SFR Two years out....Retirement

Sorta fishing-related
Here's my best bit of retirement advice. If you are going to marry, marry the right person for the right reasons. There's a ton of resources out there now regarding relationships that weren't available when I was young. Read them, take them to heart, and use them in your relationship. It's the most important decision you'll ever make, and sets the tone for much of your life, both personally and financially. If you have any little voice in the back of your head suggesting that it's not the right move, listen to the voice, not to the list of reasons why it will all work out. Having the right partner can make your life amazing, or amazingly bad.

Lol. Not something I expected to write in a fly fishing forum! Better get back to the tying bench now....
After nearly 54 years of marriage to a wonderful partner in life I can attest that the above is the best bit of retirement prep advice in this thread.
 
I bought a fishing resort in the north cascades when I was 27 years old.
The year was 1981. I started working there in 1972.
I worked my tail off until 2017 when I sold it.
I caught more fish in that lake the year after I retired "sold" than the previous 40 plus years combined.
I don't regret one minute of that life but retirement is incredibly rewarding.
 
Anyone ever spend any time in the Taos, NM area?
We're headed there in Sept to check it out as a possible retirement location.
The Earthship community/building methodology looks quite interesting.
Have heard both good and bad about the community,
but can't argue with the sustainability of that design.
As luck would have it, a friend of a friend has put us in touch with someone living in an Earthship outside the community that ultimately fired Mike Reynolds during the build 2 decades ago. She has some choice words for the community, but speaks highly of the design.
And that is the point of this post......
How many of you bought land and built the retirement home as opposed to buying a home already on the market?
Our goal here is a cash purchase and no mortgage in retirement....particularly given today's interest rates.
Thoughts on the new trend in manufactured homes that are factory built, shipped in sections and set up by a contractor, reducing the build time from months to weeks? Many of those are also energy efficient and sustainable.
Pros and cons.....buy outright, or buy and build to suit?
 
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Anyone ever spend any time in the Taos, NM area?
We're headed there in Sept to check it out as a possible retirement location.
The Earthship community/building methodology looks quite interesting.
Have heard both good and bad about the community,
but can't argue with the sustainability of that design.
As luck would have it, a friend of a friend has put us in touch with someone living in an Earthship outside the community that ultimately fired Mike Reynolds during the build 2 decades ago. She has some choice words for the community, but speaks highly of the design.
And that is the point of this post......
How many of you bought land and built the retirement home as opposed to buying a home already on the market?
Our goal here is a cash purchase and no mortgage in retirement....particularly given today's interest rates.
Thoughts on the new trend in manufactured homes that are factory built, shipped in sections and set up by a contractor, reducing the build time from months to weeks? Many of those are also energy efficient and sustainable.
Pros and cons.....buy outright, or buy and build to suit?
I lived in Santa Fe and drove through and around Taos exploring trout streams. There's good fishing there!

If Outback Pizza still exists in Taos, they make a mean calzone.

The Milagro Beanfield War book and movie is set near there (Truchas, maybe?).

I think earthships are cool. A buddy of mine built a sunken rammed earth efficient home out side Santa Fe.
 
Would love to hear about his build. We'll be staying in Santa Fe and making day trips up to Taos to check out the Earthship community and see what we can with their tours at the visitor center. Hopefully meeting with the friend of a friend in her home and checking out her place which is for sale, but an order of magnitude outside of our price range.
 
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Reactions: Zak
Would love to hear about his build. We'll be staying in Santa Fe and making day trips up to Taos to check out the Earthship community and see what we can with their tours at the visitor center. Hopefully meeting with the friend of a friend in her home and checking out her place which is for sale, but an order of magnitude outside of our price range.
I'll reach out to him. I didn't see it getting built. It doesn't have the glass wall that a lot of earthships have.
 
I have experience with the new school manufactured homes, not for retirement, but for work. The land conservancy I work for owns a property up at 7600 feet (norcal) on which we wanted to build some ski huts. The ski huts are open to the public and we wanted to have a more ‘European style’ experience over the more rustic Sierra Club experience. Anyway, the huts (3of them) came up 7 miles on flat beds (the road is beastly) in sections of 3. The fdns were poured and each huts’ 3 segments were bolted together onsite. Then the roof was put on. The whole setup is quite nice. The outfit we used does the same construction for multi-million dollar homes. Shoot me a pm if you want more info on the manufacturer or hut photos.
 
Many in retirement talk about pairing down and jettisoning boat anchors. Do you retired guys own more or fewer flyrods in retirement?

I went through all my rods and reels. Kept my favorites for the style of fishing I enjoy the most. Sold the rest to pay for a couple of my bucket list trips.
 
Anyone ever spend any time in the Taos, NM area?
We're headed there in Sept to check it out as a possible retirement location.
The Earthship community/building methodology looks quite interesting.
Have heard both good and bad about the community,
but can't argue with the sustainability of that design.
As luck would have it, a friend of a friend has put us in touch with someone living in an Earthship outside the community that ultimately fired Mike Reynolds during the build 2 decades ago. She has some choice words for the community, but speaks highly of the design.
And that is the point of this post......
How many of you bought land and built the retirement home as opposed to buying a home already on the market?
Our goal here is a cash purchase and no mortgage in retirement....particularly given today's interest rates.
Thoughts on the new trend in manufactured homes that are factory built, shipped in sections and set up by a contractor, reducing the build time from months to weeks? Many of those are also energy efficient and sustainable.
Pros and cons.....buy outright, or buy and build to suit?
My folks were stationed there back in the 80's. I loved visiting because of the ski area and surrounding mountains. My mom was not a big fan, moving from eastern WA to Taos but too much of a culture shock for her. It is a small town and relies on tourists. They were transferred again in a few years and were glad to leave, but I would move there.
 
Pros and cons.....buy outright, or buy and build to suit?
Build to suit:
pros-get to design exactly the house you want
cons-customs rarely complete on schedule and budget, the most reliable/ethical contractors are always scheduled out a year or more, and there is a good reason why the other contractors aren't

Buy existing:
pros-you see exactly what you're getting and can move in at close of escrow
cons-the house may check most of the boxes, likely not all of them

we've owned a half dozen homes, went the custom route once..once was enough
 
The house we've been eyeing just went under contract.
Oh well.
There will be others.
 
Anyone ever spend any time in the Taos, NM area?

I have an uncle who lived there. There's a lot of hippy dippy New Agey culture stuff, but as long as you can handle a little patchouli smell at the coffee shop, it isn't too distracting. It's absolutely gorgeous there (those skies!), and the food is great. It makes sense that the New Age stuff converges there; there does seem to be a sort of "energy" to the landscape; IDK, hard to describe. I'd like to spend more time in the area.
 
The irony here is a bucket at Soap Lake is like a Gucci bag in Milan. People will think you're uppity, maybe even try to steal your bucket when you're relaxing in those healing waters....
Perhaps I could woo them Soap Lake gals with a delectable case of Schmidt Animal beer. I've got a nicely aged vintage that's been sitting in the basement since 1985.
 
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Soap Lake had a pretty bad die off recently. Seek bucket list pleasures elsewhere!
 
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