I am retiring in a few months at age 61 (the pandemic made me re-evaluate my life). I currently live with my girl in a house she purchased a little over a year ago, but it is not a forever situation. I am finding that most people who were married for a long time and divorced in their mid-fifties have no interest in getting remarried. We have been living together for a couple of years to save on expenses, but I have a short-term annuity in which I invested the proceeds from my marital home reaching full maturity in a couple of months that I want to invest in a home of my own. My final kid graduates from college in the Spring (her sister just graduated), so that is a big financial obligation off of my back. She and her sister were fortunate to be able to do the full college experience debt-free thanks to sacrifices made by my ex and I. Now, it is my turn.
I am from Maryland and my kids will probably start their careers here, so I do not want to move too far away. I prefer cool weather to hot weather, so Florida is definitely a no-go. I am not trying to be offensive or start a discussion, but the other retiree-friendly southern states are just too religious right-leaning for me personally. With the high cost of real estate in Central Maryland and near Western Maryland and the near Eastern Shore coupled with no property or income tax relief for retirees, Maryland is just not in the hunt. That leaves me with moving over the border to one of the much more retiree-friendly states. I am currently looking in Southern PA and Southern DE. The advantage that Central Maryland has over these areas is world class hospitals. In Baltimore alone, we have Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland Medical Center, both are are attached to medical research institutions that do close to 2 billion dollars in combined medical research each year. Southern PA keeps me within a reasonable driving distance to these medical institutions whereas Delaware does not. Delaware is more tax friendly because property taxes can be be pretty stiff in PA and Delaware has no sales tax, which is a regressive tax. Maryland is a high tax state, but property tax rates in PA dwarf those of Maryland and property values in Southern PA have been inflated by people working in Central Maryland, which has one of the nation’s highest average income levels.
With that said, I would appreciate input from anyone who currently lives in or has lived in Southern PA or Southern DE. I am looking at the towns around Gettysburg and the towns south of Bridgeville in DE, thank you.
I am from Maryland and my kids will probably start their careers here, so I do not want to move too far away. I prefer cool weather to hot weather, so Florida is definitely a no-go. I am not trying to be offensive or start a discussion, but the other retiree-friendly southern states are just too religious right-leaning for me personally. With the high cost of real estate in Central Maryland and near Western Maryland and the near Eastern Shore coupled with no property or income tax relief for retirees, Maryland is just not in the hunt. That leaves me with moving over the border to one of the much more retiree-friendly states. I am currently looking in Southern PA and Southern DE. The advantage that Central Maryland has over these areas is world class hospitals. In Baltimore alone, we have Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland Medical Center, both are are attached to medical research institutions that do close to 2 billion dollars in combined medical research each year. Southern PA keeps me within a reasonable driving distance to these medical institutions whereas Delaware does not. Delaware is more tax friendly because property taxes can be be pretty stiff in PA and Delaware has no sales tax, which is a regressive tax. Maryland is a high tax state, but property tax rates in PA dwarf those of Maryland and property values in Southern PA have been inflated by people working in Central Maryland, which has one of the nation’s highest average income levels.
With that said, I would appreciate input from anyone who currently lives in or has lived in Southern PA or Southern DE. I am looking at the towns around Gettysburg and the towns south of Bridgeville in DE, thank you.
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I do like the "lay of the land" better around Gettysburg, it's pretty close to where I grew up.
