How much to budget for retirement home

[Spanky]

Come to Nebraska and spend 500k and it will cost you 10k in property taxes. Your cars will also suffer from huge pot holes on every road. I hate here!!!

The property tax rate is insane.

 

[Teacher Terry]

We have moved in the past for jobs but have been here 22 years. My husband was out of town and I fell on the ice and broke my right wrist. When I let my friends know I had more offers of help than I could use. My son also helped. One of my friends came over every evening to help. They took turns so not a burden on anyone. That was priceless.

 

[misty57]

Your thinking is sound. But you must first decide where you're going to be living. Your city's high line neighborhoods are so nice that moving to Joe Q. Public's neighborhood in most towns would be a big let down in your standard of living.

I guess it depends on the person. We sold our "dream retirement home" in a very upscale neighborhood (south SF Bay Area) and moved to a VERY rural area outside of Reno. The change has been a breath of fresh air.

 

[corn18]

OP here. I talked to my wife and we are going to spend the next 2 years traveling to potential retirement areas and checking them out. Seems like fun to me, but she seems to view it as a chore. Worst case we just retire in place in TX until we figure out where our next move will be.

Just have to decide where to stash the $500k until we figure it out. Leaning towards $100k in MM for a 20% DP and the remaining $400k in my 60/40 portfolio. Or just pay off our current house and that will be our house fund. Nice to have options.

 

[Offgrid Organic Farmer]

We went from high-crime high-tax urban, to low-crime rural, and we love it.

 

[Katsmeow]

Right now, we have $500k plugged in. Actually, it's $590k to cover selling current home, moving and buying new home.

We currently live in a 4,600 sq ft spec home in Southlake, TX ($750k). Probably mid range price for this area and a mcmansion type home. Definitely do NOT want something this big in retirement but a recent job change required quick action. I'm thinking $500k should get us a nice house almost anywhere.

I know you have already decided to travel for a couple of years, but I had to respond to this because if you decide to stay in this area it is one where I am familiar. We bought a house last year in Colleyville. If you decided to stay in the area you could definitely find a good house for $500k. In Colleyville, there are plenty of houses in that range although not 4600 SF. Of course, we didn't want a 4600 SF house any more and bought one that was 2300 SF and is less than your budget.

I am sure it would even be easier to find something in that range in Grapevine, North Richland Hills, Keller and Trophy Club (although that is a little farther away from the amenities).

When we moved here from one of the counties adjacent to Houston our biggest criteria was wanting to be closer to amenities and not having to drive 20 minutes to a grocery store. We love having many grocery stores within a few minutes away. I would say that the market here in NE Tarrant County is definitely more expensive than the market was in the Houston suburbs. We paid $40k more for house here and this house is about 600 SF smaller and 20 years older than the house we sold. But -- we got the kind of location we wanted.

One thing we thought about was the future. DH was 70 when we moved last year and move was fine although the process was tiring. But, had we stayed where we were there would have been a time we would likely have had to move. There would have been a time when DH was 80+ or I was and we wouldn't want to drive 20 miles to any store (or might not be able to) and grocery delivery wouldn't have been an option. So we might have had to move anyway. We specifically picked a place to live where if we couldn't drive we would find it easy to get deliveries of anything we need and it would be inexpensive to get transportation to the doctor, etc. Getting that kind of location was more expensive than living farther out. But, we are glad we made that choice.

 

[braumeister]

OP here. I talked to my wife and we are going to spend the next 2 years traveling to potential retirement areas and checking them out. Seems like fun to me, but she seems to view it as a chore.

Sounds to me like a dream way to spend two years. I would love to do that. Hope you do too.