Best Places To Retire In 2023: Pittsburgh And Other Affordable Hot Spots
Forbes compared more than 800 locales in America on everything from housing costs and taxes to healthcare, air quality, crime and climate change and natural hazard risk. These are the top 25 cities for retirees.
ackie and Carmine Frasca Jr., wanted to retire early, but the high cost of living in California, where they’d spent more than two decades, made that a challenge. So they sold their home in Palmdale, a distant northeast suburb of Los Angeles, for more than $500,000, and this year bought a newly constructed house for about a quarter less than that amount in an age-restricted, gated community on the edge of San Antonio, Texas. While they might have paid cash for their new pad with their California proceeds, they instead took advantage of builder financing to free up funds to travel and enjoy life. Even with that small mortgage, “we’re still ahead of the game,” Jackie reports. After all, they relocated to an area with a 30% lower cost of living than Palmdale and no state income tax.
East Coast natives married for 39 years, Jackie, 62, was a hospital dietary supervisor and Carmine, 60, a letter-carrier, before they decided to leave the workforce. Now, they both spend lots of time outdoors (she bikes, he golfs) and appreciate San Antonio’s better-than-L.A. air quality. True, their 35-year-old daughter still lives in southern California. But the couple likes flying, Jackie says, and are now only 30 minutes from an international airport, compared to the two hours they had to allow to get to the airport in the L.A. area’s notorious traffic.
While not everyone is keen to move 1,300 miles for retirement or board a plane to see their offspring, the Frascases do represent a significant trend. Those who move between age 60 and 69 are more likely than other age groups to move outside their county or state. And 60% of these aging distance jumpers end up in cheaper housing markets, unlocking an average of $140,000 in equity that can be used to cushion their retirements, according to a new analysis of census and other data by Vanguard economists.
Accordingly, the Forbes Best Places to Retire In 2023 list aims to identify the top choices across the U.S. for high quality retirement living at an affordable price. The latest median home price nationally is $376,000, according to the National Association of Realtors. All of our 25 picks are below that, many substantially so. The cheapest, Augusta, Georgia, has a median of just $173,000. San Antonio, which made our list for a fifth straight year, comes in at $262,000.
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