Traverse City Most Affordable Place to Retire in U.S.

Most people think the best place to retire is Florida, California, and Arizona just to name a few.

You certainly wouldn't want to retire in California or Arizona, because both states have very high home prices.

Where is the perfect place to retire if you just want to live the rest of your days in the slow lane, so to speak? The answer: A city in Northern Michigan we call "Traverse City."

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I don't think we could ask for a better place than beautiful Traverse City. Several of my friends are retired and living in Traverse City and simply loving it.

According to mlive.com:

Traverse City has just been listed number one in a ranking of the 10 best and most affordable places to retire in the United States. Realtor.com puts Traverse City at the top of the best places people should consider when looking to live out their golden years "without draining their savings."

You would think that most people would rather spend their golden years somewhere in Florida. After all, you wouldn't have to deal with all that Northern Michigan snow.

These days, I think there's much more to the retirement picture. People want to live in a very affordable area and not be surrounded by too many people.

Here's a good point courtesy of mlive.com:

“If it was 80 degrees all the time, there would be a million people living in Traverse City,” said Bart Ford, real estate agent with Coldwell Banker Schmidt Realtors. “We have a lot of snowbirds who go South when the weather is bad, and then they come back and are here for those months when the weather is nice.”

I can remember way back in the late '70s when one of my radio co-workers decided to retire. His number one choice was and still is "Traverse City."

Why is Traverse City so spectacular? (traversecity.com)