Moving to somewhere even if it means you have to unretire

[rob in cal]

  One of my fascinations/obsessions is the idea of so many people living in hcol places who have a paid off or almost paid off house worth lots of money who could actually retire right now if they wanted to pull the trigger and move to a substantially cheaper part of the country, or the world for that matter if they wanted to explore the idea of legal residence elsewhere. I think we are edging around that territory ourselves tbh. 
  However, what about the flip side of things, has anyone actually moved to a hcol area for family, or personal or health reasons perhaps and this meant actually having to unretire for only that reason? I was reading a blog about a San Francisco couple who were renting out their house and housesitting internationally, but if they ever came back to live in their San Francisco house she would actually have to back to her old nursing career because they would no longer have the rental income from it, so in essence it was a situation where one would have to work again just for the privilege of living in the Bay Area (though of course they could have still tried to house sit in Northern California and try to make a go of it and then still rent their house out).
   

[deborah]

FIRE means Financially Independent as well as retired. Financially Independent means you can be retired in your forever place, not just generating income from it and living elsewhere. Some people here do lean FIRE, sometimes traveling the world, sometimes living in a LCOL place, but they have a plan to be fully FIRE and recognise that they aren’t there yet.

[SwordGuy]

Not everyone who FIREs owns a home.  Quite a few people FIRE while renting and want to keep it that way.

[Cassie]

A lot of California people sell their expensive homes and retire to Nevada. The move makes it possible.

[swashbucklinstache]

I'm strongly considering this, or at least building a buffer for this ahead of actually stepping away from work. I'm currently in MCOL for family reasons but don't plan to stay for life. I'd guess you're most likely to see something like that or people moving before FIREing compared to doing something like this after the fact.

I'd hope that if I did under prepare I would just take a part-time or low stress gig to cover the difference in rent/payments. Unless you're moving from LCOL or MCOL, if you're willing to rent it's probably unlikely you're talking about an excess of + $3000 a month at the absolute highest end. That's especially true if you're willing to downgrade in terms of size, quality, or location. Maybe if you're going from VLCOL to Manhattan or downtown SF or something.

My current budget: $2300 a month, of which $800 is rent for a 1br.

I'm much more likely to do something like, at the 4% rule:
min budget to consider safely FIREing: $3333 a month
FIRE and HCOL is in play: $4000 a month

At $4000, that'd give me $1700 a month in lifestyle inflation room. You're not going to be in a penthouse but you can get a 1br almost anywhere for $800 + $1700 = $2500 a month. Other things cost more too of course, but that's not really true for the things I spend my money on (i.e. not restaurants and bars). It's also not hard to imagine instead spending just $2000 a month for 3 years, resulting in $18k of extra fluff (any gains), which would support staying in a $3000 a month on housing for the following 3 years or a single year in a $4000 place etc. Even if I wanted to stay in a $4000 place I only need to make up $1500 a month or $18k a year...

[Paul der Krake]

I’m likely going to move to a very HCOL area at some point, which means I’ll have to work some more. It doesn’t matter to me.

[John Galt incarnate!]

 I was reading a blog about a San Francisco couple who were renting out their house and housesitting internationally, but if they ever came back to live in their San Francisco house she would actually have to back to her old nursing career because they would no longer have the rental income from it, so in essence it was a situation where one would have to work again just for the privilege of living in the Bay Area (though of course they could have still tried to house sit in Northern California and try to make a go of it and then still rent their house out).
   

The  free time of my FIREtirement is so valuable to me that I would not trade it  to earn money to cover the expenses of living in a specific location.

If I had to make an adjustment similar to that of the SF couple I'd ALWAYS arrange the trade-offs so as to maximize my free time.

[K_in_the_kitchen]

I guess I wouldn't base my FIRE on rental income from my primary residence while I was housesitting internationally.  And one benefit of working toward FIRE in a HCOL area is we have higher income opportunities.  HCOL doesn't have to mean buying the most expensive house, either -- we're still in our so-called starter house 20 years later, we own it, and we have some protection against high property taxes because we didn't keep moving.  Indeed, unless prop 15 passes this November (which would allow us to carry our tax basis with us to another house of the same value once we're 55), we're likely to stay in this house the rest of our lives.  Recent buyers on our street are paying 3x the property taxes we are.

To answer the question, if we ever do decide to move, we won't give up FIRE to do it.  If our kids move to an even higher cost of living area and we want to be near them because of grandchildren, we'll find a way to do it while staying FIREd.

[Metalcat]

Have some gone back to work to fund moving to a more expensive location?
Sure, probably.

I'm not really sure what you are trying to ask though??

The main driver to live in extremely expensive places is usually for jobs, so if someone didn't need to live there for their career, I see it as pretty unlikely that they'll feel compelled to live there after they've retired.

There are places that have better services and amenities, but you don't have to move to ultra expensive places to get them.

The only compelling reason I see for someone to decide to live in an ultra expensive city after retirement is to be close to their kids/grandkids who have to live there for *their* careers.

Otherwise, I can't see someone leaving retirement to go back to work just to live somewhere expensive. Ultra high cost cities aren't that much better than other well appointed cities.

Unless the person really actually *wants* to go back to work, and the ultra expensive city gives them the best options. That's always possible.

[soccerluvof4]

We knew that when I was going to retire our home cost would at least double for what we wanted so just figure as much in our numbers. The unfortunately thing is it cost even more do to alot of unforeseen things needed to be fixed but will get through it.

[Cassie]

Rents here are crazy so luckily we own.

[dodojojo]

Not FIRE, but live in HCOL, expect to move to and retire in VHCOL hometown to care for elderly parent.  Accept that my FI number can't be small.

[Laura33]

No.  I have studiously avoided HCOL/VHCOL places my entire career and focused on MCOL options, because I am lazy.  Yes, I could make more money -- but lordy I don't want to work that hard.*  Yes, I could have made a killing on the property market if I'd moved to NY or LA after graduation like some of my friends did, or to SF when DH's company here shut down -- but I really, really didn't want to feel strapped with a giant mortgage on a teensy place, or have an hour-long commute.  I did the commute into DC for a couple of years (despite my best efforts to avoid it), and boy, I just did not find that sustainable long-term.  And I wanted to see my kids and be able to cook dinner and have what felt like a reasonable life.  I found MCOL was the right mix for us of "stuff to do" and free time and lifestyle luxury at a reasonable cost.

Would I love to have a pied a terre in Manhattan?  Oh, hell yes.  But I'm not willing to put in the time and effort to earn the money to pay for it.  So I'll just save enough to cover the occasional long weekend visit.

*I'm a lawyer, so regular full-time is already 50-60 hrs/week.  I had zero desire to increase that to a point that would require working every weekend just to hit my numbers.