How Forbes Picks The Best Places To Retire And How To Find Your Ideal Spot
Last year, after three years at sea, they settled on The Villages, a fast-growing active retirement haven in central Florida north of Orlando, midway between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico (or as the Trump Administration calls it, the Gulf of America). 'We decided to sell the boat and go back to land,' says Ken. Their new home is a three-bedroom, three-bath, one-story house with 3,500 square feet—more living space than the boat, and for that matter, the facility they left behind in Oregon. Also left behind: the Beaver State's colder weather and stiff personal income tax. (Florida doesn't have an income tax.) 'Here, every week is six Saturdays and a Sunday,' exults Ken, now 57, a year older than his wife.
Samoyeds (from front) Rumor, Gator and Howdy accompanied Ken and Kathy Granacki on their nautical search for their best retirement place.
Courtesy Ken Granacki
The Granackis' water-based search produced a solid result. The Villages, with a population of 155,000, is the only Florida community to win a spot on Forbes' new list of 25 Best Places To Retire In 2025, which identifies locales providing high quality retirement living at an affordable price. The cost of living in The Villages is 2% below the national average and the median house there is $404,000, right at the national median. Rising property insurance premiums have caused consternation in hurricane-and-flood-prone Florida, but The Villages sits comfortably away from the areas with the greatest potential for storm tidal flooding, so premiums remain tolerable.
That Ken Granacki hit the seas to check out retirement venues fit with his heritage. He grew up in Bellingham, Washington, a port city north of Seattle near the Canadian border on Puget Sound, where boats are everywhere. His wife of 16 years is from Grants Pass, Oregon. After a lifetime in the Pacific Northwest, 'We wanted to go someplace warm, with no gray winters,' he says, but with the same emphasis on outdoor activities as Bend. Their four kids from previous marriages were grown and out of the house.
Before setting out on their aquatic odyssey, they ruled out some places. Arizona, they decided, was too dry. They previously had a get-away place in the Atlantic Ocean town of Boynton Beach, Fla., but found the folks there a little too impersonal. On their journey they checked out and rejected places like Brunswick, Ga., ('It's seen its better days,' says Ken) and North Carolina's Outer Banks ('too remote; we wanted to be closer to stuff'). They also realized they wanted a place with what Ken calls 'an up-and-coming economy,' in case he wanted to buy investment property or even have a second career as a real estate agent 'if I get bored with golf and pickleball.' The Villages fits that economic profile in spades; it sits in the Orlando metropolitan area, ranked in the top 6% on the Milken Institute's new economic list of 'Best Performing Cities' in the U.S.
The couple learned about The Villages, which started a half-century ago as a mobile home park, from online videos they watched on the boat. While having boat maintenance work done in Jacksonville, they rented a car, drove to The Villages, and were hooked. Eventually, they rented a house there for six months before buying. 'We feel like we live in a retirement Disneyland here,' Ken gushes.
To start your own search, take a look at Forbes 25 picks here; they're spread across 19 states in all four domestic time zones—a recognition that many folks want to retire near family. To make its selection, Forbes compiled data on more than 950 places with populations above 10,000, in every state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The main factors we took into account involve money, especially median home prices and overall cost of living, both compared to national measures. Also reviewed are state taxes, including marginal tax rates, income tax exemptions for Social Security benefits and other retirement income, and the existence of state estate or inheritance taxes. On the theory that a good local economy helps retirees looking for part-time work or later selling a home, we use job and economic growth prospects from the Milken Institute's latest 'Best Performing Cities' report.
Quality of life is also important, so we look at a number of non-economic indicators, ruling out cities with far too high rates of serious crime compared to national averages or way too few primary care doctors per capita. We also take into consideration factors that promote an active retirement, including air quality and ratings for walkability (how easy it is to shop and get to places on foot) and bikeability (whether dedicated lanes and other measures make it easy to bike around town). While the data underlying the list is quantitative, final picks are qualitative, reflecting our judgment.
For the sixth year, we weighed each area's vulnerability to climate change and natural disaster risk, primarily using the National Risk Index for Natural Hazards published by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This calculates for every county, including municipalities in Puerto Rico, a vulnerability measure encompassing 18 natural hazards, including flooding, hurricanes, landslides, earthquakes and wind. We automatically exclude places assigned a 'very high' risk rating.
Our full write-up for each of our picks includes extra information points that don't influence our final choices but might affect yours. These include county-wide results in the 2024 presidential election.
Sources for our data include: the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, FEMA, the Tax Foundation, the Milken Institute, individual state tax departments, zillow.com, trulia.com, bestplaces.net, neighborhoodscout.com, the National Association of Realtors, countyhealthrankings.org, walkscore.com, the League of American Bicyclists and state or local election agencies.
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