses is you have to clean them. I mean you can have a maid or whatever, but you still have to manage the property. I would look for a smaller more functional footprint. For instance, I'd happily give up a 12X12 3rd bedroom for another 10 Sq ft in the master bathroom. |
|
Posts: 57,710
|
07-24-2020, 03:23 PM | #254 |
Mod Team
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Valley of the hot as ****
|
Slow work day. Read through this thread. Very interesting and good stuff. Depending on your point in life, things provide you different value. What I like today will likely be different in 10 years and there’s lots to consider in moving.
|
Posts: 46,068
|
07-24-2020, 03:54 PM | #255 |
Live free or die hard
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Durango, CO
|
Sweden or Greenland
|
Posts: 27,012
|
|
|