Germantown, MD

Anonymous wrote:I understand the need to be smart with your money and not to throw your money away needlessly in retirement, but to plan where to live your retirement years around minimizing property and income taxes isn't very appealing to me. Like everything else in life, there's a price you pay for that kind of thinking. If I want to live in a certain place, I'm gonna do it, and I'm not gonna do it for tax reasons.

+1 we will continue to live in the DC area. My son has graduated from college and settled in the area. My sister is here too. I have a lifetime of friends plus a few community organizations I volunteer with that I intend to do more of when I retire.

I did suggest to DH that maybe we could downsize to a townhome since that could reduce our property taxes but he doesn't love that idea since it would come with the transaction costs of moving + HOA fees. Our house is a reasonable size for the two of us and an area we like. So, we'll see. We definitely won't be leaving our community ties and all the people we love to live in some random area just because taxes are lower.

Anonymous wrote:Need to clarify what "some diversity" means to you. Diversity is in the eye of the beholder. There's plenty of Latinos living in rural Virginia working at chicken plants. Does that count? Suspect not so be a bit more specific.

+1 These posts seeking diversity are ridiculous. Explain specifically what criteria you need to meet because no one place will have every kind of diversity.

Are you a lesbian and need a lesbian community? Japanese and want more than a few token Asians? Is religiously or socioeconomically diverse important to you for a certain reason?

Or are you just an UMC, straight, white woman who's virtue signaling?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moneywise it's hard to beat Florida. Will probably switch residency to Florida, Naples or Sarasota. Six months + 1 day in Florida and a second house in coastal New England for the other six months minus one day.

sounds absolutely horrible

I don't have a knee jerk hatred for certain states the way some people do due to local politics or whatever your issue is. Florida is a perfectly pleasant state, just don't like the hotter months of Florida or the colder months of New England and thus the split between Florida and New England. Which is a commonly trod path, by the way.

An alternative to Florida would be Arizona. I do love Southern California but expense wise it's a challenge and if there's any state where I'd fear getting entangled by local politicians' greed, it's the California state assembly. While I do play with various retirement scenarios, the road always leads me back to the split between Florida and coastal New England, using some of the border month periods (mid-late May, mid-late October) for other forms of travel as desired, making it especially convenient to go to my favorite country, Italy.

I understand the need to be smart with your money and not to throw your money away needlessly in retirement, but to plan where to live your retirement years around minimizing property and income taxes isn't very appealing to me. Like everything else in life, there's a price you pay for that kind of thinking. If I want to live in a certain place, I'm gonna do it, and I'm not gonna do it for tax reasons.

Winston-Salem, NC. Our neighborhood is very diverse--majority white but many black families. Can drive quickly to the mountains and a few hours to the beach. Good doctors. All costs are lower except homeowners insurance. The state seems to spread the coastal risks across to all homeowners. My main complaint is noise from backyard chickens inside the city limit and no Vietnamese restaurants.

Anonymous wrote:We moved to MidCoast Maine. Heaven.

We are looking at this! Have you found any downsides?

Anonymous wrote:We moved to MidCoast Maine. Heaven.

Oh, that sounds lovely. Good for you!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been looking at Cary, NC. It's diverse, near two biggish cities with a university and airport nearby. I'm not 100% about their taxes, though.

I struggle with where to retire. MoCo is too expensive, tax wise. But, MD has much better healthcare facilities. So, that's a big factor.

Cary is not diverse!!!

It is white white white vacation bible school white stupids.

NC has terrible politics and now that there will be no hurricane warnings good luck with that .. and no fema monies. Yes Cary gets hurricanes and it sucks.

I lived in Cary and it was nice, at least while working. Locally called the "containment area for relocated Yankees". It's very white and South East Asian; I really miss the Indian food.

Would love to move back to NC to retire, but I do think the FEMA and NOAA cuts are going to take a huge toll.there, so not sure it's worth it anymore..

Colorado:
Boulder. Eagle. Denver.

Considering vacation home/condo in Wintergreen resort first.

Forgot to say, also change your driver's license, insurance and auto tags to Florida too.

Anonymous wrote:Moneywise it's hard to beat Florida. Will probably switch residency to Florida, Naples or Sarasota. Six months + 1 day in Florida and a second house in coastal New England for the other six months minus one day.

If you only have 2 locations, your main goal is to avoid over 6 months in the tax state, so yes, you would spend 6 months + 1 day in Florida like you described to avoid state income tax in the other state.

But this is not a Florida requirement thing. It is a good idea to do things to show your residency there, not because Florida cares so much, but because you want to avoid letting the other state claim you. Own or rent in Florida, receive your mail there, register to vote there, establish your medical care there, etc. The more you grow roots, the easier to keep other states from claiming you.

Our situation was we had residency in Florida (that we were selling), a retirement house in a tax state and we were RVing around the US for 5 months a year. So we weren't anywhere for 6 months + 1 day!

We did a lot of research and concluded we didn't so much need to physically be in Florida for 6months plus 1 day, as much as we needed to prove we were NOT in the tax state for that amount of time. And we kept all our mail/medical/voting in FL. We also lived in the RV in FL (rented a campsite) for 3 months each winter.

There were some legal cases I found where Northeast people tried to avoid official residency in a tax state by buying property in Florida, even living there for half the year, but it gets messy if the tax state decides to "claim" you and you have to fight it.

If you are new to Florida as a retiree and keeping your house in your previous residency tax state, you especially need to make as many ties to Florida as you can. IOW, don't go back to tax state for all your medical appointments. Don't keep all your bills and memberships with tax state address and forward mail to Florida - change everything to the Florida address to help show Florida is your main residence. Then temporarily forward your mail from Florida to tax state when you go back there during the warmer months.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been looking at Cary, NC. It's diverse, near two biggish cities with a university and airport nearby. I'm not 100% about their taxes, though.

I struggle with where to retire. MoCo is too expensive, tax wise. But, MD has much better healthcare facilities. So, that's a big factor.

Cary is not diverse!!!

It is white white white vacation bible school white stupids.

NC has terrible politics and now that there will be no hurricane warnings good luck with that .. and no fema monies. Yes Cary gets hurricanes and it sucks.

Vacation Bible school or the jungle. Pick your poison!

We moved to MidCoast Maine. Heaven.

I am happy here in Md. Best place for everything- moderate climate, the beach and the mountains, small towns and big towns, best Democratic leaders, events, theater, friends, shopping, and superb medical. Yes, taxes are higher, but why would I give that all up just to pay less taxes. Less taxes means less of the above.