Fall Color in Washington

Washington state has some fantastic fall color. It is generally found along the western slopes of the Cascade Foothills and it is brilliant. I though I might share this article with you all about five great fall color drives in Washington. To read the fine article by Bill Holland, Click here.

I also though I might re-post the article that reminds you all why Washington is such a great place to retire.

Originally published by Real Estate with Realtor Rod; November 1st, 2013.

Washington State is not the first state you think of when pondering the exodus of retirees to "fairer" locales. You might think of the warmer sun belt states like Arizona and Florida. But Washington offers a unique combination of favorable taxes for seniors, a variety of climates from dry to wet and mild to wild. Washington offers its qualifying seniors a significant reduction in property taxes. There is no state income tax. Southwest Washington really hits the spot, because for those who like to shop and spend money the very nearby Oregon has no sales tax. A trip to the Oregon coast is easy and inexpensive.

Many retirees in the area keep two inexpensive (or expensive depending on their finances) homes. One in Washington State and another in California or Arizona. They fly south for the winter in November and return to our more tolerable climate in the late spring. usually it is better to claim Washington as the "home" state since we have favorable tax conditions for seniors. Although Washington is not the TOP rated state for tax friendly status, it would be when considering the live in Washington, play in Oregon angle offered by Southwest Washington.

Vancouver offers the glorious beauty of the west side of the Cascades with a moderate amount of rain and very modest snow. East of the Cascades delivers much more sunshine but also has more drastic swings in temperature and much more snow in the winter. Southwest Washington also offers close proximity to the aforementioned Oregon Coast and the metropolitan Portland area.

Speaking of the coast, Southwest Washington has the lock on reasonably priced beach property. The Oregon coast is world famous, largely because the state of Oregon spends millions of dollars promoting it. The southern Washington coast is equally spectacular but offers amazing values in property and taxation. This is especially true when compared to Oregon which is very tax unfriendly according to several prominent sources such as Money Magazine and Kiplinger.

Sourced from Kiplinger.com

Our southern neighbor, Oregon is rated as "least tax-friendly" for seniors while we enjoy the "tax friendly" status. Our base property taxes are much lower than Oregon and many seniors qualify for one of four property tax reduction programs. Sales tax is a much less intrusive tax than income tax for middle and upper income seniors. Arizona rated higher than Washington for tax friendly status but actually depending on income and spending habits we might be better than them as well.


Now that all this taxation benefits are out of the way, we can consider other factors. The well known fact that Washington state is absolutely gorgeous is a strong draw. We have four distinct seasons here in Clark County but none are severe. That is tough to find anywhere on Earth. It seems like the proverbial slam dunk for a retirees to move here. And many of them are moving here. So there you have it, Washington State is the best northern state to retire to. Start packing.

Southwest Washington's Coast can be a Value for Retirees!

I posted this on my Coastal Living blog a few days ago, check it out! All the advantages of Washington State and the proximity to Oregon, but at the seashore!

Ocean Front under 200k? Believe it!

I was wandering about on the multiple listing service and stumbled upon this interesting and fantastic property. It is a lovely 1930s cottage with a two bedrooms and a bath. The living area totals 728 square feet. It is an absolutely charming little house that appears to have been very well kept.

The strange thing about this house however is the property on which it sits. The home sits on a 1.5 acre lot that is only 40 feet wide. Barely wide enough for the house. The lot extends more than 1600 feet to the beach. This is true beach front property.



The pink colored lot is the lot and house for sale, from Pacific, County Mapsifter

Like the headline says, this home is under $200k; in fact it is listed for just $189,900. Sure it is just a cottage but it is a tidy little house and it has beach front access! Sure it's only 40 feet of beach front but it's still beachfront! This house is in the city of Long Beach, Washington. It is very close to the Columbia River, Ilwaco, WA Astoria, OR. This is not way up on the peninsula. Long Beach hosts a variety of events every year and has a charming, classic American beach town setting.

I never cease to be amazed at the beach-side opportunities here in the Evergreen State. This property offers up retirees or families seeking a vacation home something they can afford from the middle class rather than the wealthy class. We have some of the best coastal living in America, and sometimes it's even a bargain!

Long Term Care Should be Planned in Advance

Long term care is an issue that faces nearly every American. Advances in medical science have resulted in an extension of our quality of life and health. This has also resulted in many more people living into their 80s and 90s. There comes a point where help with daily activities becomes a necessity.

Retirees should be prepared financially for this outcome. Long term care is very expensive and is not typically covered by traditional health care plans. Having a long term care need without adequately planning is usually financially devastating. The government will require that you be destitute before they pay for it. Who wants to rely on government care and be poverty stricken?

Insurance companies of course offer long term care products and these can be very expensive if then insured waits too long to purchase. Once a chronic condition exists getting private insurance may proving to be a daunting task. Having large amounts of cash in retirement accounts can be a great security blanket but long term care costs can easily run into the 6-7 thousand a month range. Funds become depleted quickly at that rate of consumption. Planning is critical. Consultations with professional financial planners is a wise idea.

Furthermore young retirees in their early 60s should consider proximity to long term care facilities and or services when relocating. I have spent a fair amount of time writing about neighborhoods and great places to retire to, but what about long term care?

Vancouver, WA is a big enough city that it has a virtual cornucopia of offerings in the long term care arena. Relocating to Vancouver provides retirees with the peace of mind that they will not have move far or even at all should they need assisted living or convalescent care.

Planning ahead makes for a much easier transition when the time comes for assistance. Often times couples find themselves with one in care and the other still at home. A short drive is always better than a long drive for visits. Above and beyond all the great reasons to relocate to Washington State, taxes, moderate weather, etc. proximity to these types of facilities should also be taken into consideration.

Vancouver proves again to be a very wise choice for retirees.

Washougal's Orchard Hills Golf Club is a great alternative to Fairway Village

Quite some time ago I wrote and article about Fairway Village in Vancouver's Cascade Park as a great retirement golf community. It still is, but it may not be everyone's 'cup of tea'. If you like golf and you are looking for something a little less 'over 55', then a new development in Washougal might be a great prescription.

Orchard Hills Golf and Country Club is great spot away from the hustle and bustle of Vancouver and Portland but in close enough to get to the airport in 20 minutes. Recently a few subdivisions have popped up near the 14th and 15th holes including some gorgeous attached 'duets' with upscale finishes and 1855 square feet of living space. These new units are ideal for retirees as they feature two bedrooms and two baths and a very spacious kitchen and living area. The units are running in the $295k range and are a great alternative to the busier Fairway Village. These units are right on the course.

Washougal is a fabulous spot for those who want the convenience of city life without giving up that small town ambiance. From the east end of the golf course you sit right at the entrance to the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area and yet a ride to PDX is only 17 miles away.

Washougal is a fabulous location to retire with all of the benefits of living in Washington and shopping in Oregon. The added bonus of spectacular scenery, great views, close in golf and easy access to the amazing Columbia River Gorge. Check it out. Washougal could be your ticket to a fabulous retirement.

Calculating a Comfortable Retirement

This time I would like to quote an article from Time Magazine about how to calculate your number. The answer to the question, "How much money do you need to retire comfortably"? There are many variables to determining retirement needs and this certainly cannot replace the good counsel of a professional financial planner. But at best it should awaken you to the cold hard realities of retirement.

Excepted from Time magazine

"To help guide you to your number, financial firms have devised income and actuarial models that come up with a target multiple of your final year’s salary. Benefits consultant Aon Hewitt says that by age 65 an average full-career worker needs to have banked 11 times annual pay. That means a household earning $75,000 a year would need to have saved $825,000. Work to age 67 and the multiple drops to 9.4 ($705,000); retire at age 62 and the multiple rises to 13.5 ($1 million).

The fund company T. Rowe Price advises a multiple of 12 times final pay, while Fidelity calculates that a multiple of eight times pay will do the trick. All the firms use slightly different assumptions. But you can see that they are in the same ballpark and, more importantly, that it’s a big park.

Looking at it another way, BTN Research estimates that, assuming 5% average annual investment returns, for every $1,000 of monthly income you want over a 30-year retirement, you need $269,000 in the bank. Let’s consider that same household making $75,000 a year. To replace the commonly recommended 80% of income in retirement — or $60,000 in this case — the household would need $5,000 a month. In this calculation, this household’s number is $1.35 million, or 18 times final pay. A higher investment return would bring the numbers down.

Finally, there is the approach that Dallas Salisbury, president of the Employee Benefit Research Institute offers: You need 33 times what you expect to spend in your first year of retirement—after subtracting Social Security benefits. Let’s take that same household, which spends every penny of its $60,000 income in retirement. Say this household collects $20,000 a year in Social Security. That leaves it spending $40,000 from other sources. So this household still needs a nest egg of $1.32 million, or just shy of 18 times final pay.

Don’t be discouraged. These are just estimates. A household with two good traditional pensions plus Social Security, and zero savings, might be in fine shape while a household with $1 million in the bank and no guaranteed lifetime income ends up struggling. That’s why your spending–not your savings–may be the most important part of the equation.

Basing your number on final pay has another flaw. What if you are frugal and live on far less than you earn? The household that earns $75,000 a year but saves 20% and thus spends only $60,000 need not squirrel away as much as a household earning $60,000 a year but which through credit spends $75,000. The latter household, by the way, is headed for real trouble — and, sadly, this situation is not uncommon.

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What you spend determines your nest egg needs. “In retirement, the key is to make sure your burn is less than your earn,” says John Sweeney, executive vice president of planning and advisory services at Fidelity. Everyone’s situation is different, which is why you need to think through your own case.

An array of online calculators can help you sort this out. Some key considerations:
Life expectancy The Society of Actuaries estimates that for a married 65-year-old couple, there is a 45% chance of one person reaching 90 and a 20% chance one will reach 95. Plan for a long life.
Medical costs EBRI estimates that a 65-year-old couple in 2019 that does not have any employer-provided health benefits will need $450,000 to have a 50% chance of funding health care expenses not covered by Medicare. Even with employer benefits, there is a 50% chance that out-of-pocket expenses will reach $268,000. Plan for this big expense.
Inflation Over 30 years, expect inflation to cut your spending power in half. You would need nearly $12,000 today to match the spending power of $5,000 in 1982.
Investment style You may never reach your number if you hide from stocks. Bond yields and short-term interest rates are so low that, adjusted for inflation, you may get little or no growth for years.
Savings rate A good rule of thumb is saving 15% of income each year throughout your working life. That puts you on track to replace about 85% of your final year’s salary for 30 years of retirement without worrying about some gigantic number. If you have not been saving at that rate, you may need to adjust your savings plan or your retirement expectations.

Most planners will tell you that there is no magic number, and they are right. Life has a way of throwing curveballs when you least expect them and there are so many unknowables like how long you will live and what the markets will do that you need to reassess your plan often as you approach retirement—while you still have time to change your savings patterns and choose to work longer if you must.

So what can you do now?

Start with a list of all your monthly expenses. Go through it looking for areas that you can or will reduce in retirement. Now consider any new expenses like escalating health care costs and travel and hobbies. Identify which of these is a fixed cost and which is discretionary. You’ll need a big enough number to secure an income stream that covers all fixed costs. This is your base number, the lowest one that you should consider acceptable."

How Important is Weather to Retirees?

Weather certainly plays a significant role in determining a location to move when one decides to retire. This is quite evident when looking at places like Southern California, Arizona, Las Vegas and Florida with their huge population of people in the over 55 crowd. But how important really is weather? I have spent a fair amount of time trying to get to the bottom of it and the results thus far are quite interesting, but not really surprising.

People who spent the bulk of their lives in places like New England and the Upper Mid-west seem to have the highest desire to retire in the sun-belt. That seems like the classic, "no-brainer". People from these areas have lived through what I called "Kill-U-Cold" winters and often faced snow and ice covered roads for months on end. So when perusing the forums and reading comments I find these folks be the ones saying things like; "I'm not shoveling snow anymore" or "I'm through being cold".

When I looked at the comments and postings from people in more mild climates the weather suddenly fell way down on the list of things that make a community desirable. Suddenly it was more about taxes, activities, proximity to family, etc. These folks talked about weather without the same demanding tone. It's more about the extremes than really. They don't want "Kill-U-Cold", but a little snow and rain isn't a deal breaker for them.

This may explain why I keep finding communities in Washington State falling onto "top ten best" lists for retirees. The latest one I found was "Top Ten Best Beach Communities". It appeared as a link form a retirement oriented lifestyle blog. Port Townsend, Washington made the list. There are no palm trees in Port Townsend and you won't likely have to worry about heatstroke... ever. Yet there it is; a top destination for retirees looking for a beach/waterfront experience. Port Townsend isn't even on the Pacific Ocean, it actually fronts the Puget Sound. It is a great town however.

A few posts back I listed general climate information for a variety of locations in Washington State. Take a look at them here.

In my experience as a Realtor®, I find that there are two overriding things that bring retirement age people to Washington State. Proximity to family and taxation. This is somewhat anecdotal but I think it holds true to reality. Washington State is not only a great place to retire, but it is a wonderful place to raise a family. Our schools are highly rated and our state constitution has some of the strongest pro-schools language in the nation. Washington has also weathered the roller coaster economy better than most areas in the country. This brings families to the the state and many retirees want to be close to those adorable little grandchildren. I have blathered on a great deal about taxes so by now you know that we stand strong in that arena for retirees. See more info in this post.

There is a third interesting anecdote I find recurring; many people who come here from California cite a desire to experience four seasons. Most Californians only have two season and many have only one. These folks don't want to live in the bitter cold winters, but they have suggested they feel like they are missing out on the four season experience. I can relate to that as I like having four distinct seasons. I actually wish Vancouver got a little more snow each year.

There are many reasons to move to Washington no matter what stage in life you are at.

Washington's Retirement Rep is Getting Stronger

Ten years ago the popular Trilogy adult communities built by Shea Homes had but one subdivision in Washington state and that was in the expensive Redmond area. Now Shea has two more subdivisions in Lacey and Bonney Lake to keep up with demand here in the Evergreen State. They have as many here as they do in Arizona and more than Florida!

Yes, it seems our "rep" is growing and many retirees are flocking to the tax friendly communities in the state named after our first president. Below is a link to a recent affirmation that Washington is a premium destination for the Baby Boomer looking to settle down.

http://www.topretirements.com/state/washington.html