Longtime lurker, strayed away after market meltdown of '08-'09, used the crash to deploy remaining capital into accidental high-yielders and real estate, now more or less back on track for 2020-ish ER, recently returned to this forum.
No kids, a few relatives dispersed around the US, have been steadily downsizing over the past five or six years.
We are now beginning to research and visit potential places to end up. The single non-negotiable variable is that we must be in a sunny place walking distance to a beach where we can swim in the ocean 9-12 months out of the year.
Beyond that it seems to get more complicated.
There are plenty of places well within our housing budget of up to $700K (in today's $$) that could work. The challenge is that these spots seem to involve a trade-off between housing options and general quality of life factors.
For example, we have a strong preference for being in a walkable community and preferably a city. So, places like Barcelona and Honolulu would be nice. But, within our budget those places have so-so housing options; mainly small condos or houses in marginal neighborhoods. Maybe OK for five or six years of walking to local markets, parks, restaurants and bars; but as we get older and possibility of health issues become more real, will we end up feeling stuck with neighbors in close proximity who have barking dogs and throw loud parties?
On the other hand, places like most of Florida's Gulf Coast, Portugal north of Lisbon, and Hawaii's non-Oahu islands have great housing options within our budget near the water, but are seemingly not especially walkable and don't have many cultural amenities. On a map, places like St. Pete or Naples in Florida seem to be good options, but we have visited both and found it fairly difficult to get to the water from any part of those cities that are walkable. So too for Sarasota, which otherwise remains fairly high on our list (we did an experiment a couple years ago by staying in downtown Sarasota without a car for an entire week and found that getting to a nice public beach where we could swim took about 1-2 hours one way either on bike or public transportation). For less metropolitan areas, during the last 10 or 15 years of our lives, will we want to be isolated in a great house with or near ocean views (Anna Maria, FL; Puna or Captain Cook, HI) but no other place to go, especially if we face mobility challenges?
For those of you who have faced or pondered similar trade-offs, what have been your deciding factors?
Thanks for your thoughts.
No kids, a few relatives dispersed around the US, have been steadily downsizing over the past five or six years.
We are now beginning to research and visit potential places to end up. The single non-negotiable variable is that we must be in a sunny place walking distance to a beach where we can swim in the ocean 9-12 months out of the year.
Beyond that it seems to get more complicated.
There are plenty of places well within our housing budget of up to $700K (in today's $$) that could work. The challenge is that these spots seem to involve a trade-off between housing options and general quality of life factors.
For example, we have a strong preference for being in a walkable community and preferably a city. So, places like Barcelona and Honolulu would be nice. But, within our budget those places have so-so housing options; mainly small condos or houses in marginal neighborhoods. Maybe OK for five or six years of walking to local markets, parks, restaurants and bars; but as we get older and possibility of health issues become more real, will we end up feeling stuck with neighbors in close proximity who have barking dogs and throw loud parties?
On the other hand, places like most of Florida's Gulf Coast, Portugal north of Lisbon, and Hawaii's non-Oahu islands have great housing options within our budget near the water, but are seemingly not especially walkable and don't have many cultural amenities. On a map, places like St. Pete or Naples in Florida seem to be good options, but we have visited both and found it fairly difficult to get to the water from any part of those cities that are walkable. So too for Sarasota, which otherwise remains fairly high on our list (we did an experiment a couple years ago by staying in downtown Sarasota without a car for an entire week and found that getting to a nice public beach where we could swim took about 1-2 hours one way either on bike or public transportation). For less metropolitan areas, during the last 10 or 15 years of our lives, will we want to be isolated in a great house with or near ocean views (Anna Maria, FL; Puna or Captain Cook, HI) but no other place to go, especially if we face mobility challenges?
For those of you who have faced or pondered similar trade-offs, what have been your deciding factors?
Thanks for your thoughts.