Retirement home search started

[gsganzer]

The wife and I have officially started the search for our retirement home. I've lived in our current place since 1997, but the city has been constantly sprawling in our direction, annexing us into city limits about 15 years ago. Now I see them running utilities, water, hydrants, sewer along the highway up to our area. Ironically, I get high speed fiber installed tomorrow after recently installing Starlink to fix my internet woes. Rumors are that big developments are coming, and a new outer loop toll road will be breaking ground around 2028.

We've gone round and round on what and where we want to settle down. We were ready to purchase our friends 114 acre place in OK when it unexpectedly became available, but ultimately, we had issues with nearby solar farms and wrapping our heads about moving to OK. We've now decided we want to remain in N. TX and have scaled back on acreage to 20- 50 acres with a house and workshop. We're focusing on an area between Bowie and Muenster TX. It's a nice area with some rolling hills and vista's and often gets termed the "Hill Country of north TX, due to its Czech influence.

We looked at two places yesterday that were very close to one of our departed TBN brethren, Jimmy Inman's place in Sunset TX. One was a 2021 custom home built in the modern farmhouse style with some really nice features, including a dog washing station. I really liked all the attention that was made to the utilities, like buried electric line, buried propane tank, all downspouts piped away etc. The walk-in utility attic with the air handlers was impressive! It also had a nice outdoor kitchen and patio, although it faces west. We'll have to figure out something with shade tree's, shade sail to make it more enjoyable. You could tell there was attention to all the details though with tall, coffered ceilings, hand scraped wood floors, tile work, counter tops etc. Even the HVAC grills were fancy. I'm trying to figure out how a redneck like me with all my game animal mounts can make it work

The second place was a little older, but it had more acreage. It had some nice upgrades, but there were other things that still needed to get upgraded. The windows were all starting to lose their seals and need replaced, the bathrooms were outdated, and the recent kitchen remodel left something to be desired. We've scratched this one off our list.

So far, the modern farmhouse is our front runner. We're going to look at 2 more places this afternoon.

 

[kenmbz]

Also think about long term accessibility. Stairs etc. Will make it hard as you get older.
First place sounds nice, good luck in your search.

 

[gsganzer]

Also think about long term accessibility. Stairs etc. Will make it hard as you get older.
First place sounds nice, good luck in your search.

Agree, we're looking at single story homes, although the modern farmhouse had a bonus/media room that was up some stairs, over the garage, but the rest of the house was all easy to get around.

That "retirement" part also applies to the land and its maintenance. The amount of acreage doesn't always reflect the amount of care required. The modern farmhouse had an easy 20 acres to maintain. The other place had 37 acres but would have require substantially more effort to maintain.

 

[1 Old Man]

Also think about long term accessibility. Stairs etc. Will make it hard as you get older.
First place sounds nice, good luck in your search.

Another thing to look for, or have, is 36" door openings on everything. That allows
walkers, wheelchairs etc to pass. Plus, there's a bit more room if someone needs
to assist.

 

[scootr]

Buy the location and the land. Fix the house how you want it. GL in your search

 

[gsganzer]

Buy the location and the land. Fix the house how you want it. GL in your search

Scootr,
That's exactly our mindset. We make sure the cost and budget allow for the "tweaks" we might want to make.

 

[ultrarunner]

Taxes blindsided me making me rethink my plan…

Bought a place that checked the boxes about 20 years ago and at that time voters in Washington State approved a measure to limit year over year increases so I thought I was golden… that is until it was later gutted by one judge in King County.

6,800 property tax is now almost 24k… it is making California appealing…

Taxes of all shapes and sizes are my biggest expense…

Don’t know the answer but more than a few of my WA neighbors ended up downsizing due to the run up in property taxes.

 

[Torvy]

I hear you. We were about 30 minutes south of you for many years. The sprawl is real.

We chose to go east. 2+ hours from Dallas. Nearest 'big' city is 45 minutes away. We're 7 miles from a gas station, but are very happy. Sadly, even the small towns are sprawling.

 

[dmccarty]

The wife and I have officially started the search for our retirement home. I've lived in our current place since 1997, but the city has been constantly sprawling in our direction, annexing us into city limits about 15 years ago. Now I see them running utilities, water, hydrants, sewer along the highway up to our area. Ironically, I get high speed fiber installed tomorrow after recently installing Starlink to fix my internet woes. Rumors are that big developments are coming, and a new outer loop toll road will be breaking ground around 2028.

We've gone round and round on what and where we want to settle down. ...

Gracious but that sounds like us!

When we bought the land and built our dream house, the plan was to stay here until we died.

What you said is what is happening here, which I did not think it could/would, but it is.

We have been looking at places to move and we have traveled to sniff out some of them over the years.

Our list of requirements for a new place is:

• Walkable. Meaning being able to walk to most places which means a city. :--
• A city that is not too big. Smallish but not a town.
• Near good health care meaning research university hospitals.
• As low crime as possible for a city.
• Not a tourist city.
• An area which is not in decline, at least static but maybe with a bit of growth, just not too much growth.
• Local government that has not lost it's mind and is keeping spending and crime under control
• Reasonable state and local taxes.
• Reasonable cost of living.
• Reasonable house, auto and health insurance costs.
• Wifey wants to be near the coast but we can't be ON the coast and hurricane risks have to be reasonable.
• Housing costs have to be affordable but that one is difficult.
• Housing has to be adaptable to restricted mobility. We built our house with this in mind, and while we don't have problems now, who knows what the future holds.
• Quiet. That sorta negates a city you would think, but we have been to some places that were not bad. One really has to go an check the area out. Some places we thought would be ok noise wise, but nope, they were pretty bad. Other places, I thought would be noisy were ok. Go Figure.
• No maintenance by us.
• Near an airport that can get us to major hubs with decent number of flights and decent prices.
• An area where housing prices are not declining and where demand will allow a fast sale if needed.
• ...

Unfortunately, that list has condo, or oddly apartment, all over it, all having problems, which is an understatement. One thing we have noticed about condos is that HOA fees are similar across the states/cities we have looked into. This is good and this is bad because the fees are really high. We have noticed that if one added up the property tax and HOA fees from some places, the cost to rent was not much more... So, if you could afford the tax+HOA fees OR rent, it might be better to rent since one can just walk away unlike a condo. Of course, condos seem to always have price changes much worse than houses, not to mention condo commandos and assessments...

One of the reasons for the condo or apartment idea is so we can go away for months on trips and not worry about the house and land. Flip side, with the cost of the HOA fees we could hire some one to take care of the place when we were home or on a trip.... Not sure about insurance though.

What we keep circling back too, no matter where we look, when we add up the positives and negatives of our current place and compare to a new place, the current place is best.

From a retirement perspective people generally go through three stages

1. Go Go Years
2. Slow Go Years
3. No Go Years.

One problem is that by the time you get to No Go, or maybe even Slow Go Years, one might not want or be able TO move, if one wanted too. And often, one does not WANT to move, but might HAVE to move.... That begats having place that is easy to sell.