Here is one of the better articles:
Distant Shores
Affordable living is drawing retirees to Southeast Asia
By STEVE MOLLMAN
March 31, 2007; Page R4
If there was a better place to spend their retirement years, Harold and Mary Richards would have found it.
The British retirees stepped back and surveyed the globe, drawing upon the years of living abroad that Mr. Richards's career in education had led to. They considered overlooked spots such as Croatia and Bulgaria. They even gave promising contenders a fighting chance, first trying out South Africa and then Spain.
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Ultimately, they picked Phuket, an island on Thailand's west coast blessed with sunshine, tranquility and friendly people. (Parts of the island were damaged in the 2004 tsunami, but the Richards's neighborhood was largely untouched.) The price of entry also worked in their favor: For about $500,000, they got a four-bedroom luxury villa with a private pool, courtyard and garden. They figure that's less than half what it would have cost in similar spots in most European countries.
"This is a palace," Mr. Richards says, surveying his new home. "What more could a man want?"
The Richardses aren't the only retirees from abroad happily settling into Southeast Asia. More people from around the world are coming to the region, drawn by word of mouth, the easing of some requirements by regional governments, and affordable living -- including cheap housing and relatively inexpensive medical care.
Retirees everywhere "are taking a very close look at the relative quality and cost of living in deciding where to spend their retirement years," says Su-Yen Wong, a managing director for Mercer Human Resource Consulting in Singapore. "Much of the Southeast Asian region scores particularly favorably in the analysis."
According to Mercer's 2006 cost-of-living study, Kuala Lumpur ranked 114 out of 144 cities, while Bangkok was 127th and Manila came in at number 141. By comparison, London and New York ranked among the top 10 costliest places, Miami was 39th, and Monterrey in Mexico was 103.
Growing Ranks
While the overall number of overseas retirees in Southeast Asia is still small, it's growing fast. Malaysia, for instance, started issuing retirement visas in 1996. By 1998, there were fewer than 50 holders of such visas. In 2001, the total had grown to more than 800 and last year there were 8,723. Malaysia aims to add 3,000 to 3,500 retirement visas annually over the next three years under its Malaysia My Second Home program, says Donald Lim, the country's deputy minister of tourism.
Thailand doesn't have an official retirement program in place, but the number of retirement visas is climbing there, too. Thai officials say nearly 1,500 visas were granted to overseas retirees in 2005. The final tally isn't in yet for 2006, but they say it will show a big increase.
The Philippines, meanwhile, has revved up its recruiting efforts. The number of overseas retirees rose by 1,273 last year, more than double the previous year. The number of active retirement visa holders totaled 5,183 at the end of 2006, not counting spouses or dependents and including the 1,826 people who withdrew from the program.
"We aim to have one million retirees here by 2015," says Ernesto M. Ordonez, president of Philippine Retirement Inc., a nonprofit agency that helps foster cooperation between private companies and the government's Philippine Retirement Authority, which processes retirement visas.
With that ambitious goal -- and the competition -- in mind, the Philippines in January halved the size of the local bank deposit it requires retirees to make to prove their financial viability -- this after Thailand stopped requiring any deposit from retirees as long as they can demonstrate a pension of about $1,985. The Philippines now requires $10,000 per registered retiree, including a spouse. Retirees also must show a monthly pension of $800 for a single person or $1,000 for a couple.
The good news for these countries is that the pool of potential retirees keeps expanding. The retiree population -- defined as age 60 and above -- from the U.S., Europe, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and mainland China totaled 326.6 million in 2006, according to the Healthcare Coalition Institute, a Santa Fe Springs, Calif., industry research group. And that figure should reach 425.6 million by 2015, the institute says.
Home Sweet (Second) Home
Of course, the concept of retirement means different things to different people. Some want to resettle permanently in a location; others want to split their time between favored destinations.
Take Billy and Marita Thomson, who recently purchased a retirement condo in the Philippines' Subic Bay area, site of a former U.S. naval base northwest of Manila. They met there in the 1960s when Mr. Thomson, now 60, was a U.S. Marine. But, having lived in Alaska for the past 30 years, Mr. Thomson isn't about to give up his salmon fishing. So, the couple plans to spend half the year in Alaska and half the year in the Philippines' warmer climes, where he enjoys swimming, snorkeling and scuba diving and she visits her family.
Others make a more permanent move. Jack Simon, a retired swimming coach from Tampa, Fla., chose to settle on Penang, an island off Malaysia's northwest coast. The 68-year-old bachelor, who is fluent in Spanish, considered settling somewhere closer to home, such as Mexico, Ecuador, Uruguay or Chile. But he had attended a work conference in the region a few years back, and on a side trip to Penang was impressed by the island's food, friendliness, climate -- and low costs.
Mr. Simon describes life on Penang as "unbelievably inexpensive," noting that he gets by mainly on his Social Security checks and that he rarely touches his savings. He says he pays about $350 a month for a two-bedroom, two-bath condo that overlooks the Andaman Sea and is surrounded by tropical jungle. He plays golf frequently with friends he has made there, and dines out four or five times a week. He says he buys all his food and local produce at a nearby mart. And a maid cleans for him once a week.
All told, Mr. Simon says he lives on less than $1,500 a month, adding that he could never enjoy his current lifestyle on the Florida coast spending the same amount.
Mr. Simon says accessibility to good health care also influenced his decision to stay in Penang. Not long after arriving, he had major spinal surgery at Island Hospital, a local private facility. This was followed about a month later by minor prostate surgery. "Medical care here is first rate," he says. "And I can speak firsthand." Mr. Simon says he isn't insured, so he paid cash, and adds that the two procedures, including hospital stays and 24-hour home care, totaled less than $10,000. He figures the tab would have been at least 10 times that in the U.S.
The relatively low cost of living also drew Takeshi Yano, 63, and his wife, Junko, to Penang. "It's very, very hard to live in Japan with only a pension, so [retirees] are moving here," says the former cosmetics importer from Tokyo, who used to travel to Europe on business about four times a year.
Mr. Yano, who says the couple didn't know anyone in Penang when they decided to move there, receives a monthly government pension of about $2,000 to $2,500, depending on the exchange rate. "I wanted to go to Europe or the U.S., but the basic idea is: Can we live with the pension or not?"
On Penang, he says, he manages by paying about $450 a month in rent for a three-bedroom, sea-view apartment. Mr. Yano says he plays golf once a week and enjoys socializing with other Japanese retirees and expatriates, as well as the locals, who he says are very friendly.
Some Adjustments
Such a lifestyle change, however, is not for everyone.
Mr. Yano says some acquaintances on Penang went back to Japan after a few months because they couldn't adjust. They didn't speak English -- almost everyone there does. They also didn't own a car, he says. Penang isn't pedestrian-friendly, and doesn't have a subway system or enough taxis -- and taxi drivers charge the Japanese more, he grouses.
Other things some people have difficulty adjusting to are the lack of seasons and the sometimes-oppressive heat and humidity. And, of course, there's the distance from family and friends, especially for retirees from Europe and the U.S.
Then there's insurance. Medicare doesn't apply, so medical expenses -- even though they may be much lower than in the U.S. or Europe -- must be paid out of pocket if retirees aren't covered by private local insurance, which can be hard to obtain for anyone over 60.
Back in Thailand, the Richardses -- he is 81 and she is 79 -- are convinced they made the right decision. Married for 59 years, they spent all but five of those living outside Britain. They are still settling into Phuket's lifestyle, having moved into their villa in late November. But aside from minor annoyances, like having to renew his Thai retirement visa every 12 months, Mr. Richards says he can find little to complain about.
"This seemed to be an ideal place to spend the rest of our lives," he says. "We settled here, and we have absolutely no regrets at all."
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