US News has listed the top 150 places to retire and I was totally shocked to see that North Carolina barely squeaked into the top 25. The North Carolina city that did squeak in there, I would say is one of the worst places to retire in the state. I’ll tell you why I don’t think Asheville should have made the list later, but first let’s cover the basics.
I’ve talked to a lot of retirees and there is a pretty common list of what they want. Retirees want a city to have a reasonable cost of living, including both the cost of housing as well as taxes. There has to be fun things to do. They want access to good medical care although younger retirees may not put as much weight on that.
May we all play tennis until we’re 100!
And some people are concerned about weather, especially those who are coming from areas with extreme weather. People are also concerned with the economy and jobs in the area, because 25% of retirees move to live near their adult children. And their children need jobs. Besides that, a good economy, means a more diverse set of things to do. I’m going to dig into all these things, the good stuff and the bad.
Cost of Living
Housing – Retire in North Carolina
Housing was actually something that I was going to call a negative for North Carolina, because our housing prices have gotten higher, we are no longer the cheapest on the block. and we do have a state income tax. So those are negatives. But if you actually dig into the real costs of living, you’ll see that there are a lot of expenses that are cheaper here that level things out a bit. Once I put it on paper, it wasn’t as much of a negative as I was expecting if you retire in North Carolina.
Most of the towns that make it to the top of the list on US News have home prices under $300k.. In North Carolina our median home price is $320,000, but the bad news is that if you live in or close to the major cities, that price goes up quite a bit. In Charlotte homes are about $383k and in Raleigh our median home price is $432,000. The good news is, some of the minor cities are remarkably cheaper than the average. But why are they so cheap? Let’s take a look.
Housing Prices by City
| Raleigh | Charlotte | Greensboro | Winston Salem | Asheville | Wilmington |
| 432,000 | 383,000 | 248,000 | 241,000 | 454,000 | 387,000 |
Honestly even the cheaper cities have a lot to offer for the price. First let me say that both Winston Salem and Greensboro are beautiful cities. I really do like both of them and I travel to them often because they have some cool museums. I love the science center in Greensboro and I was a member for a while at Old Salem which is a living history museum in Winston Salem.
If you have the chance to go, you really need to go visit. I also really love both of their downtowns. They are small but the people there I have encountered have always been friendly. If price is your main concern and you don’t want to live in. the country, the Triad cities can be the best places to retire in North Carolina.
But here are the downsides of Greensboro and Winston Salem. First, the economy just isn’t up to Raleigh or Charlotte yet. They haven’t attracted the companies that the Triangle and Charlotte have. Actually, the Triad tends to lose more companies than gain them. It’s a common thing for small startups to begin in the Triad, but then move to one of the bigger cities, once they are big enough to afford the increased price tag. I think one of the factors is the small regional airport in Greensboro is not as conducive to receiving inventory if you’re a business.
The small airport is also something to keep in mind if you travel. Both Raleigh and Charlotte have large international airports with lots of direct flights. Charlotte definitely has more direct flights than Raleigh. At any rate, the lack of economic growth in the smaller cities means that there is always going to be less to do in these cities. They really are just a little more boring and pretty limited in activities compared to the larger cities.
Another expense that often comes with housing is insurance. I have recently had a flood of people calling me from Florida. I have had multiple people tell me their homeowners insurance went up so high they couldn’t afford their house anymore. Two different people told me their insurance had increased $700 a month!
According to Insurance.com, in North Carolina our insurance rates are right around the national average with the average homeowner paying $231 per month. I actually thought that sounded high and then I scrolled down a bit and saw that State Farm has the best rates in the state with an average of $129/month, which is more in line with what I pay. Why are people paying double the amount when State Farm is so much cheaper?? And I’m not sponsored by State Farm or anything, I’m just telling you what I know.
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Taxes – Retire in North Carolina
Now let’s talk about taxes. We DO have a state income tax. It just went down, and the state has a plan to get our state tax rate to 3.99% by 2026. We do not tax social security. However, we do tax your retirement accounts and any public or private pensions. Smart Asset calls North Carolina moderately tax friendly.
And here is a really cool resource: On the SmartAsset website, you can click on any state, in this case, North Carolina, and enter how much you have in retirement investments, in social security, any other income you have and they will tell you how much your annual taxes will be in the state of North Carolina.
Now this is not everything you need to think about with the cost of living, it’s really important to look at the overall cost of living. Not just taxes and home prices. Like we just saw, with insurance rates, Medical care can be way more expensive in some places and way cheaper in others.
And this is one of the things that I noticed on the US News list, was that many of the towns they recommend have lower median home prices, but if you look at this map, the overall cost of living is much more expensive in Pennsylvania, where many of their “affordable” recommendations are.
Costs that are Cheaper Here
Housing is cheaper but food is more expensive, healthcare is more expensive, utilities are more expensive, transportation costs are more expensive, taxes are more expensive and lots of miscellaneous things are more expensive. It’s not exactly a break even, but almost.
So, I guess the lesson here is don’t make a decision based solely on the home price. You might give up a lot of lifestyle amenities to get that lower priced home and not really save much in the end.
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Weather – Retire in North Carolina
When you’re looking for the best places to retire in North Carolina, weather is a really important factor, particularly for people living in snow belts or in areas with extreme weather. But the weather in North Carolina is really relative to where you have been living.
Winter Weather in North Carolina
I grew up in south Florida, I lived there for about 20 years and my family all still lives there so I visit on occasion. It took me some time to get used to the grayer days here in the winter. If you’re from up north, it will be much sunnier here than you’re used to, but if you’re from Southern California or anywhere in the sunbelt, winter skies are more grey than you will be used to. I will say, that taking a vitamin D and a fish oil supplement, completely reversed any seasonal moodiness that I had when I first moved here. I actually love winters now. It’s cozy and I love being able to curl up in front of the fireplace with some coffee and a snuggly blanket.
Summer Storms and Flooding in North Carolina
On the other side of the weather spectrum is summer and fall storms. We do get hurricanes. It’s like they bounce off Florida and barrel right for North Carolina. And if they don’t bounce off of Florida, they’re coming at us from the Gulf and hitting the mountains.
We are actually third in line for the most hurricanes. Florida is first, Texas is second. Then North Carolina. I have personally lived in all three of those states, and it made me really curious about something because to me it really seems like we don’t have nearly as much damage in North Carolina from hurricanes as Florida and Texas. I know anecdotal evidence isn’t the best judge so and I like to support my claims with actual data, so I was excited to find that I was correct.
Historically, Florida, Texas and Lousisiana have the highest financial damage from hurricanes. I was surprised to see that New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey had higher hurricane damage costs than North Carolina as well, even though we get hit with more hurricanes.
One reason is definitely how far above sea level we are. In Texas, Florida and Louisiana they have huge populations right at sea level and even below. Our North Carolina coastal towns are pretty small and don’t have a ton of infrastructure compared to those states.
We do actually have flooding here, but nowhere near the scale of the other hurricane prone areas in the south. At any rate, when we have hurricanes here, again, we don’t have large populations on the coast. And by the time they get inland, the most common problem is large amounts of rain, that make our shallow rooted pine trees topple over easily on power lines. We do get localized flooding and you will hear people talking about it but it is NOTHING like flooding in Florida.
Lifestyle if you Retire in North Carolina
I think lifestyle is where North Carolina really shines. There is so so so much to do and a ton of it is free. There are many museums throughout the state. In Raleigh we have the largest natural science museum in the southeast.
- Shows DPAC, Tanger Center, or Blumenthal Center
- Classes at universities
- Historical exhibits, living history museums
- Take sailing classes, day trips to the coast to see the wild horses
- Big pottery state lots of opportunity to learn pottery
- Sports, pickle ball, disc golf
- Art classes
- Fishing hiking horseback riding stand up paddle boarding canoeing
- Tours in the Yadkin Valley wine country
- Snow skiing
- Golf
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Medical Care – Retire in North Carolina
Where to Find the Best Medical Care in North Carolina
We have incredible medical care in North Carolina. BUT, it really depends on where you live. And here’s where we’re going to talk about some of the differences in location. Three of the top five hospitals are in the Raleigh area. Two in the Raleigh area are nationally ranking. The third nationally ranking hospital is in Charlotte. And Pinehurst has a hospital in the top 5 as well.
If you live in the more rural parts of the state, you’re going to have to travel for medical care. And honestly, here’s something you might not hear anywhere else. Asheville, has been popular with retirees for years, but they’ve been having some big issues with their healthcare system.
Problems with Medical Care in North Carolina
A few years ago, their primary hospital which was a non profit hospital sold to a large for profit healthcare chain and the quality of care went downhill. I think the situation is summed up by this quote from the article: Ken Zamkoff, a retired hematologist/oncologist in Asheville, told Asheville Watchdog he would not go to Mission (that’s the name of their hospital) for elective hospitalization. He said he’s dissuaded four families with elderly relatives from moving to Asheville. His advice to one, a fellow physician with a 78-year-old mother: “Don’t come here.”
“I’m incensed by what’s happening,” Zamkoff said. “I am a physician and I think people are suffering, and their lives may even be unnecessarily at risk, from inadequate staffing.” The hospital in question is the main hospital for the Asheville area and used to have very high scores, until the sale which led to staffing cuts. Some of the reviews I’ve read are truly disgusting. So just be aware of that issue before you choose Asheville.
There are a few other things to know about medical care in North Carolina as well:
Waiting lists aren’t always an issue and I think that is only in the most central locations. When we moved to Holly Springs from Cary last year, I decided I wasn’t that dedicated to my doctor so got a new one here and we didn’t wait at all and got incredible doctors.
Also, there are four VA hospitals in North Carolina, in Durham, Fayetteville, Asheville, and Salisbury (outside of Charlotte) and seven VA clinics, 3 of which are in Raleigh. In contrast to the private medical care in Asheville, the Asheville VA Center ranks highest of the VA hospitals in the state. So if you’re a veteran, Asheville might be a good spot for you.
Why You should be cautious of US News rankings:
If you’re looking for the best places to retire in North Carolina, you may be familiar with some popular national ranking resources. But you should take some of these rankings with a big grain of salt. Asheville wasn’t the only discrepancy I saw.
In the US News rankings, all but 1 of the top 17 cities were in Florida or Pennsylvania. Florida I get… there is a reason it has been a top retirement location forever. But if you look at this map of inward to outward relocation moves, you can see that Pennsylvania is losing way more people than they are gaining. People don’t retire TO Pennsylvania, they retire from Pennsylvania.
After really digging into the methodologies, I do not think these rankings are very reliable. They’re way too general to give you an accurate representation of what quality of life is like in an area, which is why deep dive videos like I’m doing here are so important.
Let me give you one really good example from my research.
Asheville North Carolina ranked the highest of any other North Carolina city for best place to retire. Raleigh didn’t make it into the top 25. But if I dig into their methodologies of how they rank places, I see a big disconnect between the criteria they are supposedly using to create the rankings and the city’s actual value in those areas.
Here’s an example. The housing affordability index carries the most weight in their algorithm. But median home values in Asheville are higher than median values in Raleigh. Okay so maybe that’s just one point and the other points outweigh that one. But then there is the medical care. The health care quality index is weighted third in their algorithm. But if you look at Asheville’s healthcare, it’s horrible compared to Raleigh. Genuinely horrible.
Mission hospital in Asheville is the highest ranking in the mountain region. But look at the rankings… two stars in patient experience. And almost all of their procedures are 3 out of 5 rankings. Compare that to the Triangle which has the top two performing hospitals in the nation, Duke and UNC. We have some of the top doctors in the US for just about every speciality.
And then there is the happiness index. It’s weighted 22% of the rankings and almost half of that is crime rates. The crime rates in Asheville are more than double what they are in Raleigh. Taxes are higher in Asheville. The job market and economy are way better in Raleigh. How, if Raleigh performs better on every single criteria in their methodology, how on earth did Raleigh rank lower than Asheville??
Honestly, I think they just give everyone their turn. And maybe there is a little bit of a conspiracy theorist in me, but could they just be trying to shift people’s attention to new places so we don’t have such a rush of people going to all the same places? I have no idea what the answer is, but this doesn’t make any rational sense.
