Good post—we have done the same in CT.
The old real estate rule was to buy the least expensive house in the best neighborhood/area possible—that is what we did.
Sleeping well at night not worrying about finances is priceless.
We looked very hard at retiring to different southern states but could not find a better situation than we have now.
We looked especially carefully at a variety of Texas locations—concluded that we could not count on the future control of illegal immigration to keep their taxes (and crime) under control. Future events may prove us wrong—but we had to make a call and that is the one we made.
We had planned on bugging out of NYS.
But the last two years have shown that no state in the union, and that includes FL, is willing to secure their elections.
Until that changes, every red state is one stolen election away from disaster.
We’re not risking any more of our money until that changes.