Hey Wanderer(s)-

I hope you have LOTS of money saved up for your retirement if you want to retire in Northern California...because it is VERY EXPENSIVE to live there.

If you found San Luis Obispo too expensive, then you're going to have a heart attack when you check out real estate prices in Napa/Sonoma/Santa Rosa and other locations.

This are over time has evolved and assimilated into the greater Bay Area...and the BA is one of THE MOST expensive places to live--let alone retire.

You'll hear "native" Bay Area folks say that it's cheaper up here. But "cheaper" is a relative term: What they're saying is instead of paying $600K for a decent 2BR townhouse, you'll "only" have to pay $350K. Please don't fall for the arquement that you can find cheaper prices. Yeah you can...but it'll be in "the hood"...or you'll be far, far away from the things that you listed as places/things you want to see and do.

Sadly, the entire state is pretty darn expensive. Too many people still want to come here, and housing can't keep up with the demand.

So many older folks who've grown up here and bought places for $50K 30-years ago have sold these very same properties for over $500K and have moved out-of-state to retire.

Where are they moving to? Las Vegas, Phoenix, Albuquerque...or (if they don't mind the wet weather but LOVE the scenery) Portland, Boise or Bozeman MT.

Good luck in your retirement search...but you may find yourselves re-thinking retiring here in California. Too many cash-loaded yuppies are coming here and are driving up the housing prices.

PS-My personal preference to retiring will be to Santa Fe NM (where I live now) or on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Yes, having visited twice now to Northern CA, we are well aware of the housing prices. They weren't so much a shock to us coming from the Boston area, where you can't touch a single family home for under 700K in my town.

That aside, Sonoma has some decent retirement communities that we found very reasonable.

We'll just have to see if our housing market here keeps pace, as we are not in a position to carry 2 homes.

hi wanderer,

I realize this thread is very old, but I'm curious where you may have ended up? Did you make the move to California? If so, where?

I stumbled on this thread as I am from the east coast but have now lived in the Bay Area for 7+ years and my parents are looking for places to retire. They've looked around elsewhere but since both their kids are out here in the SF bay area, if cost were no issue, this would be where they would go. A lot of the criteria you listed above fit the types of things they are looking for (minus the skiing ). Anyway, if you still check this and have any updates on what you found worked/didn't work, I'd love to hear it.

Thanks!

wanderer hasn't posted on any thread in more than 5 years. After he/she started this thread, he/she started another one asking about Asheville.

This thread was started 10 years ago. Lots of things have changed since then. Some places aren't that great any more, e.g., we were just in Benicia recently and the topic of the deterioration of Vallejo came up. Ten years ago one could buy a fairly nice home in some areas of Vallejo and retire there; not any more.

So, why not start your own thread and ask the questions that are relevant to your own situation? Updated answers targeted to your specific situation would be so much better for you.

Good luck!