I am ready to pull the plug next year. My wife and I ended up in Florida to work at our “last jobs”. We bought a home based on the location to make our commutes easier not knowing if we would want to remain in Florida. We knew this home was okay but not a long term solution.
At this point we are starting to look for a home based on our retirement lifestyle needs. We want to do some traveling while our health still allows. We now face the decision regarding how much to spend on the house vs. traveling and other stuff. One option is to buy an Air BnB friendly house so that we could buy something in a nicer location and not feel guilty when we are not using it while traveling.
I was wondering if anyone else has done this approach and how it worked out.
Hi! I've spent the greater part of 20 years in Florida, and am intimately familiar with most of the major cities in Florida. You have MANY choices in Florida, and despite Florida never making the top-10 for retirement places (which is totally absurd), it really is one of the best states.
Some benefits to Florida:
1 - No emissions and safety inspections for cars (no politics please)
2 - Low vehicle registration
3 - No state income tax
4 - Lots of laws to protect the homestead (over 55, veterans, homestead, etc.)
5 - Comparatively speaking, very reasonable sales tax. It's anywhere from 5% to 7% throughout Florida.
6 - Property taxes are actually QUITE reasonable. Case in point, I have a home in Florida that is worth TWICE the value of my home in Texas. But my home in Texas has property taxes that are 2x what they are for my Florida house. And my Florida house is in Fort Lauderdale.
Now that we've established you just can't go wrong in Florida... there are several cities which may interest you based on cost and opportunity:
1 - Jacksonville: Please don't laugh. The city is quickly becoming a mecca for well-educated and growing income earners due to its business-friendly environment, and the low taxes. Homes are *absurdly* cheap compared to what you'll find in Metro-Dade / Broward area, and even compared to what you'll find in Tampa. You can literally buy a nice home on the water for $250k within walking distance to night-life.
2 - The Villages: Have you heard of them? It's a huge city of over 140k people who are aged 55 and up. The entire city was designed by Disney. There are 4 major town squares, one called Spanish Springs (Spanish style), one called Fenny (still being built which is "old Florida"), one called Brownwood (country-western styled), and another which name I forget that's modeled after Cape Cod / Martha's Vineyard. Anyway, there is a free concert every night at one of the four towns. There is every store you could possibly want, everyone drives around in golf carts, and there are even separate roads, everywhere... for golf carts. There's a regular FREE shuttle that goes from the town squares to the Orlando International Airport, so if you want to do any traveling, you can just take the shuttle back and forth. They even allow you to walk around with alcohol. There are things for kids to do, and everyone is *absurdly* nice... I mean, you feel a sense of happiness the second you drive into town.
3 - Pensacola: In that whole 30A area, there's a lot of really affordable homes in a nice "classic beach town" setting. It's still affordable, but I think if you don't get in within the next couple of years, it's going to boom.
4 - South West Florida: Naples, Punta Gorda, Rotunda, etc... this area is VERY inexpensive, and you get all the benefits of Florida. It's weird to me because it's a very sleepy area. Many roads were built up at one point, but expansion stopped. So homes are affordable, and it's a peaceful area, but not great if you like to do a lot of vacationing by car.
Options 1 and 3 are going to be best if you want to visit the rest of the country by car because you're basically at the ends of the state and can just drive North to get out.
Hope that helps, but I think it really depends what you're looking for in a forever / retirement home. If you could give us more information on your likes and dislikes... what you want (party town, serene, whatever), that will really help.