Reply #12: If you were to look up Saginaw, Michigan on the affordability index

[5thGenDemocrat]

You'd find this city is among the most affordable in the nation. A nice house, suitable for your retirement, can be had cheap.
For example, my buddy Mike B bought a (two-bedroom, full basement, two-car garage) home in a decent middle-class neighborhood about seven years ago for $34,000.
Since then, we've gutted it to the rafters and completely rebuilt it -- new roof, siding, walls, doors, wiring, refinished floors, new a/c and furnace, full insulation and thermopane windows (hey, Saginaw IS at 43.4 north latitude) -- everything.
He figures fair-market value on it now is around $72-74,000.
Saginaw is less than two hours south of some of the nicest nature you'll ever see, and about 1 hour 45 minutes from Detroit (an hour if Marty Schreader's driving). Ann Arbor is 80 miles away and East Lansing is 70. We are a major medical center, we have our own state university five miles from here and we're a small city of about 62,000. We have stop lights and 24-hour 7-11s and everything.
I'd say Saginaw and its environs is a great place to consider retiring to.
Saginaw might even be a bit cheaper, sq foot for sq foot, than Edgar, Wisconsin. And we're near anything you'd want to be near.
John
I bought my house for $14,000 (not a typo) in 1994. But I bought it from mom's estate. I suppose it's a $40-42,000 house here.