The
interior of the community center at Sun City Anthem in
Las Vegas. There are indoor and outdoor
pools, exercise rooms, game rooms, class rooms, health
care facilities, a restaurant and spectacular views.
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Questions to ask
yourself about Sunbelt retirement
Retirement communities in
the sunbelt states have come a long long way from the dumpy
little boxes the Del Webb corporation built in
Arizona a couple of decades ago. Then, the tiny one
bedroom retiree homes were substitutes for living in a trailer
park. Maybe there was a pool in the community, but mostly
the idea was to build something cheap for older people with
limited incomes.
Today, many age-restricted
communities are like country clubs. The homes are spacious, even luxurious--with prices to
match. The amenities seem endless. And
homeowners' fees get higher with each "extra" within
the community.
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Luxury retirement vs.
economy class
With a
little scouting around, it is possible to find other less
luxurious retirement
communities with fewer amenities and significantly lower price
tags even in major retirement centers like Las Vegas and
Phoenix. Ask yourself: Do you need an onsite health
care facility? Do you need an onsite golf course? Do
you need an onsite billiards room? An onsite restaurant?
The most important factors
to consider before you move to a sunbelt retirement village
are:
1. What you really need to have within
the community
2. What you
are willing to pay for it - both for your retirement home and
for those monthly homeowners' fees
3. What you can find outside the
walls in the larger city or town where the retirement
development is located.
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City life, Country Life
The other big question to
ask: "Is living in a big city like Vegas or Phoenix best
for you?" Some builders are now moving out into
lower cost areas with their newest retirement villages.
For example, there is a retirement village being built in Mesquite, about 40
miles up the road from Las Vegas. The cost?
Significantly less than at comparable communities in Vegas. The
amenities are similar. For more details about
retiring to Las Vegas, click
here. For Phoenix, click
here.
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Some retirement
communities allow potential homeowners to rent a villa for a few
days within the community to "test drive" the
experience of living there. Ask the builder about this.
Snowbird Villas
Phoenix and some areas of
Florida offer retirees different choices: communities that are basically winter escapes
for snowbirds. Come March they empty out as everyone goes
back home. Other retirees live year 'round in
Arizona and Florida --but, boy, it is
sizzling hot in the summer in both areas. Las Vegas,
which also has long, scorching hot summers, does not have many
seasonal snow bird
communities. It is cold in Vegas in the winter.
Hot Summers Mean Living
Indoors
If you are someone who
enjoys being outdoors you will find that in the hot summers of
Nevada and Arizona, you will spend 4 or 5 months (May through
September) every summer
living inside in air conditioning. It is simply too hot to
go outside for any length of time. And in Las Vegas where
winter weather can be freezing, you will spend a couple of more
months every winter inside, too. For some people this is
not a problem, but it is for other retirees.
NOTE: All names
on this site have been changed to protect individual privacy. The stories are real, the names are not.
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