Winston-Salem’s reputation as a retirement haven has received two more national boosts, this time from Forbes magazine and Smart Asset.
Forbes placed Winston-Salem on its 2022 list of the 25 top cities for retirees, a ranking it also received in 2020. The magazine annually lists the 25 cities in alphabetical order and also has Charlotte in the 2022 report.
Meanwhile, Smart Asset has Winston-Salem ranked 14th on its 2022 list for best cities for an early retirement.
“Winston Salem has consistently been rated as a great place to retire with superb medical facilities, a comprehensive selection of art activities, relatively low cost of living and a wonderful quality of life,” Mayor Allen Joines said. “These recent ratings confirm those once again.”
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Greater Winston-Salem Inc. said the two rankings are just additional reflections of the attractiveness of the local community in terms of cost of living, housing market and livability.
“Those factors are not only important to those approaching or in retirement, but also to people of working age that we are trying to attract to our community to be our workforce of today and tomorrow,” the nonprofit economic group said.
Forbes annually compares nearly 800 locales, ranging from housing costs and taxes to health care, air quality and climate change and natural hazard risk.
The list tends to lean toward college towns, such as Athens, Ga., College Station, Texas, Columbia, Mo., Lawrence, Kan., Lexington, Ky., and Madison, Wis.
Forbes described Winston-Salem as “the cultured city of 252,000 in the Piedmont area of North Carolina,” emphasizing having Salem College, UNC School of the Arts, Wake Forest University and Winston-Salem State University within its community.
Of the 25 best cities, Winston-Salem had the lowest median home price of $219,000, which Forbes said is 42% below the national median. Roanoke, Va., was next lowest at $225,000.
Another key factor for Winston-Salem was its cost of living, determined to be 19% below the national average.
Forbes had a substantial list of Winston-Salem’s “pros”: high ratio of physicians per capita; comfortable climate; good air quality; good economy; no state estate tax or income tax on Social Security; relatively moderate risk of natural hazards.
The two listed “cons were serious crime rate above national average, and not very bike-able.” Crime considerations were cited for many of the communities listed by Forbes.
Forbes also cited as “considerably below national average” the percent of the city’s population fully vaccinated with booster against COVID-19. It was listed at 33% by the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services as of Wednesday.
“Most of the benefits, as noted in these reports for retirees, comes down to being a ‘halfback’ state that has a decent tax climate, cost of living, excellent medical services and moderate weather that is not so subject to hurricanes,” said Zagros Madjd-Sadjadi, an economics professor at Winston-Salem State University.
In its overall top cities commentary, Forbes said that “even a pandemic couldn’t stop some of the nation’s 70 million baby boomers from their determined pursuit of an agreeable retirement lifestyle.”
“Last year, we noted work-from-home would enable some boomers to move while still on the job. But COVID-19 also led to a jump in the number leaving the workforce — 3.2 million retired in 2020, more than double the number the year before.
“With housing prices up 11% since March 2020 and mortgage rates still near record lows, now would seem to be an ideal time for newly vaccinated boomers aiming to either downsize or move to a cheaper housing market to start their search.”
Smart Asset listing
Smart Asset said its annual listing of best cities for early retirement evaluates the nation’s 100 largest cities and focuses on four categories: affordability; elderly care; livability; and tax friendliness.
Smart Asset had the following designations for each category:
Affordability: cost of living; home value-to-income ratio; and housing costs relative to income.
Elderly care: average annual cost of silver health insurance plan; retirement homes per 100,000 residents; and medical facilities per 100,000 residents.
Livability: concentration of dining and entertainment establishments; average number of days with extreme temperatures; violent crime rate; and property crime rate.
Tax-Friendly: effective income tax for a retiree with $50,000 in income; average effective property tax rate; sales tax rate; and state capital gains tax rate.
Of those four, Winston-Salem’s highest score was in livability with a 94.1 out of a possible 100. That was the highest livability score among the top 15 cities listed.
The other scores were; 80.6 for affordability; 40.9 for tax friendliness; and 23.7 for elderly care.
Out of the top 15, Winston-Salem was ranked fourth in affordability, 13th in tax friendliness and 15th in elderly care.
Winston-Salem was the only North Carolina metro ranked among the top 15, of which 10 were either in Arizona, Idaho or Nevada.
“After more than two years of working through a pandemic, a growing number of Americans are eager to retire early,” Smart Asset said.
“In fact, a recent study shows fewer than half of Americans (49.2%) plan to work past the age of 62, and that figure is down more than 6% from 2020.”
Previous rankings
Winston-Salem’s reputation as a retirement community has been touted multiple times over the past decade.
In 2020, the community was ranked 7th by U.S. News & World Report. It was considered as the second-best retirement option in North Carolina behind Asheville, ranked 4th.
The media outlet has six primary measuring indexes for its annual Best Places to Retire rankings: happiness (22.5% of the criteria); housing affordability (20.5%); health care quality (18.8%); retiree taxes (14.8%); desirability (13%) and job market (10.4%).
U.S. News cited the combination of Winston-Salem retaining a traditional Southern hospitality with “an international feel” where downtown “celebrates its diversity during an array of festivals and through a variety of cuisines.”
Though Winston-Salem has not experienced the population growth of Charlotte and the Triangle in recent years, U.S. News determined its “slow and steady growth has preserved the region’s small-town feel while allowing for improvements, such as repurposing old textile and tobacco factories into loft apartments.
“Due to heavy interest in residential and corporate development, the region has become a fertile land for entrepreneurs and small businesses.”
In 2012, Winston-Salem was ranked sixth on CNNMoney.com’s 25 Best Places to Retire listing.
Also in 2012, CBS News ranked Winston-Salem 11th on its list of best U.S. retirement options. That report listed foremost the city’s universities, its symphony and arts council, as well as housing ownership affordability.
Spillover effect
Being known as a hot place to spend golden years might not seem to mesh with an equally pivotal pursuit of young professionals to populate local business and residential communities.
But recently, local civic and economic officials have embraced the city’s retirement recognition because the same lifestyle attributes attracting seniors also are being sought by young professionals.
Those include lower cost of living and home prices, lower taxes, active arts and sports communities, higher-education stalwarts, downtown living and dining and access to high-quality health care.
“We know retirees and young professionals like many of the same things, so instead of the recruiting effort having to be an ‘either-or’ situation, it’s becoming more of a ‘both-and’ situation,” Sam Matthews, director of The Shepherd’s Center, a nonprofit that aids senior citizens, said in 2020.
It’s certainly positive to gain national recognition for cultural, economic and financial performance, said Michael Walden, an economics professor at N.C. State University.
“Good rankings on positive matters — like best places for retirement — are certainly good to have,” Walden said. “But, it’s unclear if they lead to any results, such as more people moving to a region with high rankings.”
Walden said it’s more likely that retirees or potential retirees will use information from friends, family, and maybe even their own investigation.
For example, he said, people retiring and considering moving will use information from friends, family and their own research.
“Often households considering an area for retirement will vacation there and get their own sense of whether the location is a good fit for them,” Walden said. “Or, they will use evaluations from friends they trust who are living in the region they’re considering.”