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Home Retirement/Living

Natural Vs Expat Communities

Kathleen Peddicord by Kathleen Peddicord
Mar 11, 2013
in Retirement/Living
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Temple in Thailand
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Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities Overseas?

I heard last week for the first time of NORCs: Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities.

The example I heard about was a NORC in Fairfax County, Virginia. House prices in this area have skyrocketed over the past few decades (the downturn of housing markets across the country notwithstanding). The current average cost for a home in Fairfax County is US$700,000; few newcomers can afford to move in.

Meanwhile those who live there, mostly government employees with fat salaries or fat pensions, need or want to stay. Voila. With few people moving in, and few moving out, the community ages naturally. It becomes a NORC.

In my experience, you’ll find nothing NORC-like in expat communities. In most cases around the world, you’ll find nothing like traditional retirement communities, either. Instead, communities where people retire abroad are mobile, young and vital.

Why?

First, expat communities tend to include all expats, not just retirees. Expat communities form in places around the world based on common ties such as language and culture, not age. In communities overseas, younger executives, teachers, writers and the self-employed mix with retirees.

In addition, expat retirees tend to be younger than the average aged retiree back home. Most people looking for places to retire abroad are in their 50s. Sixty-somethings and older make the move, too (and I can think of 70-, 80-, and 90-something retirees I’ve known all over the world), but these sexagenarians and beyond share one important characteristic: They are young at heart. They feel and act like those in their 50s. The main difference is that they remained in the workforce a bit longer.

Places to Retire Abroad

I’m always astonished, too, though, by how many very young retirees I see in overseas communities. Shrewd investors, Silicon-valley millionaires, those with inherited wealth, and just plain wanderers in their 30s and 40s can and do show up “retired” overseas. Lyle moved to the Philippines last year after trying retirement in Medellin, Colombia, and Chiang Mai, Thailand. He’s what I think of as a serial retired mover. Lyle started his “retirement” while still in his 30s. He had the good fortune to be on the receiving end of a couple of big bonuses from a high-flying tech company.

Lyle and the many like him moving around this world highlight an important insight to do with “retiring overseas.” Whatever your first choice for where to do it, understand that you’ll likely change your mind at some point. Expat retirees, having made the first big leap from the States to somewhere foreign, often move again, for many reasons. Perhaps because their partner died…perhaps because they prefer someplace cheaper, with better weather, etc….because they vacationed in a new location and liked it…or maybe because they just want, again, to try something new and different.

I mentioned that I see people in their 80s and 90s retiring abroad, but these are the minority. Unlike in Stateside NORCs, expat retirees have the flexibility to move in their later years and do, in most cases back “home.” Some want to be closer to children or grandchildren for care. Others need specialized medical attention, want to live with an older sister or friend, or want to die in their country of birth.

Rarely do these old-timers move back to the old homestead. In most cases that old place has been sold, become rundown, or proves too costly to maintain. Instead they move into different housing, again near or with relatives or friends, often in compact, easy-to-maintain quarters. In many cases they live on less money, sometimes much less, provided that medical costs fall under some plan or other.

But they return “home,” when they do, with a store of memories they cherish, memories of what, for the vast majority I speak with, proved to be the adventure of their lifetime—the time they retired overseas.

Kathleen Peddicord

Continue Reading: Pluses And Minuses Of Part-Time Retirement In The Bahamas

Image credit: Flying Pharmacist

 

Tags: Expat CommunitiesForeign Retirement CommunitiesNaturally Occurring Retirement CommunitiesNORCsPlaces to Retire Abroad
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Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord has covered the live, retire, and do business overseas beat for more than 30 years and is considered the world's foremost authority on these subjects. She has traveled to more than 75 countries, invested in real estate in 21, established businesses in 7, renovated historic properties in 6, and educated her children in 4.

Kathleen has moved children, staff, enterprises, household goods, and pets across three continents, from the East Coast of the United States to Waterford, Ireland... then to Paris, France... next to Panama City, where she has based her Live and Invest Overseas business. Most recently, Kathleen and her husband Lief Simon are dividing their time between Panama and Paris.

Kathleen was a partner with Agora Publishing’s International Living group for 23 years. In that capacity, she opened her first office overseas, in Waterford, Ireland, where she managed a staff of up to 30 employees for more than 10 years. Kathleen also opened, staffed, and operated International Living publishing and real estate marketing offices in Panama City, Panama; Granada, Nicaragua; Roatan, Honduras; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Paris, France.

Kathleen moved on from her role with Agora in 2007 and launched her Live and Invest Overseas group in 2008. In the years since, she has built Live and Invest Overseas into a successful, recognized, and respected multi-million-dollar business that employs a staff of 35 in Panama City and dozens of writers and other resources around the world.

Kathleen has been quoted by The New York Times, Money magazine, MSNBC, Yahoo Finance, the AARP, and beyond. She has appeared often on radio and television (including Bloomberg and CNBC) and speaks regularly on topics to do with living, retiring, investing, and doing business around the world.

In addition to her own daily e-letter, the Overseas Opportunity Letter, with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers, Kathleen writes regularly for U.S. News & World Report and Forbes.

Her newest book, "How to Retire Overseas: Everything You Need to Know to Live Well (for Less) Abroad," published by Penguin Random House, is the culmination of decades of personal experience living and investing around the world.

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