Best Places to Retire in Florida 2023 

I'm 54 and my wife and I are VERY worried about our future, gas and food prices rising daily. We have had our savings dwindle with the cost of living into the stratosphere, and we are finding it impossible to replace them. We can get by, but can't seem to get ahead. My condolences to anyone retiring in this crisis, 30 years nonstop just for a crooked system to take all you worked for.

I truly think if you’re want to move anywhere in Florida think again. My homeowners insurance has tripled in one years time. Even with a 9 year roof , hurricane windows and doors, and AAA wind report. Now we can expect mandatory flood insurance requirements which is close to $700 and climbing. And now a warning by the insurance carriers to expect a hurricane tax on added to homeowners insurance. My auto insurance jumped $800 with no real reason except to say everything is going up. That’s just for one car, you will be killed if you have more the one. The governor has done nothing to stop the increase. His legislation has only hurt homeowners and reduced there claims when they are most needed. At least he should have targeted the contractors and lawyers who have been defrauding the insurance companies. He could have required the state agencies to verify roof claims and refer the fraudulent cases to FDLE . Set a special court to handle to cases and end this fraud. This is just my opinions of possibly solutions. The bottom line is if the governor did not see this coming he dropped the ball and we’re all paying for it. Plus keep in mind every business in Florida is getting there insurance rates tripled, so they pass the cost on to you. For example as simple nice restaurant , as simple breakfast was may $22.00 bucks for two. Now expect $40.00 to $50.00 that’s without a tip. Need less to say breakfast is now at home. Sure inflation is a factor but don’t forget the business are paying more in insurance costs. You may ask are you considering leaving the state.Of course I am , but that’s a tough decision when you’re over 65. The expression goes I’m not a young as I used to be to do that. So do the research and make the best financial decision for you. But remember these insurance costs are going up with no end in sight. Best of luck.

My homeowners insurance just doubled..be careful of all the hidden costs of living in Florida. Plus we had months of red tide this year

Thanks for video. I think it gives people a lot of things to consider that other videos about Florida retirement do not talk about.

Thanks so much great places to consider. You brought in cities I had not known. Appreciated!

Thanks Buddy. You did a pretty good job bringing into light a variety places that are not on the popularity list. Good job!

Your video was very informative 👏 👍,thanks much. I learned a lot of new places and happy that you showed Naples, Florida.

Thank you so much for all of your videos! You have taught me so much about the real estate market. Thank you for sharing your wisdom!

Super informative! Thank you!

Thanks for the great video!

I've been considering Dunedin up into Tarpon Springs, or down to Punta Gorda. Will have to decide in the next few months or so.

So helpful I’m looking to relocate I’ll keep watching you videos

My main concern is how Ian hurricane affected each town the area, insurance & home values

Thank you Troy!

Regarding The Villages, I think you missed the boat on that one. There is free music 365 days a year in all four (and expanding) town squares, over 3,000 clubs to join so absolutely something for everyone, bicycle clubs, pickle ball, softball, polo, tai chi, etc. if you are bored here it’s because you want to be. Over 100 pools and 60 gold courses.

I live in Jupiter Florida and love it its expensive to but the fishing and boating options are excellent. I spend time in Brickell in Miami to the best of suburban and city life. I love Sarasota to its the only area i would enjoy living on the west coast . Thanks for the interesting and informative video

very excellent information...

This video deserves more love! Awesome that you went to all the cities you mentioned.

Your video was very informative

We live east of the 75 in Naples, super close to downtown and the beaches, cost of housing quite a lot more affordable. Thanks for the video.

I've heard florida is getting so expensive like new york , and going through some real crises, high taxes, expensive repairs for homes, nit what it used to be.

You are awesome

Hello Troy! Great video! I would be happy to be your realtor connection here in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida!

We have lived here for 20 years+. Amelia Island is the most Beautiful place in Florida! The people are amazing.. But due to Amelia being in the news over the past 5 years, homes have increased in value 20% Per Year! Amelia is Nature, Beach, Ocean, Marshes, Birds, Trees, small Town, Southern Culture.. we are NOT Naples, Tampa or Miami.

THANKSSSSS

I love Florida! I own and yes, insurance is high . Don’t care . The beaches are glorious and the state has beautiful people . I am able to earn a great living here too !

There is no Utopia. Thank you for an informative video.

Humbled to to walk (or run) in your shadow and learn from your great many experiences. You are literally a walking encyclopedia and so cool you are sharing your knowledge! Appreciate the kind shout out and happy to help any way I can. --your very lucky lady. 😊

Lived in Sarasota & LWR 4 years

That first house looked like the house in the Walton’s

GREAT content as usual! Regarding Stuart, how far away from the nuclear plant is it safe to live? I've heard different reports. Based on winds etc, is it better to live north or south of the plant? Thanks!

Troy: While this video is blatantly commercial, it is a great trip around Florida. Way to go. I visit Florida every February and have traveled all over the state since my wife died in 2009. I love Sarasota, Amelia Island, and the other places you mentioned. The Villages, however, seems a little weird. I've been there twice, and it's not for me even though I', 76. If I were in the market, I would look at places south of Sarasota that are less expensive and less crowded yet still close to the Sarasota airport. Thoughts?

Florida's not place to retire anymore. Insurance is ridiculous. The price of real estate is ridiculous. I live in St Augustine Florida for 10 years in the 80s and 90s what a wonderful place it was back then. It is way overpopulated very expensive not a great place to retire and I'm saying that from experience

Is it ture about the insurance rate are going very high now also flood insurance is maintenance in FL not good enough

Love your show great work.

I like Tarpon Springs. But doesn't like hurricane & bugs

We love your Florida content! This was a huge video, very informational!

I am moving from Florida gulf coast to Alabama gulf coast. Poor infrastructure, too many people moving in, high taxes and exploding homeowner insurance costs are main reasons I am leaving!

How long have you lived in Florida?

Notice no house prices are mentioned! LOL know I cannot afford any of them ! All the hidden costs? Not mentioned either!

Thanks Troy for these great informative Florida vids! I'm a few years till retirement but would love to buy something on Amelia Island. We spent a lot of time there while our son was at JU.

We think about moving to Florida. Please. Get in touch with me

The airport is Sarasota Bradenton airport, not just Sarasota!!!1

Great info and thank you shraring the info, glad you have mentioned about Clement as your top 10 for retirees. btw, we will be moving soon to Clermont.

Amelia Island is 500k and up

Any of those rich people in Naples need a summer house sitter,lol. Just got back from Miami, we stayed at, I think it was The Brickell and it was wonderful. Air bnb and it was only 149.00/night. 33 floor great view but I wouldn’t want to live there. Property is expensive. Talked to a doctor that bought a fixer upper for half a million.

The villages, swingers? I guess he's being polite, but some people would want to know, plus or minus

The images from Punta Gorda are post Hurricane Ian?

Sarasota is great, but would not want to live there.I walk the bridges over troubled waters every month or so. Growth is disturbing.

Hi Troy , glad you spoke about Punta Gorda .I’ve been looking at the Deep Creek section and I think I really like it . We were in Port Charlotte at Thanksgiving ,we did get out on our friends boat , it was beautiful and fun . Did get to Fisherman’s Village a couple of times , and I fell in love with the area . I am looking forward , after the RV to heading south . I desperately want out of Ohio winters . Any info on the Deep Creek section would be greatly appreciated. T.J. Cincinnati.

I understand your in RE but with home insurance, hurricanes, politics, the villages, costs of new homes, the heat, auto insurances costs. Please re consider moving to the Sunshine State

Just subscribed Troy

Thank you for your informative videos. We are considering Sarasota and the Tampa area. What is your opinion of Dunedin/ Palm Harbor area?

Awesome video! You must have had to do a lot of driving! Lol

For what it cst to live in Florida you can live like a millionaire in Mexico and other countrys

Very helpful Troy !! Tyvm

It's Poo-n-ta Gorga. You're not punting a football. You should know this living in Florida.

Stuart is not on the St John’s river - it’s the St. Lucie River. Like the video, just pointing out the mis-speak.

Florida is my home state i understand its not cheap like it was 40 years ago i now reside in California moved hear nearly 40 years ago

Troy I like the way you mix both big cities and smaller communities in your recommendations. Any thoughts on Cape Coral or South Fort Myers? I think these would probably be on your list but they are still recovering from Ian.

Why no one talks about the thousands of sinkholes 😢!

Nothing in the panhandle?

STOP due your research , property tax all property must have flood ins, Condos Dues have jumped, buy a new home 0ver a home that 20, 30, years old.WHY ARE THEY THE SAME PRICE ? why did relators

This guy is in the real estate business, i dont think hes looking out for your best interests

I'll give you a hint there is no good place in florida to retire anymore..... Overpriced. Housing Flood insurance for non flood zone residents... It's just not worth it

DO NOT MOVE TO FLORIDA! WE ARE FULL! GO TO ARIZONA OR SOMEWHERE OUT WEST! HURRICANES ARE NO JOKE! FLORIDA IS CLOSED!

These places are so ridiculously expensive 👎

Last place (besides California) I’d consider retiring in is Florida. Too expensive!! I’m in Houston now and will retire in Europe. Want to stay away from hurricanes and excessive heat - and keep daily and monthly expenses to a minimum. Walking, good food, public transit, cheaper healthcare, lower real estate taxes, and greater sense of community are all advantages of living in Europe vs. the USA.

Please don't come to Florida unless you keep it safe and clean...Try North Carolina...Cheaper..

Increasing more powerful Hurricanes and floods; unafordable home insurance, low quality house with ballooning HOA, gators and snakes in suburbs, Floridaman with unlimited guns everywhere , one of the worst healthcare in the country..... what can go wrong? Florida: for a very short retirement.

Stay away from Amelia Island/Fernadina, it’s miserable!! High crime and theft!!! Bugs everywhere! Keep going south!!

There is no good place to retire in Fla. as long as DeSantis and his cronies are in power.

Should read "Top 10 Places to Retire in NaziVille".

I lived in Sarasota for three years and I hated it. It might be the most socially hostile place I ever lived in, right up there with the state of Mississippi in general. Very unfriendly. Strangers insult you on the street in Sarasota. Many of the individuals responsible for it are retired Navy people. Some of them walk around barking vague threats: "Don't say anything about the government!" In 2012 three Manatee County, Florida sheriff's deputies woke me up at 3 o'clock in the morning banging on my door. I called 911 and the operator told me who it was. I opened the door to find the deputies putting away their handguns. They said they were looking for somebody else, but it sounded very suspicious, as if they made it up. I filed a complaint. I really don't like it anywhere in the United States, and I travel outside the country whenever I can. One major drawback to living in the US is that there are virtually no legal services, at least not for me and millions of other people. It's always been like that regardless of my job or who I knew. I'm in my 60s but my deceased parents were both attorneys, so I know quite a bit about lawyers and what they do. The old man was a Mississippi state judge. When you think about it, it's really absurd, a bad joke about lawyers, that somebody like me has so much trouble getting one. I always assume that I cannot get an attorney for any reason, whether it's for divorce, a landlord problem, or Gladstone, Missouri police entering my apartment to imply I'm queer and assault me (Clay County Pro Se Case No. 07CY-CV10003). Scores of attorneys turned me down and would not help me in any way. I have no criminal record, but it wouldn't matter if I did. In a nutshell, most lawyers simply refuse to work for most people. Getting an attorney has always been a lengthy ordeal involving dozens of phone calls, so it's best to assume you won't get one. Another problem is healthcare. Everybody knows it's very expensive. About 20 percent of the doctors and healthcare people I see are very rude or hostile. That includes pharmacy workers. Hostile as in socially hostile; not like a war zone, duh. Some doctors repeatedly pressure you to buy optional high-priced pharmaceuticals when a cheap generic will do. Some get kickbacks. Many are greedy and belittle people. They brazenly flout privacy law. Healthcare has always been a problem to some extent. I was a certified EMT between high school and college (EMT requires vo-tech school), but I changed careers when I got a BA in 1982. I wasn't going to pursue a career listening to insults every day. As if the Navy wasn't bad enough about verbal abuse, I started getting it from Jackson, Mississippi healthcare people as soon as was discharged and returned there. Plus the endless retraining over and over again in healthcare. My first girlfriend became an RN after college. Her father was a doctor, and we met in junior high. Unfortunately she later grew into an obnoxious fat cow bigger than I am. Blew up like a balloon. I treated her like a baby for three years, but the last time I saw her she had become a mannish and aggressive woman who hated me. I had another healthcare girlfriend who was a laboratory technologist, and a trashy one at that. She was really ugly and stole some of my apartment stuff when she left. She thought I was broken up about her leaving: "You're supposed to be mad at me." I was glad to get rid of her. So I stopped dating healthcare women, but I've had other girlfriends. An obnoxious form of militarism referred to as jingoism has been on the rise for 15 to 20 years. I don't know about you, but I'm sick and tired of hearing about the Hollywood version of the military all the time in the media and from other people. The movie version of the military is a crock, virtually all movies unless it's a documentary. In some right-wing places such as Fayetteville, Arkansas and Sarasota, Florida, many people won't shut up about it. Unlike most guys who talk about the military, I was actually in the regular Navy in the '70s, and hardly anybody likes it. They treat the workers like cr**, and it doesn't pay anything. It's always been like that. Anybody who tells you different is lying to you, or suffers from Stockholm syndrome. The military should pay enlisted men three or four times what they do for all the overtime and verbal abuse you have to put up with, not to mention possibly risking your life. Instead the average worker is paid approximately minimum wage, plus $225.00 a month extra if they're ordered into or volunteer for duty in a combat zone. Wow. With all that money maybe you can start planning on buying that ranch and farmhouse you always wanted. Your whole life revolves around the military when you're in there. You can rarely have company where you work, and it's a disaster if you're married or like the opposite sex. An enlisted man can't support a wife with what they pay you in there. When you sign up, you're volunteering to be a prisoner for the duration of your enlistment. If you go AWOL before then, you can be fined, thrown in jail, and given a bad type of discharge. It varies, but that's the only reason the military can keep people in there. Otherwise at least half the men would quit and leave in the first few months. Some do anyway. Plenty of them hurt themselves because it's so abusive. Enlisted men start talking about what they're going to do when they get out just a few weeks or months after they're inducted: I'm going back to school to do xyz; I'm getting a job at such-and-such a place. Officers, who are roughly equivalent to civilian management, have much better conditions and pay, but most of them don't like the military either. American credit bureaus are a regular source of major problems, and not because I don't have any money. They're crooked white-collar criminals as far as I'm concerned. The false reports that credit bureaus publish are one the main reasons there are so many homeless people. I never agreed to participate in their crooked scheme, did you? I don't care if they think my credit score is 700 or minus 700. The numbers they dream up and publish are all arbitrary nonsense. When they're not lying to everybody, they don't know what they're talking about. Apartment landlords are a regular source of legal problems whenever I deal with them, definitely through no fault of my own. Many are dishonest and disregard the law. They default on the lease, steal your deposit, then and lie to credit bureaus about you. And as I said before, it's almost impossible to get an attorney for a landlord-tenant issue or anything else. Living in the United States is not for me. There are better places, but you have to have cash, a long-term visa, and health insurance. RB

Florida is too expensive. To much insurance $$