I am starting to look at places to retire, of which golf will be a big part of the decision. I am looking for some ideas on where others have explored or have already moved and like the community and location.

Keep in mind the following:

- Price of Real Estate
- Real Estate Taxes
- Length of Golf Season
- Price of Membership
- Quality of Courses

Any input is welcome, and if you have links to the courses or communities it would be helpful.

Well, AZ or Palm Springs, CA come to mind, year-round season, and for PS, I know the real estate market there has dropped significantly. Courses are some of the best around. The summer can be quite hot, but over time, you do used to it. I can't speak to taxes or membership costs though.

Sing it everyone...."The Villages, Florida's friendleist hometown!" Just kidding, it looks good on the commercial but I know nothing about it beyond the fact they play softball and have dances in addition to golf. Lifetime membership to the Arnold Palmer and Nancy Lopez courses..........

May sound crazy, but Hot Springs Village in Arkansas is fantastic. Many 'yankees' have moved down there. Great community, not too expensive, and 9 great courses to play at dirt cheap prices. My parents have moved there and absolutely love it.

http://www.hotspringsvillage.com/

http://www.hotspringsvillage.com/infocourses.htm

www.carolinatrace.com

North Carolina has anything you want -- beach, mountains, golf anyway you like it. Real estate and taxes are reasonable. We love Trace. Commute down several weekends a month from northern VA. Can't wait to retire there!

kiawah

The Southern Pines/Pinehurst area has the best quality courses in the US and is only a short drive to Myrtle Beach. If the occassional hurricane does not scare you look at Brunswick County, NC. It is the on the coast and the southern most county of NC...it has the most golf courses per capita of any county in the US....tons of golf and only retired people there. It is about 20 minutes south of Wilmington and 15-40 minutes north of Myrtle Beach. Really cheap real estate there as well....the only negatives are some hurricanes...fire ants...and an occassional gator (but they leave you alone). Definately check into those 2 areas! I came down to NC after growing up in NJ and I love it here because the golf is many times better then NJ and the prices are even better....the weather is amazing as well....63* today, I have to run to go catch 9 holes at the end of the day, good luck!

California or Arizona....most likely Arizona, the price of living in Cali is outrageous

Western North Carolina or
Palm Beach County Florida

Definitely not Pinehurst...I would stay far away from there!!

No we dont any more Yanks moving here, they have messed it up enough from someone born and raised here.

If you are retiring and do not want cold weather stay away from the NC mountains. The western part of NC is just as cold as central NJ where I grew up. Too cold and too long of a winter there. NC will probably give you more affordable housing possibilities. Just food for thought here...I have a great friend who makes a nice living traveling the US giving real estate seminars to reality companies and their employees. He uses Raleigh and Charlotte as the mainstay for the perfect housing market. Sure, there are not 100% increases like other area similar to Florida have had, but there are definately no big down spikes. Raleigh was the #1 housing market in the US last year and Charlotte was not far behind. The only reason NC has seen a little struggle recently (according to many in the housing market) is because people are having trouble selling their house elsewhere to move to NC.

I work closely with builders like Lennar, Ryland, DR Horton...and these companies have moved mass amounts of employees to Charlotte because it is one of the only strong markets remaning. Lennar alone is going to build over 500 homes this year with a goal of over 1000 in the next 3 eyars. I am not trying to start a real estate debate...just letting you know that the best market to purchase a home or retire to right now is NC...hands down.

The Carolinas for great golf AND affordable cost of living.

It where I'm hearing most people head off to right now.

Second that.
Unless you just hate desert golf this is the place. Both areas have a ton of courses to choose from and rates are not low but in the low eason definitely affordable. Plus in te Phoenix area you have MLB,NBA and NFL if you want to do something else than golf. Plus right now you have two PGA events in Scottsdale and Tucson.
No idea about any taxes though.

unfortunately i am at the airport... but i have a magazine (junk mail i suspect) that shows up called "southern living" or Living on the Links? or something like that as it pertains to retiring and is a complete book of locations that buy full page ads pitching their living, location, golf, etc... Best guess from what i remember is it is basically Virginia and all states south, then west from georgia to Texas? Quite good and i think at least a free place to start to gather info. As i look for the future as others mentioned, it sure seems hard to beat North Carolina, however....

i gotta say scotts valley and the san jose area sure are nice. So is Santa Barbara and that area, but it is probably 2x as much if not more for the housing to start with... What my wife and i have done is take vacations to the locations in the country that we have not been to previously and play golf there, hang out downtown and take a look around if it is somewhere we could live or not. I feel i am flexible, but she did not like Phoenix or Raleigh (i liked both), didn't like ALL of florida, but, she loved Tucson, Austin TX, Palm Springs CA, ... Make what you will of her likes, it is personal opinion and a "feel" you just get or don't.

If you can, you should blog or post here about your experiences. I think a lot of us would love to read about your opinions and what you find as you rank various items in the decision as you go down the road. Of course your specifics will make things different than everyone else as family location, kids college proximity, etc.. will all play out for all of us differently.

I see you are from New Jersey, so you have a much more seasonal outlook and will be golfing a lot more than 7/8? months a year whereever you wind up.

Good luck! i look forward to hearing about your travels and adventures and learning from what you learned!

peter.

Nah, we yankees will keep on coming and move the remainder of the rednecks down to Mississippi and Louisiana. You are taking up too much valuable real estate.

Puerto Rico...no state income tax, and cheap property tax. Still in US.

Seriously, you should consider San Antonio and Austin, Texas. These cities are only 1 hour from each other and there are some very good golf courses at affordable rates/memberships. San Antonio real estate is very inexpensive and they are in the process of buidling a TPC course. Austin was recently voted the best city for golf (factoring expense and quality of courses). If you are looking for the "retirment community" type set up then Sun City is just 20 mins north of Austin near Georgetown, TX. Its basically a retired persons golf community. Central Texas has very nice views and lots of sizeable lakes.

The weather in this area is fantastic for golf. You can play through the whole winter, spring and fall are mid 70 to 80 degree days. Summer can get hot but you just adjust to playing early and being done by 1-2 o'clock.

bend oregon ...

For US cities, try the tool on the right side of this page:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2007/

personally i love the low country in south carolina and would love to retire to the charleston/mount pleasant area.

however if you want an area that is pretty much year round golf and the cost of living is very reasonable i am going to say texas. i golf year round in the dfw area. there are a million courses and my only friends who have a cheaper cost of living than me are in oklahoma. you got your north texas (dallas/ft. worth), south texas (houston) and central/hill country (austin).

For golf, i would pick Aarizona. Tucson area-corona de tucson,vail or santa rita ranch.Around the area would be green valley or sahuarita.

info on vail

corona de tucson

Green valley,az

sahuarita,az. would be better for younger people


From what i have learned,
Florida -hurricanes,lots of bugs and the humidity. no thanks
Texas- depends on where you live.Not anywhere down south-hurricanes.. Very windy.
Anywhere in the southeast,north or south carolina,Georgia-well once again hurricanes,Humidity,lots of bugs and SNOW. No thanks

Yes, a lot of those places are beautiful and all,Just not my type of climate.I dont want to be able to play 6 months out of the year

Not to burst your bubble, but it snows more in Dallas, TX than it does in middle/eastern NC. My brother-in-law lives there and he says he can play golf about 10 months out of the year.

But, we would like the cold weather folks to stay up north and stop coming to NC and driving up property values. I want it still to be cheap when I retire to Pinehurst in 25 years.

Your not bursting my bubble.I know it snows there.You can have it.I'll keep to the warm side of things.

+1

LOL, Oregon and Washington both have the highest suicide rate in the nation.All depends on where you are.Rains too much and the sky is normally gloomy.

First off sorry to be off topic but people need to learn or research before making up so called facts.

According to Suicide.org in 2004 Arizona at #11 had a higher suicide rate than Washington at #18. The highest was Alaska at 23.6%.

Don't be ignorant, learn the facts.

Then i shall kill my friends who have moved there who told me this.Just going off their info.Claim thats all they read about in the paper

Btw, i saw from your site you provide,Oregon ranks one higher then arizona. As i stated in my first post.It all depends on the area??Some areas are more prone to it then others

it doesn't snow, but ices, and the next day its probably in the 70's. however, the cost of living in dallas is a lot less than middle/eastern NC - i know, i use to live in virginia and have done projects in north carolina.

Anywhere in NC. Boo to the Yankee comment. Go Giants!!! Yes, that's right - CARY - Concentrated Area of Relocated Yankees!

Wow...mis statement of the year...Dallas is way more expensive then eastern/centeral NC. The only area in centeral NC that is expensive is the downtown Raleigh area or coastal-front property...otherwise it is ungodly cheap.

I just retired last year, and we're currently in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. We haven't purchased property here as yet, we still own property in SW Mo. However, this area is great for golf nuts. We're staying in our 40' motorhome in a development that has homes, and rv sites. Nice 18 hole golf course, and I play 4-6 times per week. We have been here since November and the weather has been fantastic. Just yesterday, we set a record for the date of 94*, yes in February. Houseing is extremely reasonable. No state income tax. There are about 10 golf courses in a 15 minute drive from where we are located. We're 15 minutes from Mexico. 1 hour from South Padre Island and the beaches.
Although it isn't for everyone, we love it here and will probably purchase here in the near future.

Before you admonish people to learn the facts, you should correct the amazing error in your post. The suicide rates mentioned in that web site are the number of suicides per 100,000 people. Alaska doesn't have a suicide rate of 23.6%. Do you really think 1/4 of the people in Alaska kill themselves?

It is also disingenuous to compare rates among states without considering other factors--especially the age of the population, since suicide is much more prevalent among the elderly. States with larger populations of elderly are going to skew higher than states with smaller populations of elderly. Naturally, the states with large populations of retirees aren't going to do as well in these statistics.

Like you said: don't be ignorant, learn the facts.

Why would anyone want to retire to a cold/rainy region. They original post was asking about warm weather.

per salary.com's "cost of living calculator" based on me living in ft. worth (technically euless) and working in dallas (technically irving) and then a salary example of $55,000:

Nice research...but Charlotte is not central/eastern NC...and I already said to exclude Raleigh as well, but the cost of living is about 2% in Raleigh compared to Charlotte.

The areas of NC that people are talking about are Southern Pines/Pinehurst, Brunswick County (south of Wilmington, and areas outside of the city.

I am sure that Dallas is similar to here in that living 20 minutes away from the city dropps the cost of living. I live 15 minutes from downtown Charlotte but I am not in the city...my tax rate is much lower and home values are increasing immensely, catching up to Charlotte.

I guess you have not looked at a map to realize that charlotte is no where near where people have said to retire.

Give me an example of a city where you have done a project in NC? NC is a lot cheaper then Virginia as a whole, especially in the cities (thinking of northern VA, and Va beach).

To be honest, I am more concerned with costs of housing, which would include property taxes, and the cost of a membership to a quality club.

Keeping the above in mind with length of season and a decent area to live year round as well.

For example: I absolutely love the Bonita Springs area. But the costs of housing have gotten pretty darn high (Townhomes and Apartment style Condos are reasonable), and so have the costs of memberships in the better clubs (Many of the better clubs are 100K plus). There are a couple of developments that have what they call bundled golf, where you get the membership and all you have to do is pay the dues yearly.

I am not overly familiar with the Carolinas, but have been to Pinehurst once and absolutley loved it. The home prices seem to be fairly reasonable, but how much are memberships and the length of golf season?

Myrtle Beach was ok, but it seems most of the course are public or semi - private where they just stampede as many golfers as possible on them to generate as much revenue as possible.

Casually looked into the Lake Oconee area (Reynolds Plantation) and it seemd nice, but have no clue what memberships run in that area.

Never been to Charlston, Kiawah or Hilton Head but have a feeling Kiawah and Hilton Head are very pricey as well.

Bend is known for skiing the in the winter while you can count on 6/7 months of 85+ temps.

Villages hands down. Heck I'm 27 and wish I could live there.

no, i just say that you were in charlotte and used that. i am quite familiar with the geography of the carolinas after living in virgina beach for 18 years and having family in south carolina.

i am not saying texas is better or that the dfw area is better, i was just throwing it out there as an option. i've played golf with many people who have moved to this area to retire, some from florida and the carolinas, because of the housing market and cost of living. however, dfw does have year round golf, for the most part nice weather, and is fairly cheap to live in. in my experiences with places i've lived, family has lived or thought of moving, dfw was cheaper than virginia beach, va charleston, sc, miami, fl, and los angelas, ca. the only place i've lived that has been cheaper than dfw is norman, ok.

like i said earlier in this topic i would want to retire in charleston. i have a desire to get back to the east cost and think the charleston area is absolutely beatiful.



most recently we completed a project in fayetteville and our doing some schematic design work for two projects out on the intercostal waterway, but not on the outer banks side. we also completed a project in gaston many years ago. we've done other projects in north carolina, but they were more than 10 years.

i lived in virginia beach, which i didn't think was too bad, but i agree, northern virginia is ridiculous. we completed a $9,000,000 project there in 2005 which at the time we could have done in dallas, ft. worth, or charolette for just under $8,000,000.

I have a second home in a golf community with public and private coures in Naples Fl. If you are 6 miles from the downtown area real estate isn't too expensive. I don't find the humidity too bad, there aren't many bugs and it is mid 70's to low 80's in the middle of the winter. Summer doesn't get over 90-95. There are many things to do and see. If you get bored you can be in Miami Beach in under 2 hours. This has been said to have more golf courses per capita. One country club presently has memberships for $35,000 down from $80,000.
I stayed with a friend in Scottsdale and found it Brown and my skin dried out in two days.

I would never recommend anyone to live in Fayetteville, just not much of a place. I love Charleston and wich it were a little more affordable as I would me there if I could. I have a good friend who is a doctor in Tampa Bay and he has lived in NJ (where we grew up), Boston, Raleigh, DC, and now Tampa...he has always said how much he would like to move to Dallas-FW area at some point in his life, that it was really a great city to live.

I would say palm springs la Quinta area would be your best bet. All the months except July and August are golf able all day, and even in those month morning rounds are good. There are so many housing opportunities, especially in golf course communities, in almost every imaginable price range. Me and my dad were looking out there for a place there last week and we loved it, he will most likely be buying a place out there very soon, the weather the courses were all amazing. And with 120 golf courses in the desert you never get tired of playing, and if you own a house there you get special discounts at all of the public courses. I would recommend looking up some homes for sale in your price range and you will surely find something, and most likely in one of the new communities you can get for pretty cheap.

Florida is nice as is Pinehurst and those areas but they are wayyyyy to humid. It can be like a hundred and ten and not humid and feel cooler than 80 and humid in those places.

And with all the inventory in the area out there you can really work a deal with most of the sellers and get a bunch of amenities thrown in or a price drop. In Mountain View Country Club if you buy now you can get the membership initiation waived and get two years free of dues.

You've already gotten plenty of suggestions....some good, some ?????

I was only going to help expand on a couple of thoughts previously mentioned that deal in Texas.

There is wonderful golf, basically year round and its become a big retirement area for the lack of income taxes and low property taxes to seniors. Sun City is an option for those who like that sort of thing. Austin, San Antonio and the Hill Country have literally a hundred different options from truly great courses/homes that may be on the high side (Boot Ranch and Escondido) to great courses/homes more moderately priced (Kerrville, Cimarron Hills in Georgetown) and others.
Cost of living is generally low.

Kiawah is great but a bit expensive. The Hot Springs area is good if you're looking for a community of retirees in a state that can vote for Bill Clinton one year, and Mike Huckabee the next. Of course, that may not be saying much since I'm from Texas.

Personally, I think Charleston is pretty special or the Ashville area. My wife on the other hand has her eyes on a beach somewhere with or without me.

Where you at in Naples?

Lely Resort in Naples. Five to six miles from downtown Naples and five miles from Marco Island. One 4 star and one 4.5 star public courses and one private. The private membership is for all three courses. Lots of restaurants on the water and nice landscape scenery with the way plants grow down there.

I have a son going to college in the DFW area and I have been iimpressed with the weather and the area. It is less humid than most areas, especially Houston and when it was 104 deg. it wasn't too bad. I think the Austin San Antoinio area would be interesting to check out.