#WhereToRetire #retirement #moving #BestPlacesToLive
When you retire, where do you want to live?
The beach?
The mountains?
The big city?
The country?
Do you think you don’t have any of those options?
Wes Moss, who writes a Money Matters column for The Atlanta Journal-Consitution and has a similar radio show on WSB-AM in Atlanta, advises clients to think before they move.
“Relocating may seem to offer an added financial bonus if you believe you can sell your home, purchase a less expensive place and pocket the difference,” Moss writes in his April 29, 2019, column.
Sometimes, housing markets differ by location. If your current house is near a big employer, like, say, Google or Facebook in the Silicon Valley of California, you might be able to sell your house there, move a few miles away and buy a less expensive house. That would give you a pretty nice nest egg for your retirement.
Sometimes, where you want to move may be more expensive than where you live now. For example, if you live a good ways inland and you want to live at the beach, you may find waterfront property more expensive than your current home. If you have the money in hand, it’s not a problem. If it’s going to be a stretch to make it work, the idea may require more thought.
Moss points out that those retirees with paid-off mortgages are the happiest. On the other hand, most mortgages today have interest rates in the low single digits. It may be better, presuming you have a good financial adviser, to leave your cash in his or her hands to make you a better return than your mortgage is costing you.
Moss also talks about the notion of “home.” Do you want to leave family, longtime friends and neighbors and move to a place at which you know no one? For some, that thought is intriguing, especially if you want to move to a place that has better weather than where you live now. But it certainly requires some thought.
You may find, as Moss writes, that “with just a little polish, what’s old might just be new, and right under your nose.”
If you are the type who is indeed looking to start anew in retirement at a new place, financial flexibility is important.
Also, different areas have different costs of living. Part of your flexibility is knowing that you can probably cut expenses by moving to a place that has a lower cost of living than where you live now.
So add up what it costs you to live where you are, and research what it will cost you to move and to live in a new location. You could actually make money by moving.
Finally, if your retirement savings isn’t what it should be, you may want to consider the many ways out there to earn extra income with a few part-time hours a week, without getting a “second job.” To check out one of the best such vehicles, message me.
So add up whatever income you will have in retirement and compare that to your expenses. Do some research, and visit the area(s) you might like to move to, and compare your happiness factor there, to the happiness factor you have where you live now.
Whatever you do, try not to move someplace, only to find that you have to move back to where you came from, for whatever reason.
Remember, too, that a house is a house. Your home is where you make it.
Peter