Choosing an area in which to retire can be difficult. There are many great choices available to you. But you can use these tips to narrow your choices down and eventually make a final decision on a place that fits your lifestyle and budget, suits your housing needs and desires, and that you’ll love for years to come.

Getting Started
Since you likely live hundreds– if not a thousand– miles away from where you might eventually retire, the best place to start your search is online. Visit the websites of the local newspapers for the cities, towns, or areas you are investigating and do some general exploring and reading. You can often find information on the history of an area, photo tours and sometimes virtual tours. Don’t forget to scan the real estate classifieds to get a feel for home prices in the area. It will also be helpful to read some local articles and editorials. These can give you a sense of the feel of an area, and reveal items of interest or concern for the local residents.

Links to most major newspapers in the U.S. can be found at: http://www.usnpl.com

Radio and TV news stations also have some excellent resources on their websites. Radio stations can be especially helpful for finding information in line with your interests. For example, a community calendar for a country music station might list events that would appeal to their typical listener. These events would be different than events that might interest an oldies or easy listening crowd.

Next, visit the websites of the area chambers of commerce and request an information package. The information packages will usually include a brochure on the area filled with advertisements for local businesses, information on annual events, a guide to local history, and usually a map of the area that will come in handy when you make an in person visit. In addition, request information from some new home builders and communities in the area, to see if the types of houses they offer appeal to your wants and needs. If the area seems like it might meet your requirements, go to the next step.

Links to most Chambers of Commerce can found at http://www.uschamber.com/chambers/directory/default.htm?d=false

Getting Personal
It goes without saying that you should talk to friends or relatives living in Florida, but don’t overlook people in your extended network or sphere of influence. For example, did your golf buddy’s brother-in-law recently move to Florida? Give him a call and get the scoop.

Visit online groups and search for topics involving “retirement,” and “real estate” in the states that interest you. Google Groups and Yahoo Groups are great starting places. You can usually count on people being quite frank with their feelings about each topic in these online groups.

Check out: http://groups.google.com and http://groups.yahoo.com

Government
Visit the website of the local government. By the looks of things, are they up-to-date technologically? Read through official statements and press releases you may find. Does the local government seem prepared to manage the growth their area may be experiencing?

Also, what are the taxes like in the area? Is the government being wise and prudent in their spending, or does it seem like they are plundering windfalls from property tax increases? These are all not easily answered questions but with a little research you can get a feel for what some of the answers might be.

Where is the Best Place to Retire?

It’s impossible to say exactly where “the” best place is to retire. It should be different for everyone. But Money Magazine has compiled data on several areas, allowing you to search for your ideal retirement location based on different criteria such as availability of health care, affordable housing, recreation, amount of population over 50, and other criteria you select.

Visit: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bpretire/2008/index.html

State by State Information
Follow the links provided in this section for information specific to retiring and relocating to each state. These links will lead you to our pages providing reviews of specific retirement communities in each state as well as other pertinent information.

The Relocation Site listed for each state is the official website for each state. This is where you will find information about moving to each state, becoming a resident, learning about local government and other services.

Arizona
Arizona Retirement Communities
http://az.gov/webapp/portal/

California
http://www.ca.gov/

Florida
Florida Retirement Communities
http://www.myflorida.com/

Georgia
Georgia Retirement Communities
http://www.ga.gov/

Nevada
Nevada Retirement Communities
http://www.nv.gov/

New Mexico
http://www.newmexico.gov/

North and South Carolina
North & South Carolina Retirement Communities
http://www.nc.gov/
http://www.sc.gov/

Tennessee
http://www.tennessee.gov/

Texas
http://www.texasonline.com/portal/tol

Home Prices
To get a general feel for what the prices of homes are in the area in which you are looking, visit sites like Realtor.com. They will show you all the homes listed in the Multiple Listing Service for the city or zip code that you specify. Enter your required number of bedrooms and bathrooms as well as your price range and see which homes come up as a result.

Two real estate websites, Zillow.com and Trulia.com, have neat features where you can enter a zip code or city and see a colored-coded map which reveals where the prices are more or less expensive.

http://www.realtor.com
http://www.zillow.com
http://www.trulia.com

Home Guides
There are several real estate and home guides available that can be a good resource for finding retirement real estate. Guides such as Homes and Land, The Real Estate Book, and Digest of Homes can be ordered by phone or on-line for the specific areas you are interested in. These magazines contain ads for available homes and for real estate agents and lenders promoting their services.

One caution: If you sign up by phone or on-line for a magazine to be mailed to you, they will of course ask for your address so they can send the magazine. They will also ask you for your email and phone number, which they do not need to send you the magazine. Your contact information is then distributed in many cases to the agents and lenders advertising in these magazines. If you do not want anyone to bother you with e-mails or phone calls, keep your phone number and e-mail address confidential.

For more information or to order magazines on-line:
http://www.homesandland.com
http://www.therealestatebook.com
http://www.digestofhomes.com

Magazines and Books
There are two magazines that you’ll want to check out for their informative content as well as community listings and advertisements. These magazines include Where to Retire Magazine (wheretoretire.com), and Living Southern Style (livesouth.com). Each has its own style and there are plenty of advertisers from retirement communities on the pages of each.

Last but not least, to round out your retirement bookshelf, there’s a couple other books you’ll want to check out. First, pick up a copy of The New Retirement by Jan Cullinane and Cathy Fitzgerald (Rodale, 2007). This book covers a wide spectrum of retirement topics. While the book’s content is not just limited to real estate, it does include a section on recommended locations throughout the country to move to for retirement. The retirement planning forms and worksheets provided in the back of the book alone are worth the price of the book.

NBC Today Show contributor Barbara Corcoran also has a good book titled Nextville: Amazing Places to Live Your Life that covers some retirement places you may not have initially considered.

Real Estate Shows
Real estate shows are a great opportunity to check out some of the new communities without even having to set foot in the state. Home builders, developers, and real estate agents come to these shows in hopes of making a good first impression on potential buyers like you. The shows are set up so that you can wander around and stop for information at booths that look like they may be of interest to you.

Two companies that organize these shows are Live South Shows (run by the same company as the previously mentioned Living Southern Style Magazine), and Florida Lifestyle Expo. Show locations are primarily in the Northeast and Midwest U.S.

For more information on show dates and locations visit http://www.livesouthshows.com and http://www.floridaliving.org

Make a Visit
Now that you’ve gathered a bunch of information on places you think might interest you, its time to make a visit. When you visit an area, especially one you’ve never been to before, there are certain things you’ll want to look for to help you decide if this is an area you might like to live in. Using the map that came in your package from the local chamber of commerce (otherwise you should buy a local map), drive through some different parts of the community.

As you are driving, are you seeing restaurants, businesses, shopping centers and so forth that look appealing to you and that match your ideal lifestyle? Stop in at some different establishments like restaurants or shopping malls and take a look around. Ask people you come in contact with what they like or don’t like about the area. See if they have any recommendations of places to look for homes or any other relevant information they are willing to share.

Keep in mind that every city or town has its skid row. The areas around airports tend to be especially bad, so don’t turn around and get back on a plane if you haven’t ventured more than a few miles from the airport.

Drive Through Some Neighborhoods
Take a detour off the main roads and into some residential neighborhoods. Are the homes what you expected? Are people’s yards well maintained? Visit some of the new communities and model homes in the area or take a tour of some resale homes that you’ve arranged to see ahead of time with your real estate agent.

Facilities and Services
Look for the amenities that are important to you. Are there libraries nearby and are they up to date? What about medical facilities? Check to make sure an area’s cultural activities, recreation facilities, beaches and parks, golf courses, and whatever else is important to you are available at a level that will fit your needs and desires.

Make a list of your current weekly activities (garden club, rotary, church, etc.) and be sure that the area you choose provides you the opportunities to continue to do what you enjoy.

You’ve Got Visitors
Keep in mind the likes and dislikes of friends and family members who will be coming to visit. Do your kids and grandkids love the beach, or is a ten-minute drive to Disney World more important? Presumably you will want them to visit as often as possible, so get their input before deciding on a place.

One of the worst things that could happen to you during this transition to retirement life is you find your dream home, but hate to go out into the community surrounding it for lack of things to do and be a part of. Or you buy your dream home, but find that when the kids and grandkids come to visit there’s nothing fun for them to do. But this won’t happen to you as long as you do some prudent research and investigating before you make a purchase and settle in.

Photo credit: missnexus on flickr

Over the next several days and weeks I’ll be posting chapters from “The Ultimate Retirement Community Buyer’s Guide“. This is the entire text of the book (excluding the many buyer worksheets and checklists that are in there) completely free for you to read. In a few short weeks I plan to make available a printed version for those who wish to have it. Hope you enjoy it, and as always love your feeedback so let me know how you like it by leaving a comment.

Chapter 1: Introduction
If you are thinking of buying a new home and retiring, or at least considering buying a second home in the next couple of years, this book is for you. The idea for this book was born out of frustration. For the past several years, as a real estate broker and more specifically a new home salesperson, I have worked primarily with baby boomers who were either purchasing their future retirement homes, or buying second homes to visit and enjoy with friends and family.

No matter how successful, well-educated, or bright these baby boomers were, each had their own set of questions that they needed answered. Some had basic questions such as where to retire, what each region offers, and what the weather would be like at different times of the year. Others pondered what they might do to fill their days, wondering whether they would continue to work in retirement, start new businesses, or split their days between the golf course and the beach.

Invariably, their questions would eventually turn to real estate. They needed to know things like where could they find the best values in home prices, how much would their taxes be, would they be able to get insurance and how much would the insurance cost. Others wondered what type of community would be best for them, for example, would they want to live somewhere that has a Homeowners’ Association? Many other boomers were interested in learning more about the process of having a new home built.

What was frustrating for me was seeing so many of them receive and act on misinformation that they found on an unreliable website, or that they received from well-intentioned but misinformed friends or family, and in a few rare cases, from agents or builders with only their own interests in mind. My goal for this book is to answer the questions that you have about buying or building a new home and eventually moving to enjoy their retirement.

Best wishes for your retirement!

Chapter 2: Deciding Where to Retire

Chapter 3: How to Find a Realtor

Chapter 4: Types of Homes

Chapter 5: Kinds of Retirement Communities

Chapter 6: Retirement Community Homeowners’ Associations

Chapter 7: Real Estate Tax Information

Chapter 8: Homeowner’s Insurance Basics

Chapter 9: Home Inspections and Warranties

Chapter 10: Negotiating With Builders and Developers

Chapter 11: Real Estate Financing

Chapter 12: New Home Construction

Chapter 13: New Home Walkthrough

Chapter 14: Real Estate Closings

Chapter 15: Maintaining Your New Home

55-plus communities are communities where the majority of the homeowners are over the age of 55. In most states, for a community to qualify for the 55-plus designation and to be marketed as such, at least 80 percent of the units have to be occupied by at least one person over 55. A common misconception is that everyone must be over 55 but that simply isn’t true. On the other hand, this does not mean that someone under 55 must be allowed to purchase a home. A community– through its deed restrictions– can legally deny someone the ability to purchase a home if they are not yet 55 years old.

Some 55-plus communities have limits on how long relatives such as kids or grandkids can visit, but those instances are usually limited to mobile home parks. While there are still many 55-plus communities being built throughout the country, research suggests that some boomers do not want to move into a 55-plus community due to some of the restrictions involved and because they associate it with being “old.” If you fall into this category, you may want to seriously consider a maintenance-free lifestyle community as an alternative. But even still, the business of developing and building 55-plus communities is… excuse me… booming, and those who do it right are experiencing amazing successes.

Bill Ness is a retired executive of Del-Webb, creators of the Sun City retirement community concept and pioneers of retirement community lifestyle design. Bill knows a thing or two about active adult and age restricted communities, and he’s got a website called 55Places.com where he reviews a whole bunch of 55-plus communities across the country. Be sure to check it out if you are considering that option for retirement.

(Photo by Christopher Dick on Flickr)

Lots of people who visit and read this blog regularly originally came here because of information I have posted about The Villages retirement community in central Florida.

Well, The Villages just got a little more famous. This past weekend the Wall Street Journal published a review of Leisureville: Adventures in America’s Retirement Utopias.

One of the “utopias” chronicled happens to be The Villages. You can also read an excerpt of the book here.

Leisureville comes on the heels of another “ville” book called Nextville: Amazing Places to Live the Rest of Your Life by Barbara Corcoran.

If you’re looking for solid advice on buying a home and living in The Villages don’t forget to check out The Villages Florida Book.

Update: TopRetirements.com just posted a review of Leisureville as well as a review of The Complete Guide to The Villages. Go check it out.

Nextville: Amazing Places to Live the Rest of Your Life by Barbara Corcoran drops this month and I was given a copy by the publisher to review. You should also know that Barbara was kind enough to provide a quote for the advertising of my book, Florida for Boomers: A Guide to Real Estate.

Nextville is less “how-to” guide and more of a “find yourself” or “figure out whats right for you” guide. Barbara basically breaks boomers down into eight possible different lifestyle categories such as “following your passions”, “living green“, “losing yourself” for the soon to be ex-pat, as well as those who will choose to “stay put”.

While actual “how-to buy” advice isn’t as meaty as you might have hoped, there are plenty of checklists and quizzes to help guide the boomer who isn’t quite sure where they want to end up or what they want to do with the next quarter century. The main strength and value of the book is that it does a great job of exploring several out of the ordinary places to think about spending your time.

Which leads me to my only bone to pick with the book. In Chapter 1, “Forget Florida” Barbara is clearly highlighting what the media is making everyone “think” is the trend, that nobody is moving to Florida anymore. The media wants everyone to believe that Florida is dead as a destination. Forget it, it fell off the map!

However, and believe me, I hear it from people everyday, folks are still researching and moving to Florida more so than any other state. There’s even a book reviewed by the Wall Street Journal this weekend which chronicles the lives of folks who have moved to The Villages, located in, yup, you guessed it…Florida. (This book is called Leisureville…Leaving me wondering what’s with all the “villes”?)

For good measure how about some search engine stats to back me up (Data is from Wordtracker):

Estimated Daily Searches:

Florida retirement communities: 51
Georgia retirement communities: 12
South Carolina retirement communities: 9
North Carolina retirement communities: 11
Tennessee retirement communities: 4
Virginia retirement communities: 12
Texas retirement communities: 23
Arizona retirement communities: 26
Nevada retirement communities: 4
New Mexico retirement communities: 7

You can clearly see above that interest in Florida still out paces most other states by quite a wide margin.

Lastly, and then I’m done picking on this fantastic book (I promise), is that someone needs to tell the publisher that postcard book covers are sooooo 2007

TopRetirements has a good article here that talks about the pros and cons of retirement community living.

A compilation of input gathered from boomers who have lived the community experience, the article does not try to scare you from exploring the active adult retirement options available to you, but it does give you some things to think about before making a decision.

As with anything there are good things and bad, and what is good for you may not be good for someone else. So when reading the article, don’t just rely on what someone else experienced, think about how the experience fits your ‘ideal’ lifestyle.

image credit: nickgraywfu at flickr

I get several emails a week from different retirement communities and other developments offering deals to come and stay with them for a few nights to check the place out. I like to share some of the best deals here with my readers.

Today I got an email from Mount Vintage Plantation in North Augusta, South Carolina. Gorgeous place from the pictures on their website.

“We invite you to join us for the grand opening of the new nine at Mount Vintage. Designed by world-renowned golf course architect Tom Jackson, the new nine is a superb addition to the beautiful layout of the current 18-hole course also designed by Jackson.

Call 888-271-3330 to schedule your personal tour of the Mount Vintage community.”

The deal in the email was for 3 days/2 nights at $69. Looks like it might only be good for March. Give them a call and check it out if you’re interested.

In the last couple of years, as Florida has fallen out of favor a little bit because of high prices, high taxes, high insurance, and hurricanes, more and more boomers have been thinking about Arizona for their new retirement community.

I’ve talked to several boomers who have made the move from the Northeast to Arizona, and even some who went to Florida first, and they all love the climate and the Arizona retirement communities they found.

If you are also considering Arizona for your retirement plans, I’ve got great news. The next edition of the for Boomers book series will be Arizona for Boomers: Guide to Retirement Communities.

Feel free to click the link and check out the site. It’s a work in progress, and we’ll be adding more articles and resources each day to help you find an Arizona retirement community. I don’t have an ETA on the book yet, but rest assured we’ll keep you posted.

Do you know what one of Florida’s first retirement communities was? Sun City Center, located near Tampa Florida began in the early 1960’s and is still under development today. The internet is loaded with information about Sun City Center but sometimes the information is very outdated, and searching online can just get overwhelming.

To solve this problem, and as a follow-up to my first e-book about The Villages, I’ve put together a complete 117 page guide for Sun City Center at: SunCityCenterFloridaBook.com

You’ll find a ton of great information including a complete detailed community overview, useful links, information about buying a home in Sun City Center, what it costs to live there, golf in Sun City Center, and much more. Check it out.

Be sure to watch this space for announcements on guides to other Sun City communities around the country.

What a scary time to be a buyer in the real estate market right now. While everyone knows it’s a buyers market, the deals are great, and prices are falling faster than a rock, you still have to be careful about taking that final leap and putting a contract on a new home someplace warm.

In November 2007, a popular builder of active adult retirement communities throughout the SunBelt, Levitt and Sons, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. This has left buyers stranded with partially or wholly unfinished homes, not to mention unfinished community amenities. Deposits as high as $50k per, are also presumed lost.

Levitt and Sons is a “wholly owned subsidiary of Levitt Corporation (NYSE: LEV) whose other divisions include Core Communities and bluegreen Vacation Resorts. Levitt Corp. is apparently trying to sever its ties all together with Levitt and Sons so that they won’t have to pick up the tab for the unfinished homes, communities, and lost deposits. Merry Christmas have a nice day!

If it can happen to a development company the size of Levitt and Sons, assume that it can happen to anyone. What can be done to protect yourself, your money, and your dreams of owning a (completely finished) new home?

Thats a tough question to answer. To avoid having to put up such a large deposit (most new home builders require 10-20% or more) you could go the construction loan route where you will essentially pay the builder in different phases tied to the construction of the home. But as I’ve written before, this is not without it’s troubles.

Another option that this article says to try is to get the builder to agree to place your deposit in an escrow account held by a third party. If something happens, you’d at least be able to get your money back.

In my experience, I’d say good luck to this. While you might get the smallest of builders and developers to agree to this, most will not. Look…these guys have in-house counsel, out-house counsel, and every other which way of counsel you could think of protecting their (ass)ets first. They’re going to make sure that they are covered and protected before you are.

The best solution I can come up with? For now, in today’s real estate environment, buy a house that’s already built or almost complete (trust me…there’s plenty out there) and buy it in a community that is already somewhat established with completed amenities you are happy with. This way if something happens and the second community swimming pool you as a buyer were promised never gets built, you’ve got the amenities already there to fall back on.