"So how long do you plan to keep working?" asked a friend recently, after he went on about his own crafty retirement plan (take his pension at 65, sell his Massachusetts house and move to Florida, play tennis year-round, live happily ever after).
"Um. Forever?" I suggested. "I plan to die at my keyboard."
I wasn't joking. Between the economic free fall and putting kids through college, my husband and I will be working for the rest of our lives.
That's why we made an offer on a house in Canada yesterday.
Why Canada? I've loved Prince Edward Island, Canada, ever since I started vacationing there some 15 years ago. The island is gorgeous (see photos at http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?_adv_prop=image&fr=yfp-t-892-s&va=prince+edward+island+canada), laid back, friendly, green-minded, and there's fiddle music everywhere you go. It felt like home the first moment I hiked the red dirt roads between flowering potato fields.
"Yes, that's fine, but what about the winter?" various friends countered, so I tried traveling to PEI then, too, and found other things to love, like the ice fishing shacks stacked like bright Legos along Malpeque Bay and the snow tornadoes rising like long-skirted fairies in the fields.
But I digress. We made an offer on a house located in the remote eastern corner of PEI because there's no way that my husband and I can afford to retire here in the U.S. We haven't seen the inside of the house -- there was no realtor around, and we had to leave the next day -- but we peered into the windows from the rotted deck, and we'd seen the listing sheet online. We know that this farmhouse supposedly has five bedrooms and two bathrooms. We also know that the house is being sold "as is." That's a little scary, because Canadian realtors tend to be honest to a fault. When I surf www.mls.ca with these simple criteria: "Prince Edward Island, $25,000 to $75,000 price range, two bedrooms or more," I regularly read descriptions like these: "This house has been neglected. Needs a strong arm." Or, "Small country home that has been left vacant for a few years. Needs a real clean up. The property has no source of heat. Had a wood stove and previous owner took it."
With this particular house, the phrase that struck me was this one: "Being sold with furnishings and other items too numerous to mention." What happened to the owner, I wondered, that he would flee or fade away without emptying his house?
Finally, I called our realtor, Anne. She's a trim, no-nonsense woman who used to make her living fishing for lobster. Last summer, she showed me a few houses while wearing knee-high green rubber boots. "I don't know where the old fella went that lived there," she said, "but I can call his nephew down the road and find out more if you're interested."
That's how the island works: if you know one person, you know six, without any degrees of separation. When Anne called back, though, she couldn't tell me much. Apparently this was an estate sale, someone's children selling it for someone who had died. The old fella, presumably.
"What about the septic system?" I asked.
"Doubt anybody knows much about that," Anne said.
"How do I know if I'd have to replace it?"
"Guess you'd have to just dig it up," she said. "But I wouldn't recommend it. You might want to leave it be."
"You mean we'd just buy the house, and hope for the best?" I asked.
"That's about the size of things," she said. "If it fails, you'd know it."
This did not sound promising. On the other hand, if the old fella hadn't been using the septic system in a while, everything probably had time to drain.
So we made the offer, and now we're waiting to see if it was accepted. We'll find out this Friday. Meanwhile, I'm biting my nails.
Despite the fact that we love PEI -- and this house in particular, with its charming century-old architecture, peaceful farmland views, and proximity to our favorite beach -- I know that this plan is more whimsical than logical. For starters, we have no money. Like so many people, we were nearly flattened by the economic downturn. My husband was laid off twice and two of the start-up companies he joined went under. We struggled to stay afloat as our oldest child started college and we paid health care costs out of pocket for one year, then a second. We finally decided to sell our house and buy a smaller one.
That's when the real estate market crashed. Our first buyer pulled a runner after we'd gotten locked into buying the smaller house, so we ended up with a bridge loan for a year, until we found another buyer. Goodbye, savings. Hello, credit cards.
With no spare cash under our mattress, we'll now have to dip into our retirement funds to finance the purchase of this house. Yet another bad idea: Why take a 10 percent hit, rather than wait until we're old enough to pull the money out without having to pay taxes on it?
Our only arguments in favor of doing so are admittedly weak: our retirement funds are stagnating with the limp stock market, making us think real estate can't be worse, and the PEI house we want to buy is one that we can easily imagine loving full-time. Plus, it's for sale right now at an asking price that's half of its assessed value.
"Prince Edward Island is too far away," another friend complains. "Why can't you find a retirement spot closer to home?"
Where could we go? Ohio? Pennsylvania? Tennessee? Even those states are more expensive. We're not alone in thinking that Canada is the answer. Far from it. The number of U.S. citizens choosing to live in Canada hit a 30-year high recently (http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=2101397c-fe7c-4adf-a2d1-8665cb29ac66&k=0
The last time Canada saw such an enormous influx of U.S. citizens was during the political turmoil of the Vietnam war. Now, many are choosing Canada both for economic and political reasons. Our own reasons are simple: we love Canada, and the cost of living in the U.S. has killed us. Once our kids are grown, we imagine eventually selling this house in New England, which is about the same size as the one on PEI but worth 10 times more. We'll have red dirt roads and fiddle music, potato fields and freshly steamed mussels to keep us happy. We'll still be working until we drop to pay back our debts. But we can freelance remotely for the same U.S. companies from Canada -- my husband as a software engineer, me as a writer -- while we make goat cheese, have a few hens of our own and grow our own vegetables, all without a crippling mortgage and punishing health care costs.
It's a crazy dream. But it's less of a fiscal nightmare than what we've experienced here.
Or am I missing something? Should we back out of this house deal now, while there's still time to be sensible?
Follow Holly Robinson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/hollyrob1
Kevin McDonald: What I Love Most About Canada
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Good luck.
Our healthcare is not free, it is paid for by taxes.
If on the other hand you have the skills/money to start a real business in PEI (not goat herding), then come on up. Or if you are a skilled medical practioner (we are short those). Launch your Software Startup, bring some VC money, employ our skilled talent and keep them from leaving, I am all for it. But otherwise PEI is just fine to visit, we love having you around, but don't expect us to be your cheap retirement plan.
My only regret is that I didn't have a chance to sell them on New Brunswick first. .. Fredericton's nice. University town. Quiet. Doesn't have the wind.... It's not too late to change your mind.
I won't even go into the tax benefits (still paying US taxes), for someone with dual citizenship, other than to say its a lose-lose for Canada.
Fredericton is nice other than its in NB, the capital of Canada for crazy cancers, and genetic illnesses. Here is a question for you, how come the drive via the bridge through NB is a wasteland on my way to PEI.
The biggest issue for Americans wanting to move to Canada will be immigration. Canada works on a point system. You get points for having a University degree, family in Canada, or for investing in Canadian business. The more points you have, the higher your changes of being able to successfully immigrate.
Also, once you have immigrated, no health insurance will be required (except insurance for prescription medication). All residents of Canada are covered by the provincially run health care. (In the case of PEI the heath care is very good).
Tuition at University of Prince Edward Island is about 5K per year last time I checked.
As for the weather... you get four distinct seasons. Hope to see you there someday!
I'm serious. If you haven't been to the Island in winter, you might want to do a bit of research before you plunk down the cash. I'm from New Brunswick and did I mention the wind?
If you go to the Government of Canada web site under Citizenship and Immigration Canada there should be the information you need or you can probably go to a CIC (Citizenship and Immigration Canada) office there are a few scattered around the US.