I live in a very old fashioned small town (which hasn't changed very much in the last 70 years). It honestly feels like a 1950's era Twilight zone episode. We have a general store, some bars, and that's about it.
They only have property taxes+school taxes which are $7,000 total. No other fees (No HOA, No MUD, Nothing else at all). My neighbor and his wife are both 85 years old. They have been living there for the last 40 years. I asked them if there has every been crime in the last 40 years, and they said no. I went to city-data.com, and my town is in the bottom 1% for crime when compared with all places in the US.
I was contemplating a move to Florida for a retirement in a high rise building condo near the beach.
Initially I thought it was as simple as: Find the biggest most beautiful condo in some luxury high rise building as close to the ocean as you can afford. Then just have a $600 a month maintenance fee, and life is great.
But in reality, the escalating house insurance, property taxes, monthly maintenance fees, condo building rainy day fund creation fees, HOA fees, fraud everywhere, condo buildings being declared unsafe and condemned on a moments notice with the condo owners losing everything, etc, makes this too risky from a financial point of view.
I'm back to thinking that I am better off staying at home forever in my 1950's Twilight Zone zero crime neighborhood with it's general store. We can still drive to Florida on vacations staying in nice hotels at only $100 a night, and enjoy Florida during the winter when temperatures are in the 70's on the cheap, but avoid all the financial risk of losing everything by living there. I think hotels are a much better deal than AirBnb's. 2 weeks in a nice condo airbnb by the beach is now about $5,000 when you factor in all the AirBnb fees like cleaning fees, maintenance fees, etc. I prefer to stay in a nice hotel for $100 a night for those 2 weeks.