Retirement Blog

If you will be retiring in a few years, and you plan to move to a new location upon retirement, you should be taking retirement vacations. You probably already have an idea of the “type” of place you want to retire to, the beach, city, mountains, lake, or overseas. Here are some strategies to help you make one of your biggest retirement decisions - where to live when I retire?

Start Taking Retirement Vacations

A few years before your retirement date, pick 2 or 3 locations according to the type of place you would like to retire to, and go there for vacation. Visit each location and narrow your selection to one retirement location. Then begin taking future vacations, during different seasons, to your selected location.

Tourist Destination Traps

People planning their retirements are naturally attracted to tourist destinations. They are, after all, where most people take their vacations. Spending one blissful week relaxing on a beach, after spending 11 months in a cubicle under artificial light, can induce euphoria and cause a person to wish to never return. However, tourist destinations may not, make the best retirement locations.

One week of heat at the beach may be enjoyable, but can you withstand 52 weeks of heat, if you retire to the beach? Will the lake resort be so much fun, after all the shops and restaurants have closed, for the 9 month low season? The mountains may be beautiful in the summer time, but will you enjoy them as much, when you are shoveling snow in December? It is very important to visit your tourist retirement destination in the off season, to see if you will you enjoy the location year round, not just during the tourist season. Another thing to keep in mind, tourist destinations tend to be all around more expensive, than non-tourist locations.

Talk To Retirees Not Real Estate Agents

A common mistake many people make, when visiting and investigating a potential retirement location, is to talk to real estate agents to learn more about the community. Real estate agents have one objective - sell you property. They will tell you all the wonderful things about the community, and neglect to tell you, about the negative aspects of the community. The information you will receive from real estate agents is naturally biased.

Instead you should seek out retirees in the community, and ask them, how they enjoy being retired in that particular location. They have nothing to sell you, and you will receive a much better picture of the community, as well as the positive and negative aspects of that particular location. And, as another bonus, you may be starting friendships that will be waiting for you if decide to retire there.

Do Not Buy Property

Do not buy property in a retirement location before you retire to that location. In fact, do not buy property, before you have lived in your retirement location for one year. After living and renting in your retirement location for a year, you may discover that your opinion of that location has changed, and you would rather be living somewhere else. Also, after living in the community for a year, you will have a much better idea, of where in the community you would like to live and where the best real estate deals are located. You really can’t make a wise real estate decision from only 2 or 3 one week vacations.

Read The Local Paper

After you have selected your retirement location, subscribe to the local paper, or read it online. The local paper is a great guide to what is going on in the community. A vacation gives you a surface view of the community, the local paper will detail, what is happening below the surface. You will learn a lot by reading the local paper. The local politics, the challenges facing the community, the crime situation, and much more.