Great Places for a Rich Retirement
from May/June 2008
by Randy Myers
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William Raduchel, former chief technology officer for AOL Time Warner and now a business consultant, investor, and independent director, is too busy to think seriously about retirement right now, especially if it’s centered on rest and relaxation. “I tried it once,” he says, “but it was boring.” Still, Raduchel, 61, who sits on the boards of publicly held software companies Blackboard Inc., Chordiant Software Inc., and Silicon Image Inc. and chairs Opera Software ASA of Norway, can certainly envision a time when he’ll be ready for a change of pace. And when that time comes, he just might be willing to jettison his homes in Great Falls, Virginia, and Palo Alto, California, and live somewhere completely different for a couple of years—somewhere like Shanghai, perhaps. “I’m not going to get to live in the future,” he says, “but I might like to see it. And I think Shanghai is going to be a good place to do that.”
Retirement can indeed provide an opportunity to satisfy wanderlust or curiosity. And you don’t even have to resign from your boards. Jet travel makes most meeting sites accessible within a day, even from Shanghai. And with videoconferencing increasingly popular, if the technology is available at your retirement location you can attend a meeting without leaving home ground.
Traditionally, Europe has offered the most tempting locales to live in, say, for six months a year. But the diminishing dollar makes great cities like London, Paris, or Rome and famous countrysides like Provence or the stunning Amalfi Coast pricier than they used to be. Even if money isn’t a consideration, you might want to think about other, less heavily traveled spots for a more imaginative and fulfilling experience. John Brian Losh, chairman and CEO of LuxuryRealEstate.com, a website devoted to marketing grand properties around the world, says that Poland, Romania, and Hungary all have beautiful homes available, as well as extraordinarily low living costs. South America is worth investigating too, he says: Montevideo, on the mouth of the Rio de la Plata in Uruguay, is remarkably European, cosmopolitan, and safe, as are Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Santiago, Chile. The truly adventurous might think about Shanghai, as Raduchel has done, or Thailand.
Overall, however, says Losh, most retirees tend to follow well-traveled routes to retirement havens, often ending up close to where they’ve skied or sat on a beach over the years. “People from the East will go to the Atlantic Coast, people from the Midwest will go to the Gulf Coast, and those in the West will go to places like Palm Springs, Phoenix, a resort in the Rockies, or if they’re a little more adventurous, Mexico,” he says. “People like to go where they’re comfortable and can see old friends.”
Of course, you can enjoy a change of scenery in retirement without making a long-distance move. Walter Fiederowicz, 61, managing director of venture capital firm Painter Hill Partners and chairman of Bermuda-based Omega Insurance Holdings and Photronics Inc., a company in Brookfield, Connecticut, that makes parts for semiconductors, recently bought a condominium in midtown Manhattan, just two hours from the home he already owns in Litchfield, Connecticut. “My wife and I do a lot of international traveling and had been looking for another home in places different than Litchfield,” he says. “Then a light bulb went off. We realized that we like going to the symphony and the opera, and we like New York City, so why not there?”
Your first priority when picking a retirement home, travel experts say, is to think about what’s important to you. How close do you want to be to family and friends? What type of climate and what kinds of leisure activities do you prefer? If you’re considering living outside the U.S., how important is it to be around other expatriates? Do you know the local language, and how willing are you to embrace different cultures? If you plan to maintain some business interests in the U.S.—a couple of outside board seats, for example—how good are the communications systems and how convenient are the airports and flight schedules? “Culture shock is real,” says Suzan Haskins, 52, Latin America editorial director of International Living magazine. “If you are very regimented and used to having things done a certain way, and can’t tolerate someone doing things differently, you’re going to have a hard time living in a foreign country.”
Two other pieces of advice from the experts: Consider renting a retirement home until you’re sure that the new city or country you’ve chosen is right for you. And to enjoy both the comfort and convenience of the familiar and the challenge and excitement of the new, think about holding on to your current residence and using your retirement place as a second home. While you’re sorting out your needs and dreams, take a look at the following cross section of highly rated retirement places around the world:
Austin, Texas. This colorful, friendly city of 709,893 ranked fourth in the U.S. (behind colder Boulder, Colorado, rainy Portland, Oregon, and more heavily populated San Antonio, Texas) in the book Retire in Style: 60 Outstanding Places Across the USA and Canada. The author, Warren Bland, a professor of geography at California State University in Northridge, scored the cities and towns on 12 criteria ranging from landscape and climate to cost of living and quality of health care. Among Austin’s attributes, he says, are pleasant, well-planned neighborhoods and excellent outdoor activities, including water sports on the Colorado River and three man-made lakes, plus plenty of golf courses. The city also offers access to cultural, academic, and collegiate-sports activities at hometown University of Texas. Austin is the self-proclaimed live-music capital of the world, with a wide array of styles and artists—among them resident Willie Nelson. There’s a good choice of spacious, stylish homes in the $500,000 range, and half that amount will buy a 3,000-square-foot brick McMansion in a suburb on the outskirts of town. Air travel revolves around 24-gate Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, which for all its modest size offers nonstop flights to 50 other cities and was named best domestic airport in a survey of more than 200,000 passengers around the world by industry trade group Airports Council International in 2006. And the city has 11 hospitals, including the Heart Hospital of Austin, which for the past five years has been rated No. 1 for overall cardiac-care services in Texas by the annual HealthGrades Hospital Quality in America Study.
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Buenos Aires’ Plaza de Mayo |
Buenos Aires. “People are shocked,” says luxury real estate broker John Brian Losh, “when they go to Argentina and Uruguay and find out it’s just like going to Europe.” But cheaper. Michael Koh, a Chicago native who’s been living in Buenos Aires for the past five years and now runs a Web-based real estate business there called ApartmentsBA.com, says apartments in desirable neighborhoods such as Recoleta and Palermo sell for about $269 per square foot—approximately $296,000 for a typical 1,100-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bath unit with a maid’s room and bath. A luxury four-bedroom, four-bath apartment in one of the city’s better buildings, covering 3,864 square feet on two floors, was recently listed for $1.1 million, or about $285 per square foot. The climate in the Argentine capital is typically agreeable, with temperatures ranging from 94°F in January to 50° in July. The city offers elegant shopping, sophisticated dining, one of the world’s major opera houses in the Teatro Colón, numerous museums and parks, and, of course, tango clubs. Soccer is the national passion; Buenos Aires has the highest concentration of fútbol teams of any city in the world, including two dozen pro outfits. Health care is generally good in Buenos Aires, though it can vary in quality outside the capital. Brazil’s Telecommunications Liberalization Plan of 1998 encouraged the spread of modern telecommunications, and today major phone networks throughout the country are all digital, nearly everyone carries a mobile phone, and access to broadband Internet service is common and increasing. The Ministro Pistarini International Airport, more commonly known as Ezeiza Airport, is about a 40-minute drive from the city’s center. Nonstop flights between Buenos Aires and New York City take approximately 11 hours; nonstop service is also available to Chicago, Dallas, Miami, and Washington, D.C.
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On the waterfront in Dubai, with the sail-shaped Birj al-Arab hotel as backdrop
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Dubai, United Arab Emirates. For the adventurous, Dubai may be one of the most fascinating places in the world. Wealthy on revenues from its vast reserves of oil and gas, it has become known around the globe for its breathtaking real estate projects, such as indoor ski runs and the cluster of man-made islands called the World, shaped like the continents and available for individual purchase. Though it is on the volatile Persian Gulf, Dubai seems sheltered from the region’s chaos and cultural restrictions. It has modern health care (its American Hospital Dubai is the first hospital in the Middle East accredited by the Joint Commission International), plush hotels, the world’s tallest skyscraper, and high-style restaurants, including one designed to appear underwater, which guests can enter in a special elevator decked out like a submarine. “Dubai is exotic, it’s friendly, and it’s the place everybody is talking about because of its building boom,” Losh says. “But it can also reach 120° in the summertime, and it’s literally halfway around the world—12 time zones away if you’re from the West Coast.” Emirates Airline offers nonstop service between Dubai and several major North American cities; the trip to New York is about 17 hours. Dubai has a modern fiber-optic telecommunications network with ubiquitous cell-phone and high-speed Internet access. New apartments and villas are priced in the $1 million range. Bruce Fenton, founder and president of Atlantic Financial Inc., a money management company focused on global investing, particularly in the Middle East, calls it a “hip, cool, fun place” that’s “perfect for retirees who like great weather, golf, and luxury.” Just be sure your air conditioner is working come summer.
Maui, Hawaii. Easterners may think of Hawaii as half a world away, but it’s only about five and a half hours from San Francisco and already a popular retirement locale for many on the West Coast. The second-largest of the Hawaiian Islands, lush Maui features temperatures that range, on average, from the mid-60s to the upper 80s year-round. It’s also got stunning beaches, soaring mountains, great golf and tennis, and some of the best whale-watching in the world. All that was sufficient to persuade Ann and Frank Moe to make Maui their permanent home early this year, after retiring from their jobs in Seattle. “Clearly the weather was a factor,” says Ann, 63, who was president of an investment-management firm; Frank was a private banker. “When you’re working in Seattle and it’s gray nine months of the year, that’s okay—the summers are nice. But when you’re retired, things you want to do today are influenced by the weather. Also, Maui is developed enough that it had the kind of infrastructure we want—dentists, doctors, a Home Depot, high-speed Internet service.” In last year’s 20th annual Condé Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Awards poll, Maui captured the title Best Pacific Island for the 17th consecutive year and Best Island in the World for the 13th time. The average price of a single-family home sold in Maui last year was $920,807, according to the Realtors Association of Maui Inc., but the median price was a more modest $630,069, down about 9% from 2006. Special properties with elaborate price tags are plentiful. Recently, for example, a 5.8-acre, 3,341-square-foot cliff-top estate featuring exotic hardwoods and spectacular views of both the Pacific Ocean and the mountains was on the market for $4 million. An oceanfront property in Makena set a new record price for a Maui home last year when it sold for $19.2 million. Hawaii is statistically the healthiest state in the U.S., and the islands, all of them linked by air ambulance, offer a total of half a dozen major medical centers and 40 nationally accredited health-care facilities. In Maui, cable and phone companies provide high-speed Internet service.
Mérida, Mexico. Mexico offers all the amenities you’re accustomed to in the States, including high-quality health care, as well as a cost of living that makes luxuries such as a maid, cook, and gardener easily affordable. Home to modern cities and beautiful beaches—there’s nearly 6,000 miles of coastline—Mexico has a climate that varies from arid to tropical. Mérida is on the country’s eastern tip, west of the resort town of Cancún. Only 30 minutes from the Gulf Coast, it boasts an international airport, a modern telecommunications infrastructure, and a growing community of American expatriates. “We’re seeing more and more folks coming down here, especially people who can afford a part-time getaway home,” says International Living’s Suzan Haskins, a Midwesterner who moved to Mérida last year with her husband, Dan Prescher, publisher of the magazine and also, like Haskins, a writer. Ron Jackson, president of Meadowbrook Golf Inc., a golf management company headquartered in ChampionsGate, Florida, is among the newcomers. He has visited 74 countries, many of them while serving as president and COO of Resorts Condominiums International, a time-share outfit that’s now a unit of hospitality company Wyndham Worldwide Corp. Four years ago Jackson and his wife, Sylvia, bought a 110-year-old hacienda in Mérida, then spent a year having the property renovated. They envision the house as their retirement home. “We looked at Morocco, Costa Rica, a lot of places,” Jackson says. “Then we spent some time in Mérida, and we love it. Air service to the U.S. is terrific, and Yucatán has a tremendous amount of culture going back to its Mayan history, as well as some of the nicest people in Mexico. You could think you’re in a European city. We quite enjoy it.”
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“A light bulb went off” and Walter and Gerry Fiederowicz picked Manhattan for their second home. |
New York City. To people who have spent their careers in what many would consider the belly of the nation’s business beast, the very thought of retiring to New York might seem outrageous. But no other metropolis in the country, and few in the world, can offer anything close to the city’s combination of energy, entertainment, shopping, restaurants, and cultural attractions. “Everyone knows New York is a great place to visit; I think it’s a great place to live,” says Retire in Style author Warren Bland. While acknowledging that many people are put off by the cost of living there, he suspects that won’t be an issue for plenty of retired corporate directors. Sound inviting? New York’s real estate brokers will be happy to show you two-bedroom, two-bath condos in midtown Manhattan that can be had for, say, $2 million. Air-travel access? Well, given all the delays, having a private plane is a help. But technological connections and health care are as good as it gets.
Quito, Ecuador. Like Panama, tiny Ecuador—its population of 13.8 million is little more than half that of the city of Shanghai—has embraced the U.S. dollar as its official currency. In addition to being one of the cheapest countries in the world, Ecuador offers a high quality of life and various financial incentives for residents over 65, such as discounted airline tickets and reduced rates on taxes, utilities, and entertainment. Situated on the western edge of South America and bordering the Pacific Ocean at the equator, it features a tropical climate along the coast and cooler temperatures at higher inland elevations. International Living reports that cell phones are ubiquitous in Ecuador, that Internet connections are common, and that it would be hard to spend more than $50 on dinner for two in any of the country’s world-class restaurants, drinks included. While beachfront houses in small villages can be bought for as little as $65,000, the magazine says, most expatriates prefer the cooler climate and cosmopolitan lifestyle of colonial mountain cities like the capital, Quito, where new luxury condos are selling for about $50 to $65 a square foot. Health care is superb in Quito—hospitals offer state-of-the-art equipment and specialists in all fields—and costs a small fraction of what you’d pay in the U.S. Mariscal Sucre International Airport is serviced by American, Continental, and United Airlines, as well as a host of international carriers. You can get there from New York City in about eight hours.
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Shanghai offers traditional homes and customs—and a view of the future, says a director who’s thinking |
Shanghai. “China will be the world’s largest economy within 20 years, and Shanghai is going to be the most important city in that economy,” says William Raduchel. “It’s got tens of thousands of American expatriates already. It’s a huge, bustling city, and you can get around in English pretty well.” Skyscraper-dense Shanghai is the eighth-largest city in the world, but parts of it have a more European feel; tree-lined streets and Tudor mansions still remain in the former French Concession area, once called the Paris of the East. Cultural highlights include the Shanghai Museum, featuring 120,000 precious Chinese relics and artworks, and the 3.4-mile Nanjing Road, where more than 600 shops attract almost two million people each day. Expatriates in Shanghai can choose from a wide range of restaurants serving both local and multicultural cuisines, along with American-style cafés, restaurants, and delis. The area has several great golf courses, including the acclaimed Grand Shanghai International Golf and Country Club. EscapeArtist .com, an international real estate website, recently advertised a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment in Pudong, a newer part of the city on the east bank of the Huangpu River, for $1,500 per month. In addition to a swimming pool and convenient access to the nearby business, shopping, and entertainment district, the building has a high-speed Internet connection and hookups to international TV networks, including CNN and the BBC. Shanghai is served by two international airports, with direct flights to dozens of the world’s biggest cities, including Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle. A number of hospitals in the city, among them Shanghai East International Medical Center and United Family Hospitals, cater specifically to the international community.
