Lawmakers want to declare ‘climate emergency’ in Washington

I am sorry that I retired in this failing state.

But it’s too late for us.

I am 71 and we have lived on our same 5 acres for over 40 years. Fortunately, we live on a mountain on the Olympic Peninsula. It remains beautiful here, and we have a million dollar view of the Straight of Juan de Fuca, fresh mountain air, breeze from the sea and wildlife all around us.

Seattle is about a 2 hour drive to the east of us and we do our best to never go there.

Even with all the beauty around us, I still feel trapped. It is, what it is. We will make the best of it during our twilight years.

Websters

lawmakers: fools

This is one “emergency”, that if declared, will not be funded by the Trump Admin - let them soak their own and show what happens when the nuts get loose...

“been researching the best places to bail out to.”

Where did you find are some of the best places to bail?

Idaho is cold in winter and hot and dry in summer.

To make a long story short... We are most likely moving to the South East. Some of those areas have the right combination of low taxes, mild winters, good neighbors, low living expenses and low taxes. Now the long story...

Now for the long story. Each state in the country has its own advantages and disadvantages. There are many articles and websites that rate and cover them. I have found this state tax calculator be very helpful for comparison. https://smartasset.com/retirement/retirement-taxes

The biggest problem for us in Washington is that our property taxes have doubled on the places we own in just the past few year. Despite the site above saying that property taxes were lower in Idaho compared to Washington, the places we looked at in Idaho were actually even higher because this can vary from county to county. Idaho also has a state income tax, and the cost of living is relatively high.

We were thinking about Texas, because like Washington, Florida, Alaska, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nevada, and more recently Tennessee have no State Income Tax. But the property taxes in Texas were very high on the properties that we were looking at. We are talking $10,000 a year on a $400,000 home in many cases. Of course one of the very worst states to retire in is New York. We have seen beautiful old homes on acreage in upstate New York that are selling for less than $100,000 that have $10,000 a year in property taxes. These beautiful historic homes are literally being abandoned because of the high taxes, and the values have plummeted as well largely because of the high taxes.

You almost have to find specific properties that you like and then start comparing what your actual expenses will be. For instance, Georgia has a state income tax, but the exemptions for senior citizens that are higher the older that you get, so for us it effectively has no income tax. The property values and cost of living in most places are pretty low as are the property taxes.

One thing that I will caution you about, most of the time when you find a house that seems like an incredible value by the measures above... there is usually a reason. First you need to check if it is in a flood zone using FEMA flood zone maps that determine whether you need to purchase expensive flood insurance and if all your stuff is at risk of being destroyed by a flood. https://msc.fema.gov/portal/search

Second you need to check out the crime rate and demographics. We have found https://www.areavibes.com to be useful for this. There are many properties that are spectacular, but you find out your chances of being burglarized assaulted or raped are 5 times the national average and you will be an unwelcome minority when you go to a restaurant or store if you are an English speaking white person.

If you click on the demographics tab at the top of areavibes and then go to the bottom of the page it gives the percentages for the neighborhood that you are considering. And you need to look at the actual crime statistics and not just their letter grades. Nearly every big city, most medium sized cities, and even a lot of smaller places are given an F for crime, but there is a huge variation in the actual statistics. Where we currently live the crime is twice as high as the national average, but that is not bad as compared to some places.

You can get some clues by talking to real estate agents and local businesses. We have an airplane to relocate as well. It had been very informative talking to people who I have called about hangar availability. They have often been willing to share their knowledge about what places to avoid or gravitate to in their area.

Anyway, good luck on your search. We are hoping to visit some areas as soon as we get one of our houses sold.