keegs
Recycles dryer sheets
We're considering retiring to a favorite vacation location that's several hundred miles from where we live now. For those of you who've done such a move, what was your experience?
My experience is that vacations are always different than real life. I suggest renting for 2-3 months before relocating...
...Every place is great at the perfect time, not all are as attractive in the "off-season".
Your posts always strike me as real, and coming from someone who has had her eyes open for a long time. The tenor of your posts on this topic has changed, which I would guess reflects the shifting feelings you mention in this post.I can tell you about other side of the coin - - what might be the result if you DON'T move?
We originally planned to move, so once we were retired we renovated, decluttered, staged, packed up almost all of our stuff in boxes to get it out of the way, and put our houses on the market. After a few months of that he got an offer on his house that he didn't like, got upset, and changed his mind so we took our houses off the market and didn't move after all. Sometimes I refer to this as the "move-that-never-happened".
No, I didn't kill him but I think he expected it.
This is our fifth year of retirement and we are STILL talking about moving, or not. Only the idea doesn't seem fresh and fascinating like a shiny new penny any more. We are seeing a little more of the down side of the town
we intended to move to. We are in limbo. One of us will send a real estate listing to the other, and we forget to even discuss it. Then the other will do the same.
It just makes me groan when I think of all the work it will take to move now. We are not getting any younger. We have settled into a retirement routine. We no longer have the energy or desire to vary that routine as much as it will take to move. I think it would have been easier to do it right after retirement, when we were in transition and the idea seemed more exciting and fun. Still, our neighborhoods are not getting any better, so eventually I suppose we will have to move. Or not. We have been sitting on a fence nearly forever. I can't imagine living here for the duration, though.
Your posts always strike me as real, and coming from someone who has had her eyes open for along time, maybe forever. The tenor of your posts on this topic has changed, which I would guess reflects the shifting feelings you mention in this post.
I can relate to everything you say here. It has always seemed to me that New Orleans would be an easy place to be happy, given that the climate were appealing, if two issues could be solved. Can you avoid becoming a crime victim, without losing the advantages of city living, which are after all are why you are there? And, can you and your homes avoid the effects of hurricanes?
While the first may be possible by spending enough on a very high security, high quality concierge building, I don't think it can be avoided with any certainly in a SFH, no matter where it is located. Living in multi families, I had one issue once while I was living on the ground floor. Solved by picking up my shotgun off the floor alongside my bed where I kept it as a realistic aspect of the neighborhood. I then moved. But I have never had a SFH that did not have break-ins and burglaries while I was away, or threatened but repelled break-ins while home. Didn't like this. I am not cowboy, I have no plans to get involved in a gun fight. So I like to live on upper floors, in well designed multis.
The hurricane problem seems insoluble, rather like the earthquake problem here.
Sometimes the best thing is to re-evaluate one's constraints, and rank them: necessary, nice, and meh. Of course I realize that there would be two people doing the ranking, and this introduces a whole new aspect.
Ha
I think W2R needs to evaluate whether her comfort with NO is because of inertia. I am not familiar with her target city. But I believe that inertia is a big factor in any move or lack thereof.
IMHO every move was like pushing off from the dock in a new boat. Exciting but also worrying.
However, it is important to become satisfied with the choice and avoid any woulda shoulda coulda...
The crime is more of an issue for me than the hurricanes. But condos in a high security, concierge type building here are not as common as in Seattle, I suspect. Here, a condo like that would cost a minimum of three times as much as my present single family home, as far as I can determine. I am just not willing to spend half of my portfolio on real estate here given the hurricane situation.
I agree with you 150% about not wanting to be a cowboy. I refuse to buy a gun because I am not a gun-toting Annie Oakley and I would be more likely to shoot myself accidently than anyone else. I am just not the type of person who can shoot another human being, either. I would be a liability, not an asset in an armed conflict. He, on the other hand, is always armed and heaven help anyone who tries to burglarize his home.
While there still might be burglaries in Springfield, we think/hope that they would be less frequent. From what we can tell, burglars up there seldom murder and are just after stuff (which I can afford to lose). Here, no matter how good the neighborhood, burglars all too often will murder if someone is in the home or interrupts the burglary. New Orleans is a bit too much of a free fire zone for comfort and law enforcement is so overwhelmed here. On the other hand, New Orleans has equally strong advantages, as you know.
Inertia is a big factor, true, and it is double the issue since there are two of us involved in the decision.
My experience is that vacations are always different than real life. I suggest renting for 2-3 months before relocating to see if it is really where you want to be every day, all year. That's a very different thing.
and I think the two major threats, burglary and hurricanes, are sufficiently remote on a daily basis that they are not big motivators to move...Inertia is a big factor, true, and it is double the issue since there are two of us involved in the decision.
We used MILs attic to store stuff when we moved to our apartment. Then when she died we had to finally deal with it all.We moved last November to a one level, newer, but smaller home exactly 5 miles from our old home. We were in the old, two story place about 20 years and kids moved in and out several times going through bad times, school and divorces. It was like an Army barracks at times. And they left a lot of "stuff" behind in the attic and other places. So when we moved, it was a mess and we purged a lot of stuff. And 6 months later, we are still purging.
+1and I think the two major threats, burglary and hurricanes, are sufficiently remote on a daily basis that they are not big motivators to move...
+1
Plus, discretionary relocation, like early retirement, likely works best when you are moving to something rather than away from something. I don't think W2R and her SO have found anywhere to move that provides enough "pull" to motivate them to pack the moving van.
Like others have said, rent there for 6 months (during the worst season) to see what it's like to live there. And vacation is very different than permanent residence as others have also noted.We're considering retiring to a favorite vacation location that's several hundred miles from where we live now. For those of you who've done such a move, what was your experience?