The Affordable (and more) Best Places to Retire List

In our recent article, “Whackiest Best Places to Retire List“, we poked a little fun at some of the “Best Places to Retire” lists our big named publishing brethren keeping come up with. In so doing we promised to come up with our own “Best Affordable List”, and here it is.

St. Petersburg Harbor

The exercise of identifying our “Affordable” List proved to be very interesting, and challenging, on many levels (see end of article for further explanation). The major challenge was exactly what criteria would we apply? Would our picks simply be the cheapest places in the U.S. (or the world)? Should we add other selection criteria like culture, crime rates, etc.? In the end we tried to think about what the average Topretirements visitor would be interested in. Since our visitors are a very discriminating group, we decided to use these selection factors:

- Affordability. Median home price in the community should be at least 15% less than the U.S. average of $174,100 (2nd quarter 2009, National Association of Realtors).
- Low tax burden. Only the 25 states with the lowest tax burden (per the Tax Foundation) were considered
- High culture. We weren’t going to pick just any cow town - our selections have all earned a “high” culture rating (110 or above in the system used on our review pages).

The other big challenge was how were we going to select the most affordable candidates from the 450 retirement towns profiled at Topretirements. Doing a manual sort would be quite a task. But relying exclusively on a computer to do the work could end up with some of the same strange results we made fun of in our “Whackiest List” article. Obvious solution: We used our free Retirement Ranger selection tool as the first pass, then made a careful review of the results to make sure the final selections were indeed “best places to retire”. The Retirement Ranger provided 20 towns that met our criteria. From those we chose the top 10, purely on the basis of lowest median home price in mid 2009. (all 20 selected are listed below).

The Top 10 Affordable (and more) Best Places to Retire from Topretirements (with median selling price of a home):
1. Fort Myers, FL $84,000
2. St. Petersburg, FL $120,000
3. Phoenix, AZ $132,000
4. Corpus Christi TX $133,000
5. Tampa FL $140,000
6. Aiken SC $140,000
7. Clearwater FL $142,000
8. Morgantown WV $142,000
9. Las Vegas, NV $142,000
10. Knoxville TN $145,000

These are the remaining 10 making the cut for “Most Affordable (and More)”:
Mesa AZ $145,000
Sioux Falls SD $146,000
Myrtle Beach SC $147,000
Pensacola FL $148,000
DallasFort Worth TX $150,000
Branson MO $150,000
Tallahassee FL $150,000
San Antonio TX $153,000
Clemson SC $155,000
Columbia MO $159,000

Comments about the 22 “Most Affordable” Towns on this list
Topretirements feels really good about the towns making this list. All are relative bargains compared to many other best places to retire. All are interesting places to retire where there is plenty of culture and where there are nice neighborhoods to live in. That said, some people will find places on the list that are more or less appealing than others. The point is, if you are looking for an affordable place to retire that is also an interesting place to live, this list is a good place to start.

Real estate prices have fallen tremendously in the last 2 years. In much of the country they are at 2003 levels, in some depressed parts of the midwest, they go even farther back. Here is what Karl Case, a professor at Wellesley College and co-founder of the Case-Shiller real estate price index had to say about current conditions in the New York Times: “there are…dangers…(but) housing is as affordable as its been in 20 years….I think we’ve seen the bottom”.

One of the most interesting outcomes of this list is that the affordable regions have shifted. Until this year the interior states tended to be offer the biggest bargains in real estate. With the collapse of prices in markets like South Florida, Nevada, and California, this is not nearly as absolute the case as it was a few years ago.

Notes About the Selection Criteria
1. Thanks to our current recession, real estate prices, the major component of affordability, are utterly chaotic in a big portion of the U.S. Using recent data is extremely important because in certain markets the average selling price in mid 2009 is one half (much of south Florida and Nevada) to one fourth (Ft. Myers) what it was in 2006. The market is so volatile that using the same criteria in 2008 would have produced a very different list - chances are the 2010 list will be different yet.
2. Related to the above, foreclosures and short sales are distorting prices in certain markets. The median sales price in Las Vegas might be $142,000, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can buy into the average 55+ community for that little.
3. We used figures from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) whenever possible to determine housing prices in mid 2009. Smaller towns, however, are not included in that data. In those cases we used a combination of data from Zillow.com and City-Data.com. As a result the sales price comparisons are approximate and should not be taken as absolutes.
4. Taxes are not that important an consideration for most retirees, at least compared to proximity to family, climate, and housing costs. That’s because income and sales taxes are relatively insignificant unless income and spending are high. Property taxes, which are a bit harder to identify, have their greatest impact on people who continue to live in expensive homes. Bottom line about taxes: Consider including towns in higher tax burden states to broaden your search when using the Retirement Ranger.
5. Prices in active adult and 55+ communities are not quite as impacted by the housing meltdown as for homes in general communities. So if you move to a 55+ community your new home might not be quite as affordable as for the general homes in that community.

For further reference:
Most Tax-Friendly Places to Retire
25 Best Places to Retire

Who Puts Out the Wackiest Best Places to Retire List?

Readers love best places to retire (or live) lists. Publishers are crazy about them because… (read first sentence again). But good grief, is there is no end to zany lists?

Consider three such lists put out recently. First one from U.S. News, another in a long string of “best places to live” from this magazine. Their “Best Affordable Places to Retire” list has some very odd choices, at least in our opinion. Consider the list:
– Ann Arbor, Michigan
— Asheville, North Carolina
— Aurora, Colorado
— Columbia, South Carolina
— Columbus, Ohio
— Eugene, Oregon
— Fort Worth, Texas
— Jacksonville, Florida
— Kansas City, Missouri
— Tucson, Arizona

Some of these cities (and that’s interesting in and of itself, almost all of these choices are fairly large cities) are great places to retire, no doubt. Asheville is everyone’s favorite retirement town. Ann Arbor, Eugene and Tucson are top places to retire. But some of these cities are not particularly affordable places to live. The average sale price of a home in Asheville this summer was close to $250,000, well above the national median of $174,000. Likewise at $202,000, Eugene’s median home sales price is higher than the national median. Prices in Tucson are at the national median, while the the other cities on this list are well below it. The biggest bargains, at least as far as home prices go, are Columbia ($137k, Columbus ($133k), and Kansas City ($144k). For Colorado prices, Aurora ($170k) is a relative bargain. (Most of these prices are from the National Association of Realtors 2nd quarter 2009 report).

As far as being low tax states, Florida and Texas do not have income taxes. Most of the other towns listed are in states that are somewhere in the middle of the pack when it comes to tax burden. So we don’t especially get why these towns are so “affordable”. Since the average home price is now below $100,000 in many towns across the country, we think there are better choices out there. Here is the link to the Topretirements list of “Affordable (and More) Best Places to Retire”.

Bottom line: A curious list of places. No smaller towns, a few cities that are on the expensive side, and many choices that are middle of the pack in terms of being interesting places to live.

List #2 is from the Today Show and real estate expert Barbara Corcoran. To be fair, it’s not really a retirement oriented list; instead it is her picks on which real estate markets represent the biggest upside potential for a general audience. Her list:
1. Sarasota, Florida
2. San Francisco, California
3. Lansing, Michigan
4. Marietta, Georgia
5. Grand Rapids, Michigan
6. St. Petersburg, Florida
7. Naperville, Illinois
8. Trenton, New Jersey
9. St. Louis, Missouri
10. Saginaw, Michigan

If you listen to the broadcast you will better understand why Ms. Corcoran selected these cities - there is a good reason for each. We love Sarasota and St. Petersburg from a retirement standpoint - they are 2 of the most interesting towns in Florida and real bargains right now. Most of the other cities selected might be good investments for working folks, but we can think of a lot more places we would rather retire. The 3 choices for Michigan are all interesting towns, but that seems like a lot of picks for one state that has had its share of troubles. We hope these markets do appreciate because Michigan could use all the help it could get, but don’t think we would move there to retire. Naperville, San Francisco, and Trenton are all in high tax states, something not in their favor. San Francisco is lovely but one of the most expensive places to live in the USA.

Bottom Line: Interesting list for real estate investors or speculators, not particularly relevant to retirees.

Finally, “America’s Recession Proof Cities for Retirement” from Forbes.

Their list includes many of the same cities on the first 2 lists including St. Louis, Tampa, Atlanta, Dallas/Ft.Worth, and Kansas City. The thing that strikes us as the oddest about this list is the subject - do/should retirees really care about recession as a selection criterion? Seems like a lot of other factors ought to be more important - like climate, taxes, quality of life, recreation, culture, etc.

Bottom line: A really odd selection criterion, and therefore some strange choices.

For further reference:
Topretirements has a page which lists the mainstream best places to retire lists, including our own. On that note, look for our new 2010 best places to retire list coming out in the next few weeks. Preview: there are a lot of new towns making the list!

Jennie Phipps also poked fun at the U.S. News “Best Affordable” list in her “Best Places to Retire, at Least for a Computer” article.

What do you think?
Have you uncovered any other strange best places to retire lists? Or do you disagree with our conclusions? Let us know in the Comments section below.

Missing in Florida: Retirement Mojo

The Sunshine State just had its first population loss since 1946, according to research from the University of Florida. The State lost 58,000 residents in the year ending March, 2009, the first such loss since military personnel left the State when WWII ended.

This decline is sobering to Florida, a state used to nothing but unending growth. The experts are quick to provide a multitude of reasons for this change, leading the casual observer to think Florida might have lost its (retirement) mojo. The current recession and attendant housing crisis is the most important reason for the decline. Construction is hugely important in this state, yet there is so little of that work that people are leaving the state to find jobs. Meanwhile the free fall in housing prices brought on by foreclosures, bankruptcies, and short sales has brought panic into the market; people are losing their homes and others are afraid to buy and see prices go down further. The state has prided itself on being a low-tax state, which is now producing its own problems. State and local budgets are being cut drastically, helping to fuel the recession and discourage families from moving here. Lastly, the hurricanes of a few years ago have led to dramatic increases in homeowner insurance rates, adding greatly to the cost of living here.

According to Stan Smith, Director of UF’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research, the decline is spread across Florida. Counties in South Florida like Broward, Lee, and Palm Beach Counties all had population losses. In central Florida some counties increased their populations. Those include Alachua County (home to Gainesville and the University of Florida) and Lake County (home to The Villages). According to Smith the population decline “… reflects a very abrupt change from three or four years ago, when Florida was experiencing some of its largest population increases ever”. Since the 1970’s the State experienced net population growth of 10 million per decade; Smith thinks those days are over.

Florida as a retirement destination
To some extent Florida’s population decline is confined more to the working population rather than the retired folks. Although the “halfback” phenomenon is at work (where people retire to Florida only to later move halfway back to the Carolinas), that is probably confined to a small number of people. The question is whether people will stop moving to Florida for their retirement in the years to come. Here are some pros and cons as to what will happen:

Pros for Florida as retirement destination
- Only an Ice Age could take Florida’s winter warmth away from it, and hopefully that’s a few thousand years from now. The Sunshine State is the warmest place in the Continental U.S., so anyone looking for warm winters will still choose Florida over just about anywhere else
- The housing crisis has so distorted the market that Florida real estate is a relative bargain again, after a few years of being overpriced. The Florida Association of Realtors reports that the median price of a FL condo in August was $107,500, down 46 percent from its 2007 level
- Florida is a tax friendly state. Full time residents can Homestead their homes if they are used as a primary residence, which means their taxes can’t go up more than the cost of living. Florida has no income tax or taxes on intangibles
- No state can match the number of active adult and 55+ communities that are already built and looking for residents

Cons against Florida’s retirement importance
- Florida’s negative publicity about population losses, housing crisis, recession, and tax revenue woes are not helping. Some people will think twice about moving into that negative environment
- Many baby boomers have a negative image of Florida (congestion, population age, conservative makeup, untrammeled growth unraveling)
- The housing market is so bad in parts of the State that people are nervous about moving there
- The State’s budget cuts will make people fearful that vital services will not be available
- Most importantly, retirees have so many more choices than they did 20 or even 10 years ago. The Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, etc. have marketing budgets to attract retirees. Some of their tax structures are friendly for baby boomer retirees. There are plenty of brand new 55+ communities to choose from with great amenities available at attractive prices.

Bottom Line
Florida used to own the retirement market. Today it is losing share and doing nothing against a host of eager competitors.

For Reference:
Newsweek article about Florida population losses
Sunshine Harder to Find in Florida

The Best Retirement Places for Singles

If you are a single person looking for a best place to retire you will probably employ a few different criteria than those a couple might use.  Many of our Topretirements visitors have asked for more information about best places for singles to retire - this article is our attempt to help.

The most common, and certainly understandable, fear that single people have about retirement is that they will wind up in a community where most of the people are paired off. A place where singles are at best ignored, at worst discriminated against.  Fortunately with some careful planning and research you can find a retirement town or active adult community where single people are included and feel completely integrated in that lifestyle.

On the other hand there is a common opinion that single people have the easiest time finding their best retirement community. That’s because, unlike a couple, they don’t have to compromise. As a single person you get to pick the retirement lifestyle, kinds of activities, and the types of people you want to pursue.

In researching this article we found a few experts willing to dispense advice on the best singles retirement towns or communities.  They might or might not be right about their recommendations, but at Topretirements we are a bit skeptical. Our view is that there are many best places for singles - but rather than focus on specific towns or 55+ communities, it might be better to make your selection following certain principles.  Hence the recommendations below:

1. In general, bigger is better for singles. Choosing too small of a community reduces the potential pool for both friends and dates.  Smaller communities tend to have a more fixed social order, so they tend be harder to crack into  than larger ones. That means that 55+ communities like The Villages, Fair Hope, Laguna Woods, and Sun City could be good choices.

2.  Consider carefully the choice between  a town and an active adult community. The environment for singles can be quite different in a town vs. a 55+ active adults community. A city or town will probably have more possibilities in terms of things to do and the people you meet than a development.   Even if you are the kind of person who is very interested in the active adult lifestyle, you still might want to consider choosing your town before your 55+ community. By moving in stages you can put down some roots, make friends, and research local 55+ options. Then after you have evaluated the town and you know that you like it there, you can choose your active adult community based on a more informed investigation than you would make by charging in with no local knowledge.

3.  Most of your success as a single person depends on you. We just read an interesting book that pokes many holes in single stereotypes.  “Singled Out: How Singles are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After” by Bella DePaulo, Ph.D will make anyone feel more positive about the benefits of being single. DePaulo debunks a popular myth that single people are lonely in their old age.  In fact, she finds that women who have never married tend to be the happiest people in retirement.  The reason for this appears to be their successful strategies for making and keeping friends.  Women (and men) who seek out activities and volunteer opportunities not only feel fulfilled, they make deep friendships along the way. Those who tend to be the loneliest are those who relied on work or spouses for social engagement, and don’t have deep friendships of their own. Men in particular are not good about forming strong friendships, and that hurts them as single people.

Whatever your previous success at making friends, that doesn’t necessarily have to be your future - if you work at it. One of our friends thought his father would be a lonely old man once his wife died.  His dad had spent years taking care of our friend’s mother, and his dad didn’t seem to have any friends. Much to everyone’s pleasant surprise,  in single life the dad is transformed. Now he  volunteers at the hospital every day, travels, and has made tons of new friends.

4.  Look for retirement towns and 55+ communities where there is a lot to do. This idea applies to both towns and active adult communities. The more activities and institutions there are, the greater your opportunities for making friends.   Before you buy in an active adult community make sure there are activities that can stretch you in new directions, because taking up some new sports or crafts is a good way to make new friends.

5. Look for a 55+  community that has an activity director. We heartily endorse the recommendation to choose a community with an activity director. His or her job is to engage the residents with one another - that will make your entry into the  community that much easier.

6.  College towns and cities can be ideal for singles. Both types of towns have plenty to do, which means that you can be out meeting people through many different activities - from taking adult education classes to volunteering to attending concerts. Small cities like Sarasota or Austin or Boulder have nice downtowns and there is always something to do.

7. Stay away from the suburbs. You might live in the suburbs now. If you have a big web of friends, maybe you should stay. But cracking the suburban social scene as a new, single resident is one of the harder things to pull off.

8.  Carefully evaluate the singles scene in any active adult community - before you buy. A really good idea is to rent before you buy. Thanks to our current housing bust it is usually very easy to find a nice rental for a week, month, or season.  Attend the various club meetings and take part in some sports or other activities. Are there other singles, or do the couples actively invite single people to participate? Award extra points if there is an active singles club. Many communities have special package deals that let you vacation their at below market rates (and even if not announced, it is worth trying to negotiate your own package). Even before you go to a place, check out Discussion Forums on this and other sites about specific communities for hints about the single life in those communities.

9. Think about moving with your friends. If you already have a solid group of close friends, think about retiring together. That could be as simple as moving to the same community or town, or it could even be shared housing.  Some architects report that designing homes meant to be shared is a growing business.  In addition to instant friends, being able to share resources as you get older is a real attraction.

What do you think? Do you already live in a community that you know is great for singles? Or one you know is not?  Share your thoughts in the Comments section below, or in our Forum.

For Further Reference:
Excellent discussion about being single in retirement at City-Data

Retirement Ranger: “Hi Yo Silver-Hairs Away!”

There’s a new retirement calculator in town, and this one is proud to be wearing a brown hat. The Retirement Ranger’s motto says it all: “Hi Yo, silver-hairs, away!” (Thanks to OldNassau for that great motto).

Retirement Ranger is a Free new interactive calculator that delivers an instant, personalized list of best places to retire. Answer 11 questions and you will be emailed an instant, free report. Use your Topretirements user name and password to sign up, or create a new one if you aren’t already registered. You can retake the quiz as often as you would like - it’s free and there is no obligation.

We developed this new quiz as a quick and fun way to tap the huge amounts of data that you and our editors have accumulated in our over 400 city and town reviews.  For example, each Topretirements town has data for Jan. temperature, cost of living, housing prices, population, cultural index, type of environment (college town, mountains, lake, coastal, desert, small town, etc.), and region.  By selecting the criteria that are most important to you, the quiz uses the database to come up with your personalized list of towns and 55+ communities in or near those towns.  There is even an option to send an email to friends to tell them about Retirement Ranger.

A word of caution.  Please resist the temptation to get overly specific the first time you take it.  With only 400+ best places to retire, the more specific you get the higher the chances that will will get no or very few choices. So just pick 1 or 2 very important criteria the first time (select “No Preference” for the rest). Then, if you see too many choices, retake the quiz with fewer “No Preferences”.

To take the quiz you will need a user name and password. If you haven’t already created a user name at Topretirements, just make one up. If you don’t remember your old user name and password, go to our Help page to have them sent to you.  If you wish to create a new user name and password, you must have a different email address that what you originally signed up with.

For more information and tips about the quiz, check out “About this Quiz“.

The Best of the “Best Places to Retire” Lists

CBS Moneywatch.com has just published a thoughtful article on Best Places to Retire Lists. Thoughtful in the sense that it recognizes that there is no one best place to retire, people need different kinds of lists to match their differing objectives and preferences.

Moneywatch limited its review of the lists only to those updated since 2008. That led to its 5 top rated lists - U.S. News, Money, Smart Money, TopRetirements.com, and RetirementLiving.com.  Could we say that Topretirements was pleased to have come out as the most highly rated of the bunch - YES!!!

The Moneywatch.com writer, Richard Eisenberg, liked Topretirements because of the “Zagat-like” reviews and a “wide variety of reasonable criteria” for selecting the best places to retire on the basis of “livability”.  Topretirements was rated best for finding towns that other retirees like.

The website article goes on to review the 5 best rated lists of  “Best Places to Retire”. Topretirements got 4 stars, the lists from U.S. News and Money got 3 stars, Smart Money and Retirement Living.com got 1 star each. Best Places to Retire Lists like the popular ones developed by U.S. News were cited as useful, but often focus on very narrow criteria such as “smartest people”, best for golfers, most affordable, most parks, most Republican, etc.

Eisenberg points out, correctly in our view, that “it is possible to use the lists that are out there to narrow your choices and to discover some plausible options you might not have otherwise considered.”  Check out the website article, it’s useful.

Helpful Links
Moneywatch.com “Best Places to Retire”
Topretirements “25 Best Places to Retire”

Asheville and TR Featured in CBS News “Best Places to Retire”

Sunday, May 17. Just about everybody loves Asheville - it’s the #1 Best Place to Retire at Topretirements. It also occupies that position on many other “Best Places” lists. But after watching today’s TV segment on CBS News, even more people might be heading down to western North Carolina.

“Not Your Grandfather’s Retirement” was hosted by CBS’s Martha Teichner and seen by millions. In it she profiled several retirees who were busy enjoying fulfilling retirement lifestyles in Asheville. Some of the folks she interviewed enjoyed lived downtown, where they didn’t need a car. Several volunteered as docents at the Art Museum or the nearby Biltmore Estate. Martha went on to interview the director of Asheville’s Center for Creative Retirement, Ron Manheimer. Ron was quoted as saying “People are saying, Well maybe Florida isn’t the place to go.”  Ron has a point. At Asheville’s Center active adults can choose from an astonishing array of (low-cost) classes, most taught by fellow retirees.

Topretirements - on TV! The show also toured some high end communities and the first golf course being designed by Tiger Woods.  At about 2:20 into the program Topretirements had an ever so brief but glorious moment on national TV. When discussing “best places to retire” lists, a picture of the TR page on Asheville came on the TV as the first such list! To check out the 6 minute segment click on “Videos” above the photo - the program provides some really good insight into Asheville. Here is where you can find the Topretirements review  on what it’s like to retire in Asheville.

Visit to South Florida’s Real Estate Mess Finds Tranquil Exterior

Dateline: Fort Myers and Miami, Florida. Your Topretirements editor is spending a few days in South Florida. Realizing that the region is one of the 3 hardest hit real estate markets in the country (along with Phoenix and Las Vegas), we wondered: what would this meltdown look like in person? Since retirement in the warm climes of South Florida is the dream of many a baby boomer, here is our report on what we can see by looking out the window, jogging through the streets, talking with folks, and reading the newspapers.

The main answer is - South Florida looks pretty normal. Eerie, definitely, but in most ways the region looks like it always does. Traffic is as heavy and bottlenecked as ever. We were behind a gleaming Maserati in Fort Myers today; giant Cadillac Escalades hurtled by in Miami.There are billboards announcing new active adult and 55+ communities as always; but the difference is that low prices, sales, and special deals are today’s focus. Construction sites are still much more plentiful than you would see in the north, but now there is a difference. Some of the sites have no heavy equipment present, a sure sign that the project is on hold - either due to bankruptcy or a pause in construction. State officials report that 2008’s tourism numbers, long Florida’s economic raison d’etre, showed the first visitor decline in a long, long time. There are plenty of “For Sale” signs up, many of them on vacant lots, but that has always been the case in South Florida.

The “Fort Myers News-Press” published an interesting quote on March 1 from Dominic Pallini, a Realtor with Re/Max, who remains positive despite bad economic times. “Things will get better. Once we get through the inventory prices will start going up. Right now they’re selling houses for less than builders can build them. That can’t last.” (Terry Allen Williams/news-press.com)

The Press also reported last week that the median sales price of a Fort-Myers home has dropped below $100,000 for the first time since February 1999. In January the median price of an existing single-family home in Lee County fell to $94,900. That’s a 59 percent drop vs. year ago (statistics from the Florida Association of Realtors). Driven by foreclosures, sales are booming in Lee County: there were 758 sales in January vs. 338 the year before. Most of those sales are in Lehigh Acres (made famous by President Obama’s visit in February) and Cape Coral.

The newspapers are full of ads for sales of homes. It appears that plenty of multi-million dollar homes are on the market, and some are selling. The most obvious difference in this market is that along with many conventional ads, some “Miami Herald” real estate ads now scream “Priced to Sell”, “Bank Says Sell”, “No Money Down”, “Absolute Auction”, “Developer Close Out Prices”. Trump Luxury Miami Style, according to one ad, can now be obtained by “Rent With Option to Buy”. We thought one ad pretty well summed up what has happened in the area: “You’ll be amazed at the new listings to choose from in neighborhoods that you never dreamed would fit your budget.”

Meanwhile many active adult and 55+ communities in Fort Myers and South Florida are undergoing stress. The less stable developments are seeing foreclosures and delinquencies on Homeowner Association fees. Country clubs that cost $100,000 or more to join 3 years ago are now in trouble, trying to figure out how to avoid bankruptcy and keep their dues paying members.

Sadly, many people in South Florida are in a great deal of pain these days as their homes, cars, and dreams are taken away from them. But for visitors to the state and the majority of people who live in South Florida, life goes on as usual, albeit with plenty of worry in the air.

15 Bike-Friendly Retirement Towns

Thanks in part to last year’s energy crisis, biking is hot again. At least $4/gallon gas had one side benefit, it made us aware of the joys and simplicity of our bicycles for transportation and recreation. Knowing that many retirees are looking for bike-friendly retirement towns, we recently authored an article that highlights 15 top bike-friendly cities. You can see the in-depth article in our Tips & Picks section - 15 Great Biking Towns for Retirement. The article discusses bike-friendly towns in 3 categories - those set up for bikes as the best form of transportation, those who have wonderful bike trails, and finally - towns that either have or are near the best mountain biking.

A lot of cities and towns are beginning to realize that making towns easy places to bike is good for many reasons - it adds to the quality of life, lowers pollution and traffic, and improves recreation. Some of the steps they are taking are adding bike lanes, closing traffic at some times or days to other vehicles, mandating bike racks in new facilities, incenting employers to add showers and lockers, and adding bike trails in parks and greenways.

Each town in the article has a link to a detailed profile.

Further Reference:
Miami Herald article - Miami Gets Bike Friendly
Best Retirement Towns for Gardens
Best Towns for Golf
Best Towns for Bookstores

Step Away from the Coasts - For a Low Cost Retirement

Most of the experts think that our economic mess could continue for the next few years. If you have just retired and are trying to figure out how to adjust to life with a smaller portfolio, this article might help with some perspective. That is, if you get over what was our first reaction to the crisis, wanting to just stay home and mope!

At Topretirements we spend a lot of time looking at prices and conditions in various retirement towns around the country and outside the U.S. When we do this research we are always struck by the way real estate markets differ from one area to the next. We see 2, somewhat related phenomenon going on as 2008 comes to a close:

1) Prices in some markets are being annihilated, while stability reigns in others – in spite of all the bad news broadcast every day.
2), A similar house can sell in some markets for a fraction of what it would cost in others. Which leads us to the question – is it really worth paying 2 or even 3 times more just to live in a certain area?

Speaking of price declines, the Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Miami metros are prime examples of our disaster markets. Prices in those areas in 2008’s 3rd quarter are off respectively: -28%, -35%, and -17% vs. the year ago quarter. If you compare 2008 prices to 2006, the declines are usually even higher. But compare those markets with Charlotte (-4% but ahead of 2006), Oklahoma City (+1.6% and ahead of 2006), and Austin (TX) (+1.6% and well ahead of 2006). All prices in this article are courtesy of the National Association of Realtors’ median prices of single family homes by Metro for the 3rd quarter of 2008.

When it comes to comparing how different prices for similar homes can be from market to market, we have prepared a short comparison for your review. You will see that the headline of this article is a bit of hyperbole, because in fact some bargain towns do happen to be near a coast, and a few expensive places (e.g.; Boulder) are nowhere near a coast. But in general the further inland you get in the U.S., the better the real estate bargain. Our match-up of comparison markets below is somewhat arbitrary, but we hope interesting. We are struck by the difference in the Boulder vs. Colorado Springs vs. Albuquerque comparisons – all beautiful towns in the mountains with lively infrastructure. Similarly the comparison of Miami to other Florida areas is convincing. Most people would probably not compare Honolulu to Charlotte on many aspects, but the price comparison is interesting.

Price Comparison by Markets (Prices are in $000’s)
Boston $373 vs. Austin TX $191 or Knoxville TN $152
Boulder $361 vs. Colorado Springs $208 or Albuquerque $193
Miami $287 vs. Daytona Beach $162 or Tallahassee $159
Honolulu $615 vs. Charlotte $211
Los Angeles $391 vs. Cape Coral Ft. Myers $163 or Saginaw $66
NY/White Plains $525 vs. Mobile $139
Portland/Vancouver $278 vs. Boise ID $187 or Columbus OH $144
San Jose $650 vs. Pensacola $152 or Ft. Wayne IN $96
Seattle $350 vs. Oklahoma City $132, Greenville SC $157, or Spartanburg SC $128
U.S. Average home price in 3rd Quarter 2008 was $200,500. The average price decline was 9% vs. year ago.

Conclusion
The happiest situation for a new retiree who wants to make a move is to sell in a high cost market (New York or Boston) and buy in a low cost one. For example you could move from Boston to a similar house in Charlotte and theoretically pocket $162,000 for your retirement funds. Moving from Beantown to Mobile or Pensacola would not only provide you with a lot warmer winter, but would give you $234,000 or $221,000 additional (and you could afford to watch the Sox on satellite TV). Not to mention other cost of living improvements such as lower heating costs, fewer taxes, and possible better recreational opportunities. While you might have to trade moving away from family members and living in an unfamiliar area for this extra cash, it could make the difference between a comfortable retirement and a life of scrimping.

25 Best Retirement Towns at Topretirements