Key West and Affordable Living

Price Reduction

We first advertised our houseboat for sale in early June on Craig's List for the Florida Keys in early June of this year.  We listed it for $175,000, realizing that the price might be somewhat high for the current market.

But we aren't under pressure to sell.  We find it affordable to live here.  We've even been able to put some money aside to help replenish our retirement fund.  We used some of that fund to buy the Betty Sue 3-½ years ago.  We're comfortable here.  The best weather of the year lies just ahead.  We enjoy the company of our year-around neighbors, and eagerly await the return of the snow birds, the part timers who will be coming back soon.

So you might ask, "Why?  If it's so great there why would you want to leave?"  It's a fair question.  Here's how we came to the decision to leave.

This is the 19th separate address we've shared since marrying 52 years ago.  We raised two fine daughters and have two beautiful grandchildren.  We've lived in four states, and in one foreign county, that being Ireland, for a time.  We are, if anything, roamers, travelers, but we're not nomads or wanderers. We are definitely not settlers.  Wherever we went we made it a point to become involved in that community.

Jobs, family, curiosity, adventure, these were often the triggers that set us off on the next part of the great journey.

We are fortunate to have been able to live in Key West for almost 13 years.  I always thought, or at least hoped, that we'd be able to live out our retirement years in Key West. Three and a half years ago we expected that we'd always be renters, not owners, because the price of buying real estate had gone way past what our modest income and savings would allow.

There were several triggers this time.  In no particular order, they are health, family, curiosity and adventure. Jobs fell out of the mix because we now live on a fixed retirement income, consisting of social security and an annuity purchased from retirement benefits from a company I worked for during the 70's and 80's.

Health came into the picture because we've both grown older and are experiencing the vicissitudes of aging.  The fact that Janet has both vertigo and diabetic neuropathy limit her ability to make full use of a two-story house.  We both have to receive medical care away from Key West on occasion and that typically involves travel to the mainland,  a 300+ mile round trip.

Two years ago our daughter Betty and son-in-law Lee relocated from New Hampshire to the Gulf coast of Florida and bought a home in Whiskey Creek, just outside of Fort Myers.  And that now becomes a factor.

10/9/2014
(to be continued)