Top 5 States Where Retirees Are Moving

Michael Collins, founder and CEO of WinCap Financial in Winchester, Massachusetts, says health care is one of the first things he brings up with clients weighing a retirement move.

“You always have to remind people [to consider] the health care infrastructure in the area they’re moving,” he says. “I’ve had clients ask, ‘What's the cheapest state for taxes?’ And I’m like, yeah, but you’re three hours away from the hospital.”

The data also suggests a move toward earlier retirement, for those who can afford it.

Thirty-seven percent of people who moved for retirement last year were younger than 65 (up from 26 percent in 2022), and nearly a quarter were under 55. The median income for relocating retirees was more than $88,000, 35 percent higher than the 2022 figure.

“I think a lot of Americans in that stage of their life have looked at their retirement account balances and said, you know what? Life’s too short. I should go do what I want,” particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Collins says. “I saw that a great deal with my clients. A lot of people retired between 59 and 62 over the last three years.”

Collins, who also teaches finance at Endicott College in Beverly, Massachusetts, says that in weighing where to retire, his clients generally consider “lifestyle first, cost second.” But “people will still downsize to more affordable areas,” he adds. “I think that's a retirement trend that’s never going to leave us.”

Gone to Carolina

Lifestyle and affordability both factor into South Carolina’s rise as a retirement destination, says Philip Gibson, a certified financial planner with Wealth Enhancement Group in Rock Hill, a city in the northern part of the state.

The Palmetto State ticks several boxes for retirees on the move — a mild climate, plentiful beaches, world-class golf — while offering a lower cost of living than some other hot spots and relatively affordable housing. The median home value in South Carolina was about $287,000 in November, according to Zillow estimates, compared to $391,000 in Florida.

That’s more within reach for many retirees, especially those who’ve seen the value of longtime homes spike in recent years and can plow those gains into a new place in a lower-priced market, says Gibson, who is also a professor of finance at Winthrop University in Rock Hill.

“Owning a home is one of the major factors in being able to move somewhere, where you probably even end up with more square footage and a home that is actually more friendly” for aging bodies, Gibson says.

“Instead of having a home that has maybe two or three stories, you may go for a ranch-style home, or a home with one and a half floors,” he says. “Being able to buy a home outright that provides you with a yard, more square footage, potentially, and also just better on the body.”

A similar dynamic may be at play in the list of top cities for retirement relocations. Florida topped the list here, too, with Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach the most popular destination for retirees moving to metropolitan areas, but El Paso was a surprise number two. The West Texas town had never been in the top 10 since Hire A Helper started compiling retiree move data in 2020. 

“Cheaper housing, right?” Marquit says. “One of the things we found is that the folks who are more likely to talk about saving money in retirement were most likely to choose El Paso and places like Kansas City [which ranked 10th]. The folks that had more savings and were more interested in lifestyle and health reasons were moving to Miami, Fort Lauderdale.”​