How much do you spend on your home?

[gayl]

I'm in my 50's and I don't want to re-invent myself. Rural my be okay for you but it's too boring for me. I can drive 10 minutes and I'm in the woods but there's nothing there but trees, bears, deer, and the odd person looking for birds.

LOL

I need to be within mass transit to a major city for multiple kinds of high quality music (rock, symphony, jazz), art galleries, occasional shopping, international airports, temperant weather to just hang out near the water. That kind of leaves me 3 major cities that I can think of: Seattle, San Francisco, or LA. Never been to Portland but it might work

I didn't retire to stay home

 

[Freedom56]

LOL

I need to be within mass transit to a major city for multiple kinds of high quality music (rock, symphony, jazz), art galleries, occasional shopping, international airports, temperant weather to just hang out near the water. That kind of leaves me 3 major cities that I can think of: Seattle, San Francisco, or LA. Never been to Portland but it might work

I didn't retire to stay home

Miami and West Palm Beach are other good choices. I would say that right now the Brickell area in Downtown Miami around the Miami River and Brickell City Center is one of the nicest modern urban areas in the world. We took some visitors from Switzerland there last week and they were awestruck by what they saw. Most tourists go to South beach and skip Downtown Miami.

 

[gayl]

Huh. Every time I've been in Florida it's been hot. Sometimes even humid. But I have to admit I've only been to Miami twice

 

[Teacher Terry]

Farmer, I don’t want the kind of life that 12k buys you anywhere in the states. We have a lot less than many on this forum but that would be extreme deprivation for us.

 

[SmallCityDave]

I read about everyone's HIGH property taxes and I am really glad that I live in California where they tax income not property. Enables us to retire (as income decreases but property increases in value which is meaningless until sold)

Lol, No property taxes in California?

 

[gayl]

Ooops typo LOL but 1% of purchase price + 2% max increase per year + local assessments = 3k on a 890k home. What's yours?

 

[gayl]

The point I'm trying to clumsily make is that in California we can control our retirement expenses on the homes that we live in . The state has to make its money from some place. So here it makes it's money on income, apparently in many other places that I would consider moving to they make their money on property. I have very little control over that. So as a senior I could be put into a position where I would have to sell because property taxes became exorbitant