GTM,
My instinct is that buying property /moving abroad is a dandy idea, and that meaningful numbers of Americans will choose this in the coming decades as a way to walk away from the four horsemen of Tort Tax, Security Tax, Public Sector Pensions tax and Medical Benefits Tax that will saddle Americans and American business for the forseeable future.
Moving to 'younger' countries with less developed social welfare systems, less plaintiff-centric legal systems and less appeal to terrorists will put you way ahead.
Then of course you need to focus on your quality of life, because you won't be in the good old US of A. There is a lively set of sites extolling these overseas investments, mostly set up by hucksters it seems, but sifting through the hype and having my own travel experiences, it would appear that you have to pick your country carefully to ensure decent medical facilities, reasonable crime risk, reasonable weather, access to US or Europe etc.
I think the cost advantages of some of these overseas destinations today will be sustained over the long haul, for the same reason that Toyota,with all of 56 retirees in the US, (maybe a bit higher by now - this was a figure I remember from earlier this year) can make cars here a heckuvalot more profitably than GM, with rather more than 56 retirees in the US. Apparently, medical benefits are now more of the cost of a GM car than steel.
One of our posters, Lance, lives quite comfortably (without air conditioning) in Thailand on $1,000 a month. And Social Security 'delivers' -- they'll send your check 'over there'. Take another look at your medical insurance bill or your property tax bill and tell me that a lot of Americans won't be heading to developing countries when they retire. And if they do, real estate values there, boosted also by their own growing economies, should do fine. I don't make many predictions, but I am pretty comfortable on this one.
ESRBob