Would you rent/buy in retirement ?

[W2R]

That's my primary line of thinking "at this time". However, I'll need to make "one more move" back to a large town or small city since getting much help of any kind out here can be an issue. Hopefully that's still a ways out before I need to cross that bridge.

That move shouldn't be too tough! You'll probably get that done before you are too old anyway. I was just thinking about the move after move that I thought was implied when you said the sentence that I put in bold:

Since my late 20's I have always own my own home(s) and until recently I thought that's the way it would be until I "depart". However, I'm beginning to wonder how long I'll be able (physically) to maintain my own home/property the way I like it. If we ever move back to civilization from the "open country" I may give renting a try. Or, maybe I'll just buy again in "the city" and just pay folks to maintain it like I want. Something to think about in the future.

If I'm renting and I don't like the level of maintenance, I'll just pack up and move again. (Although I hate moving)

 

[simple girl]

We are mulling over the same decision. I just posted this on the other rent vs own poll thread:

When we retire in a few years (hopefully!), I keep telling myself that we will sell our house here in AL and rent in FL first to learn the local area better before perhaps buying. We learned our lesson when we first moved to AL from PA; we bought right away and then discovered after living there a while that we didn't like that location very much.

We had to go on assignment for DH's job for several years, so we ended up turning that townhouse into a rental. When we moved back here we decided to keep it as a rental, while we bought our current home in a location we like much better.

If our current renter moves out when the lease is up 6 months from now, we are considering selling our rental and buying something in FL that we rent out until we move there...but still need to investigate the tax consequences of moving into your rental.