D R E A M<\/strong><\/p> “If you can dream it, you can do it.”<\/p> — Walt Disney<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t WEBSITE RANKINGS FOR U.S. LOCATIONS<\/strong><\/p> It can be helpful to look at website rankings of the best\/worst places to retire and their weighting methodologies to get a better idea of what factors are the most important for you, flag significant issues with a location that you were considering, or confirm that your current home is in the best place for you.\u00a0 We have provided links below to some website rankings and have gone one step further to combine top rankings in a single table<\/a>.<\/p> The AARP Livability Index<\/a> provides a tool<\/a> to compare up to 3 different locations based on housing, neighborhood, transportation, environment, health, engagement, and opportunity factors.\u00a0 The tool also lets you adjust the importance of each factor based on your preference.\u00a0 Note that an average community will receive a score of 50, while above-average communities score higher and below-average communities score lower.\u00a0 The AARP website also has a number of “best places” lists, including its 2021 Best Places to Live and Retire Now<\/a> list.<\/p> Bankers Life Center for a Secure Retirement commissioned a study<\/a> by Sperling\u2019s Best Places<\/a> to rank the 60 largest metropolitan areas and identify America\u2019s Best Cities for a Healthy (and More Affordable) Retirement based on their scores in 8\u00a0categories: health care, the economy and affordability, social, wellness, activities, environment, transportation, and crime.\u00a0 To determine an area\u2019s affordability for middle-income retirees, the 2015 study considered the cost-of-living index, median housing price, and median rental price.<\/p> Bankrate identifies the best and worst states for retirement<\/a> by weighting data on affordability (40%), crime (5%), culture (15%), weather (15%), and wellness (25%).\u00a0 Check out their website to use their interactive tool that allows you to see how the results change based on your preferences in retirement.<\/p> Caring.com<\/a> examines all 50 states and 300 cities across the United States using 70 different factors and sorts its findings according to the following categories:\u00a0 overall, health care (22%), senior living & housing (22%), community involvement (8%), transportation (13%), quality of life (22%), and affordability (13%).<\/p> Forbes provides 2 different U.S. lists:\u00a0 The Best Places to Retire<\/a> and The Best Places To Retire In Each State<\/a>.\u00a0 Forbes’s methodology focuses on identifying affordable places with a high quality of retirement living and populations of 10,000 or more, either in the specific locality or a metro area, with good economic prospects.<\/p> You should also take a look at the metro areas with the cost-burdened (over 30% of income pays for housing) households for adults 50 to 64 and 65 and older.\u00a0 If you hover your cursor over the map on Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies website<\/a>, you can see the share of households with cost burdens by metro area as well as median monthly housing costs, median household income, and share of households ages 50 to 64 and ages 65 and over.<\/p> In 2018, Kiplinger ranked the Best States to Retire<\/a> by focusing on financial factors critical to retirees and providing data for each state concerning its population, the share of population 65+, the cost of living, the average income for 65+ households, the average health care costs for a retired couple, and the tax rating for retirees.\u00a0 Kiplinger also offers a 2020 State-by-State Guide to Taxes on Retirees<\/a> tool that lets you to compare up to 5 states at a time.<\/p> Livability<\/a> identifies the top 10 cities in which to retire based on its review of 2,000 cities across the country and factoring in more than 20 data points including number of golf courses and assisted living facilities in each city, crime rates, natural disaster risks, the quality of local hospitals, housing affordability, climate, air quality, and the number of people over the age of 65.<\/p> Although there are many tools available to track your retirement funds, far less information is readily available to identify the best places to retire.\u00a0\u00a0MarketWatch<\/a> has an interactive tool to identify the best place for you to retire based on your preferences with respect to population, money and work, weather, health, transportation, outdoor activities, culture and arts, and other criteria.\u00a0 \u200b<\/p> The 2017 BCSA index<\/a> ranks 381 metropolitan areas for all adults age 65 and over, for those in the 65-79 range, and for those 80 and older.\u00a0 The index separately ranks big and small cities and focuses on their “livability across the life course<\/a>.”\u00a0 In addition to an incredibly detailed ranking system, they provide an interactive map for quick comparisons:<\/p>![\"Tybee](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/handaathomeandaway.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/elementor\/thumbs\/HA-2021-Tybee-Island-View-Towards-Savannah-River-V2-scaled-plkitg62nxconeud0jmwbwbf7nzoerrzj5proujdl4.jpg?ssl=1\" "\\"H+A")
\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\tRESOURCES FOR DREAMING<\/h1>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
