Retirement/relocation destination?

I think that the social/political atmosphere of the area is a legitimate part of the discussion. I mentioned it with regard to Alabama, and lord knows there's not a wave of Californians headed here.

 

If someone were truly looking for a lot of house for pennies on the dollar, there are quite a few grand homes outside the big cities here that are ridiculously cheap, even accounting for a renovation budget. Not talking plantations, but the big fine houses a block or so off the courthouse square where the bank president or the chief resident of the local hospital would have lived a couple of generations back. I’m thinking more about central and south Alabama here. I haven’t checked post-pandemic but five years ago you could get places like this for well under $100,000.

If you are judicious, you can find some of these in towns that have a few interesting things starting to sprout up downtown. It wouldn’t be the play for families with kids, but for empty nesters with work flexibility (you’d have to make sure internet is up to snuff there) or retirees, you can live like a prince pretty easily.

But I don’t see many takers, which may or may not have to do with the fact that they aren’t lily white and in some cases are very much majority-minority.

 

I met a man who sold his house in LA (two miles from one of the beaches, he said), moved to western Arkansas, bought a bigger house than he had in LA on 20-acres and small tractor with a brush hog and had money left over. He was a retired mail man, so his pension goes a lot farther here than out there.

 

That tactic would go a long way here. Based on the property values I see on various home renovation shows, for what you can sell a 3br 70's ranch house in Cali for you could buy a new/nearly new 4 br 3 ba home on a mountainside here and have money left over.

 

No. Metro Birmingham is terrible. All the stories are true. Please only stop for gas on your way to Atlanta or Florida. And if you do stop, please do not look around anywhere. There is a monster at the end of the book, I swear.

 

"Here" wasn't necessarily B'ham, although I was thinking of a lovely house in North Shelby County when I wrote it.

 

Waynesboro. Nicer than you think, extremely convenient to Charlottesville and Staunton (the new hot VA destination), but less expensive than either.

I actually enjoy Blacksburg, but I can't believe people are talking up Farmville in this thread. My boss is from there and I suspect I'll get a belly laugh if I talk about it as a destination (outside of Hampden-Sydney's Greek Week).

 

Ada County (Boise/Meridian) is becoming increasingly blue. Biden earned 5-6% more votes than Clinton did and it wouldn't surprise me to see the county go 50-50 this year.

 

This is what a lot of Californians are trying to do. It's what I'd like to do, if I could be sure of where I'd like to go. But I wouldn't get THAT much for my condo (it's small and it's not on a beach), and I don't have so much money that I wouldn't need to use some/most of the money made for another house elsewhere.

But, similarly to the man you referenced, my cousin owned two houses in Ventura, CA (not on the beach but definitely in a beach city), one of which he'd been renting out for years, and a bigger, newer, nicer one he'd been living in with his family the past few years. He sold the rental when he moved to Idaho, paying cash for the newer, bigger one he bought there, and then moving into it and renting out his big, newer, nicer house in Ventura for a year. He thought he'd hold on to that house so they'd have a place to come back to in case they wanted to return to California (most people, once you leave California, it's difficult, if not impossible, to come back, hence my tough decision that I need to be sure of). But, seeing that he and his family have liked it in Idaho, my cousin finally decided to not deal with renting/renters anymore and to sell the newer house in Ventura. He did, for $1.2 million, I think, and banked whatever he got out of it. I guess he figures he'd be fortunate enough to be able to move back to California, anyway, if he ever decided he wanted to do so, and unlike a lot of others, he probably could.

Suffice to say, the housing in California is so crazy that people haven't been able to NOT consider such money-driven moves, regardless of their own political leanings, or those of the people in the places to which they move. I have a neighbor who attended the same church I do who moved to Tennessee with the stated goal of "getting the money out of the house." He did, and bought a house with a barn/workshop and several acres, instead of the nice-but-postage-stamp-sized piece of property he had here that he sold for $990,000. Several other people I know from church have moved to Idaho, and a couple went to Texas. I suspect some of them do fit in where they went, beliefs-wise, and were obviously comfortable there, or they might not have stayed.

But that's not why they went. They went to cash in on financial opportunities.

 

When I was selling my farm, I had a neighbor trying to browbeat me into selling it to him for half of what it's worth just to keep people from moving in and building on it. "You're leaving anyway. You're just trying to get some of the California money." "That's right. Every penny I can."
Turns out it was Florida money.

It's funny the different perspectives of people wanting to sell small, expensive properties and "move to the country" while many of us who have spent a lifetime toiling on huge tracks of land can't wait to downsize.

 

I've been looking for a while to find a way to move back to western Montana, or as a second choice to the Colorado Springs area. I've lived in Wyoming and a few other places as well, but those are the two that appeal to me most for relocation and/or retirement.

 

Basically, it's the same argument as "No matter how hot she is, someone out there is sick of dealing with her shit."

We had a realtor once tell us about the north Georgia mountains, "This is a destination. Where would you go that's any better?" Well, closer to a big hospital, for one. Or perhaps bettter alternatives to driving? But that's America in a nutshell.

For every person who wants to move to California because they think it'll be great, someone else wants out because they realize for their situation, it's not. I've found the people who grew up somewhere and move, spending their time trying to make the new place more like the old one. For example, New Yorkers who move to Florida constantly complain that the bagels, pizza and Chinese food isn't as good as home.

The city mouse-country mouse story is as old as time. But Americans are restless souls, constantly thinking the grass is greener when someone on the other side of that fence is fed up with their grass. Now some families have several generations all living in the same area and those ties are strong enough to keep anyone from venturing far.

The census shows we all have been migrating south and west for quite some time, so America hasn't reached an equilibrium, and might never. But cities are getting larger and swallowing what used to be "country." So it's harder to get away from it all while still wishing you had all the amenities before you up and left. Yogi Berra was onto something when he said nobody goes there anymore because it's too crowded.

We've looked at Knoxville, Lexington and back to Raleigh-Cary-Apex, but nothing is so wonderful that we're ready to pack. For now, we're good in our destination place. That'll change if one of us needs constant medical care but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.