Best Places to Retire for Low Housing Costs

One of the many questions that arises for baby boomers about to retire is where to retire.

Of course, low house prices can be a factor for retirees who plan to choose from the best places to retire happy and move to a different city.

How does a "cute 2 bedroom, 2 bath bungalow" for less than $50,000 sound?

Heck, if I could sell my half-duplex in Edmonton for the $325,000 that the City just assessed it at, with the money I could buy 5 of these cute 2 bedroom, 2 bath bungalows for 5 of my friends — and still have enough to purchase one for myself along with $25,000 of spending money.

See the e-mail below from a woman in Florida that I received last week and note what her husband and her paid for such a retirment home.

----- Original Message -----
From: Theresa C.
To: vip-books
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2011 4:02 PM
Subject: RETIRING HAPPY, WILD AND FREE

Ernie,

I can't tell you how much I have enjoyed your book HOW TO RETIRE HAPPY, WILD AND FREE. I just ordered your other book THE JOY OF NOT WORKING. You really have made me look at things in such a different light. I even did a flow chart with my OPTIONS FOR RETIREMENT/ACTIVITIES, ETC. I keep adding to it and hopefully will live long enough to complete it.

While I was reading it, Chapter 6 Your wealth is where your friends are - page 151-152, we have been going to Sun City Center, Fla, since 2003 because we had friends that retired there, every year we would go down and the prices started skyrocketing. Well, 2009, there was a really cute 2bedroom 2bath that was $134k in 2006 which was way too much at the time so we passed.

IT's a good thing we did because in 2009, the same house was down to 49k, a guy died and the daughter was just giving the house away. We offered 45, they countered at 47, and we got it for 47k.

We choose Sun City Center for just the reasons you stated in your book, the friends, social activities, clubs, etc. And I even have another friend who came to visit and her and her husband bought a beautiful house and are living there all year long. It's such a great community.

If you have a blog or send out e-mails, I hope that you add me to your list.

Your a great writer!!

Take care and Best Wishes to you and your family for 2011.

Theresa C.

Here are some quotes about houses and homes to help you choose the best places where to retire.

The property boom has made us all feel wealthy, but unfortunately it has lulled many of those nearing retirement into a false sense of security.
— Noel Whittaker

It takes a heap o' livin' in a house t' make it home.
— Edgar A. Guest

He who builds to every man's advice will have a crooked house.
— Danish proverb

We give people a box in the suburbs, it's called a house, and every night they sit in it staring at another box; in the morning they run off to another box called an office, and at the weekends they get into another box, on wheels this time, and grope their way through endless traffic jams.
— Caroline Kelly

Houses and money are hard to come by if you are not prepared to work for either.
— Dave Erhard

The stately homes of England!
How beautiful they stand,
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,
O'er all the pleasant land!
— Felicin Dorothear Hemans, The Homes of England


A house is a machine for living in.
— Le Corbusier