does my idea of Utopia exist? where to live?

[Racerbvd]

I was talking about this with my attorney yesterday at lunch. Mine is pretty easy, and only a few miles from where I currently live

For me, it would be a large lot on the river, where I could build a house to hold all my treasures, nice dock for happy hour drinks, huge garage for toys, I wouldn't have a reason to leave Of course, with the type of private (home) bar/game room, equipped shop, everyone would be hanging out there anyway.

[look 171]

Originally Posted by ikarcuaso

Passed through there when we went to Cancun/Cozumel. I thought we could have spent our whole time there, instead, and I would have been perfectly happy.

Utopia without a beach doesn't exist, IMO.

we honey moon in Cancun. As it turned out, we hated Cancun due to the drunken young Americans screaming in the streets with beer bottles in their hands. We came upon Playa Del Carman, on the way to a jungle tour. We had breakfast there, and we cancled our hotel out of downtown Cancun, and booked the rest of our stay in one of those smaller hotels in Player. In some of those beaches up there, there is no one around at times beside a tourist or two.

[DasBoot]

Originally Posted by vash

i do love santa fe. i was under the impression that it was big bucks.

i have land in ruidoso NM that i plan to build a cabin on.

If you have land in Ruidoso, then Las Cruces would be an obvious choice. You describe Las Cruces in your original post.

(And, we have both open & concealed carry.)

[DasBoot]

Las Cruces:

College town.
Theater/ballet in El Paso (40 mins. away).
Hunting/fishing - check. Elephant Butte 40 mins. away.
No natural disasters. The occasional flash flood through the arroyos.
Very affordable housing (or spend $5mil if you win the lottery).
Solar? 360 days of sun/yr.
Temps - 50's/60's in winter (daytime), never breaks 99 in the summer (cools down at night, unlike Phoenix/Tucson/Vegas). Dusting of snow every other winter.

Will leave a light on...

Originally Posted by vash

say i get to retire at 55, and my wife keeps working for 9 more years after that. i need moderate weather. i dont mind four real seasons, but maybe a four week blizzard would suck. i dont need to fully retire for the same 9 years. maybe teach calculus 1 to high school over achievers?

i would need culture in the form of theater, ballet/opera (ahem! for the wife), great restaurant options. no olive gardens as my only option for my italian fix. panda express? forget it. i love a good grocery store/butcher..so a foodie city would be great. i need hunting options, and fishing is a must. so outdoorsy.

it cannot be prone to major natural disasters. i think that would be detrimental to retired people. housing needs to be affordable. bonus if i could sell a california property for the entire amount. i would love to design a green home, with solar, radiant heating...kumbaya.

some ideas? boise, bozeman? denver? maybe tuscon?

oh, i would love some land, so i dont have to see my neighbors.

[creaturecat]

Tuscany, Siena or Firenze.
Best weather/food/opera on the planet. Bar none.
Fantastic boar hunting in the fall.

[vash]

Das, i grew up in el paso. dont know if i want a repeat. my wife doenst like it. it is debatable, if you can consider elephant butte a good fishing lake. the mega white bass runs are history, and black bass are elusive.

good property tax in NM, non existent smog logs..good outdoors. on the list.

[vash]

Originally Posted by creaturecat

Tuscany, Siena or Firenze.
Best weather/food/opera on the planet. Bar none.
Fantastic boar hunting in the fall.

i could definately be italian! i begged a wine owner to let me arrow a pig when i was there....BEGGED! his bow, his pigs...he politely told me no. they were running amok!

Originally Posted by willtel

Asheville NC is a good east coast option.

+1 on Asheville. Coincidentally, I have for sale four acres of mountain property in a beautiful equestrian-themed community called Wolf Creek Ranch near there. We planned on building our dream house there--a 2000 square foot garage for me, and some sort of irrelevant shack to live in (mainly for my wife)--but then we moved to Seattle.

Seattle is anoher great place if you handle gray weather for long stretches. the summers more than make up for the rainy winters.

Terry

[Dottore]

Originally Posted by creaturecat

Tuscany, Siena or Firenze.
Best weather/food/opera on the planet. Bar none.
Fantastic boar hunting in the fall.

I give you the food and the opera.

But the weather?

Droughts and heat waves in recent years have made Tuscany unbearable in the summers. Combine that with the insane tourism in Siena and Florence between April and October and I would run in the other direction.

I could agree on winters in Tuscany and summers in Cornwall though.

[creaturecat]

Dottore, correct as usual.
Was there May/June last year, tourism fairly light, except for the obvious attractions.
Next time we will skip the Uffizi.
National train strikes are another story

[Pazuzu]

Originally Posted by vash

maybe tuscon?

Yes, or the foothills around there. Fishing is a bit harder, but the ocean is only 5 hours away in Mexico. Otherwise, all that you asked for is there, especially if the housing prices stabilize in a few years.

It's the only million person small town left, with everything you'd expect from a million person town.

[RPKESQ]

Southern France.
Ideal Medditerrainian climate, best food in the world (a melange of Spanish, Italian and French), great cultural activities (like concerts, operas and plays in an Roman colusium), world class wine, historical structures and sites abound, hunting in Europe (I hunt Red Stag (elk), Fallow Buck in Scotland, Roebuck in Germany, France, Austria and the UK, Wild pigs in France, Italy, Germany and Poland, best bird hunting is in Scotland and the UK, I fish for salmon in France, Scotland, Norway, Sweden and Finland, Trout in France, Switerland, Germany Austria, Italy and the UK, the Alps are 2 hours one way and the Pyranees two hours the other, great mass transportation, best healthcare in the world, superb property laws, sailing, white water, sking, motor racing, bicyling, topless beaches, Formula 1, etc.

[DasBoot]

Originally Posted by vash

Das, i grew up in el paso. dont know if i want a repeat. my wife doenst like it. it is debatable, if you can consider elephant butte a good fishing lake. the mega white bass runs are history, and black bass are elusive.

good property tax in NM, non existent smog logs..good outdoors. on the list.

El Paso is a sheet-hole. No comparison. We have a 40-mile buffer of solid desert (plus the Border Patrol) between us and them.

And, they've been stocking Elephant Butte lately. Over the hill from me is the NMSU "fish farm in the desert" project. All you need is a flashlight, bolt-cutters and a net...

[DasBoot]

Originally Posted by RPKESQ

Southern France.

Affordability (in USD)?

[therotman]

The winters in the Northwest are mild, grey and rainy but not bad at all.

It's when the Fall and especially the Spring are a mild and rainy continuation of winter that you will miss California.

I made the same sort of decision as you are to leave California except I moved to find a better place to raise my kids and my top weather concern was no 100 degree days. Summers here are excellent.

[RPKESQ]

Originally Posted by DasBoot

Affordability (in USD)?

Of course, like all places it depends.

In Provence, prices are higher because it is a well known area (Nice, Cannes, St. Tropez). In the Aude (right next door) the prices drop significantly. You can get a newly build house for $250K to $350K on the outskirts of many towns easily. If you want to be located in a city or town and want a renovated old house (1500 to 1900) it will start at $350K and go to $500K for a stunningly renovated mansion. Try: vefuk.com for a simple fast way to see price, type and location relationships.

What we did is bought a small apartment in Paris ($120K), our main residence in the Aude ($350K) and a two bedroom, two bath new build in the Aude for house swapping and rental income ($125K). It gives us a lot of flexibility and income in Euros (we also have USD income too).

[Dottore]

Originally Posted by RPKESQ

Of course, like all places it depends.

In Provence, prices are higher because it is a well known area (Nice, Cannes, St. Tropez). In the Aude (right next door) the prices drop significantly. You can get a newly build house for $250K to $350K on the outskirts of many towns easily. If you want to be located in a city or town and want a renovated old house (1500 to 1900) it will start at $350K and go to $500K for a stunningly renovated mansion. Try: vefuk.com for a simple fast way to see price, type and location relationships.

What we did is bought a small apartment in Paris ($120K), our main residence in the Aude ($350K) and a two bedroom, two bath new build in the Aude for house swapping and rental income ($125K). It gives us a lot of flexibility and income in Euros (we also have USD income too).

As a former home owner in Grasse I have to say I think you are understating the prices in France by about 100%. Of course there are apples, and there are oranges, but $500K for a "stunningly renovated mansion"? There aren't many of those in France at that price.

And a newly built house for $250K? That would be postage stamp sized and certainly not in a desirable location.

We owned our house in France for 15 years and we will likely go back there eventually to retire—probably to Bordeaux. But our real problem was with the crime. We had a ridiculous number of break-in's, and given that we were there only a few months of the year this turned into an enormous headache for us. So much so that when an agent wrote us saying she had someone interested in the house, we sold it without a second thought. Of course if you lived there full time the crime would not be quite the issue—but still...

Other than the crime—I agree with you that France is pretty close to paradise.

[creaturecat]

120000 for a Paris apt? How large? Around 80-100 sq. feet at present prices.
France would be first on my list, other than the expensive real estate.

[Dottore]

Originally Posted by creaturecat

120000 for a Paris apt? How large? Around 80-100 sq. feet at present prices.
France would be first on my list, other than the expensive real estate.

$120K will buy you a shoe-box in a suburb of Paris you really don't want to be in.

Or it will buy you a match-box in a nice part of town—though you may have to learn to sleep standing up.

[Bill Douglas]

Originally Posted by scottmandue

I hear Australia and NZ are hard on immigration?

Dont know. Here in NZ we only seem to let in people who can't speak English, no chance of a job, bring in about 15 family members in, usually Muslim, need a state (free) house, hate us, and make a living by stealing from us.

LOL, they usually stay long enough to get their citizenship then move to Sydney Australia as New Zealanders.