Resources for those who are trying to find the right retirement location

[GandK]

Last week I began chronicling our search for our eventual retirement location in my journal. I wanted to get a preliminary list prepared so we can use my husband's vacation time for the next few years scouting out our potential retirement locations.

Since I made that post, I've had a couple of requests for the source data I used in my analysis. Journals are an "I read them if I have time on my hands" thing for me, and I assume for some of you as well, but I think more of you may want this information than are able/inclined to slog through my journal. So I'm making a new thread to list all the data I used.

Source material from part one of my analysis:

Cost of living by state:
--Cost of Living Index (2015)
--What $100 Will Buy in each state in the US (2013, most recent data available)

Tax situation by state:
--State and local tax rates (2015)
--Income tax rates and brackets for single and MFJ (2015)
--Property tax rates as a percentage of median home value (2015)
--Social Security and pension tax rates (2015)
--Percentage of state debt (I used 'Unfunded Liability as a Percentage of 2013 Gross State Product' as a predictor of future tax increases)

When I listed the tax rates on our spreadsheet, if our estimated taxable income at the time of retirement fell below the threshold for taxes in that state, I listed the tax percentage as zero. So don't use our spreadsheet. It's specific to our situation.

Well-being data by state:
--Well-being State Rankings by Gallup (2015)
--Frequency of barometric pressure migraines by state [Note: Most online migraine indexes are completely useless because they include factors like the number of people in your area that tend to eat processed meats. The data on this site is focused on barometric pressure swings only, which is the main migraine trigger that varies by location and that can't be controlled by changing your behavior.]

Sources from part two:

List of towns and cities by state (2014 census data, most recent data available)
Google Maps, for narrowing the cities and towns above based on desirable/undesirable geography
Walkscore by state (substitute the FL state code in the URL for the state that you're interested in)
Fracking information by community
and finally, my favorite resource,
the City-Data forums, for getting information about specific communities from people in those areas (This web site has some international data available as well.) The best way to use this site is to click on a state and then search for the name of a town or for some feature that interests you like "walkability."

If anyone has any other resources that they think would be useful to people seeking a new life location, please list them below.

[henrik]

http://teleport.org/
Not exactly retirement oriented, but some interesting worldwide data nevertheless..

[thrifty++]

Check out http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/. It tracks cost of living by most cities around the whole world. It also tracks by rent too, and by housing cost. There is also a function for purchasing power parity which indexes average incomes against cost of living - which is especially useful for us on the pre retirement journey to maximise savings.

[SimpleLife]

Gold, tx.

[Ego]

It is hard to accurately weigh the importance of different factors until they are experienced. For me, this one is very important. Our outlook for the next week....

[akratic]

international retirement destinations: https://nomadlist.com/

US Average High Temperature in July and Low Temperature in January: http://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/ph ... s/uspa1276

US Median Home Price: http://www.zillow.com/worcester-ma/home-values/

[7Wannabe5]

One of the reasons I decided to stay in Michigan is that a greater variety of plants can be grown here than any other state besides California, but the land is much cheaper, and there is low risk of water shortages becoming an issue. Also, I am in the high risk for skin cancer group, so perpetual sunshine has a downside for me. I think cultural factors are also very important, but IME these vary at the level of neighborhood. For instance, I lived in one city that was at least 7/8 not a place I would want to live, except for the small historic district by the University where I did reside. I've also lived in the worst house in the nicest neighborhood in the nicest town in an otherwise economically depressed rural county, and that was a good, inexpensive place to raise kids, because Norman Rockwell like, but would have been a terrible place for me to live once empty nest. I think walkability should be a huge factor, because it is an indication of how much there is for you to do nearby, so "biking distance from a decent library" was another factor I considered. Of course, how much you wish to travel would also be a huge factor, because that would offer the opportunity for variety not available in your home base. I am not well-organized yet, but it is my intention to flee Michigan for 6-8 weeks every winter, and to make more use of the wide variety of beautiful recreational areas in the northern and lakeside parts of the state in the summer. IME, there is so much reserved/preserved for good reason public recreational land in Michigan, if you use any facility just a little bit off-season ,mid-week or further off the main highways and away from Chicago, you can have a huge expanse of woods and water practically all to yourself.

[Chad]

It is hard to accurately weigh the importance of different factors until they are experienced. For me, this one is very important. Our outlook for the next week....

Yep, one reason I'm thinking about a move to San Jose, CA.

[DeanPeacock]

This website https://tranio.com/ publishes a lot of articles about property markets in different countries which include research on best places for retirement. The good thing that these peaces contain information about average property prices, maintence costs, taxes, loans etc

[Spartan_Warrior]

I'd love to see a user-friendly, interactive, color-coded global map based on an adjustable "livability" index that allows users to individually weight a variety of factors including cost of living (taxes, rent, regional expenses, etc), current climate, expected climate change impacts, population density, walk score, political leaning, crime/war/instability, et cetera, all in one go. That would be the ultimate "Where to Settle" resource.

[BRUTE]

brute finds that these types of applications are impossible for 2 reasons.

1.the criteria are too subjective

what is considered a reasonable wifi connection, reasonable transportation, quiet, and so on, is extremely subjective. brute has been in places he found intolerable because of the bad internet connection, where others had reviewed it as amazing. the opposite also often applies: "good location" means something completely different for brute than for others. brute thinks 30+ degrees every day of the year is great weather. others hate it, and prefer seasons and 0-20 degrees over the year.

2.the data is too spotty

even if one measures only objective things, data can be extremely spotty and vary within the same town, city, county, country, continent.

[tylerrr]

I like Maine.

[jacob]

Since it has bearing on the fact that some will eventually become very sick in old age, the election also had some propositions on medically assisted suicide (cf. the bullet assisted kind). It is now legal in Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Vermont, and California.

Also, some good news for the potheads as weed (recreational and/or medicinal) was legalized in a few more states:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_ ... n#By_state

[James_0011]

Why not retire abroad? Much cheaper and countries like Thailand basically have everything that the US does.

[jacob]

For alternative data-mining: https://twitter.com/GoogleTrends/status ... 64/photo/1 (click on pic to blow it up) Maybe add these words as a column in the spreadsheet?

[Tyler9000]

LOL. At least I now know where to avoid pneumonia and diarrhea.

Poor Wisconsin, though.

[Smashter]

haha, fascinating. As a former resident of Wisconsin, that makes no sense. They have such state pride, you would think they'd have the spelling down pat. That's as surprising as if their word was "cheese"

[bryan]

guilty on: beutiful, qoute, suspcious, reciept.

don't understand Georgia (grey is fine) and a few others. "Restaurant" not making the list makes me think the graphic isn't really all that accurate, though.

[leeholsen]

I highly recoomend using Zillow to see what housing is available in your price range if you are considering moving to a place you have not previous live in, Zillow can break it down to zip codes in some cases and even neighborhood in some cities.

[SavingWithBabies]

Updated version of What $100 Will Buy (2017 report on 2015 data)