Because my beloved Brooklyn Dodgers conducted spring training there, I grew up loving Vero Beach without ever having set foot in the place. Dodgertown was perennially regaled as the most fully outfitted spring training facility in all of baseball and, perhaps, in all of sports. Players’ wives and families especially liked Vero for its balmy winter climate, wide and beautiful beaches and congenial atmosphere. It must have been tough to return to Brooklyn and its 40 to 50 degree April temperatures for the beginning of the regular season after a winter mostly in the 70s.
        The Dodgers, sadly, left for dryer spring pastures in Arizona, closer to the Los Angeles they moved to in 1958 (this is where a 67-year-old man starts to tear up). The good news is that all the surrounding elements that made Dodgertown great –- its nine hole golf course at the time was much praised -– still make Vero Beach strongly worthy of consideration by those looking for a home in one of the area’s top-notch but reasonably priced golf communities.
One of the pools at Grand Harbor, Vero Beach
        This is why we are pleased to announce that Vero Beach golf home listings are now posted in our Golf Homes for Sale section, along with more than five-dozen other high-quality golf communities throughout the Southeast. Our real estate professional in Vero Beach is Suzanne Leffew who, like your editor, was New Jersey born and raised -– please don’t hold that against us –- and is one of the most successful agents on the Treasure Coast. Suzanne suggested Grand Harbor as a golf community in the area that appeals across a broad spectrum of interests and price ranges. Click on the blue button on the Grand Harbor page, send Suzanne a note with your price range included, and she will provide you with a customized list of current homes for sale at Grand Harbor that fall in your price range. She can also provide sample listings from other golf communities in the Vero Beach area that fit your requirements and budget.
        Speaking of other top golf communities in the Vero Beach area, we have also posted information at Golf Homes for Sale about Pointe West, another Vero Beach golf community with a unique twist -– shops, medical offices, restaurants and more just a short walk from within most areas of the community. Adjacent to this “Town Center” are tree-lined sidewalks in Heritage Park which lead to exhibition and entertainment venues that host festivals, craft fairs and art shows. The golf course, by John Sanford, was clearly inspired by trips to Scotland; and because the golf club is managed by the Arnold Palmer group, club members have access to the dozens of great Palmer-managed clubs around the world.
        Florida is hot again, and prices are rising to pre-recession levels, which means “relatively expensive.” Because it is far from the maddening crowds of Boca Raton and cities farther down the coast, Vero Beach golf communities are still reasonably priced. For example, I noted today a cute 3-bedroom, 2-bath home of about 2,500 square feet in Pointe West that is currently listed for just $315,000 and includes views out to the golf course from the home’s screened porch. As a home cook, I especially appreciate the gas stove in the expansive kitchen. You will too.

        If you are looking to move from a high cost-of-living location to a lower one, the best tool you can use during your search is one of the cost of living calculators on the Internet that compare one city to the next. The sites I reference for my clients access census and other "official" data to make their comparisons. The numbers are essential guidance because they determine how much a couple might be able to spend on a home and, more to the point, on the carrying costs, such as club dues, homeowner association fees and other living expenses, their budgets will have to accommodate. A mistake in the calculation can seriously impede a happy retirement.
        It is fundamental, therefore, to know what you are looking at on the cost-comparison web sites. A look at two of the most popular demonstrates that the results for the same comparisons can yield significantly different results.

The price of steak in Asheville
        The two sites are BestPlaces.net and BankRate.com. BankRate does a brilliant job of lining up a long list of comparisons in spending categories that get down to the most granular level; if you eat a lot of meat, for example, you will appreciate how much more or less a T-bone steak costs in the South than in the North. Comparisons of pharmaceutical costs are more relevant, especially as we age, and those are available as well for selected drugs. BestPlaces provides some of these comparisons, although not down to the level of a T-bone, but you have to jump from section to section of their web site to find the specific costs. But in one important area, BestPlaces is more functional and less prone to cause a misinterpretation of the results, and that is in the specific towns it provides for comparison, whereas BankRate uses "metro" areas that, in some cases, comprise towns with entirely different cost profiles, especially in terms of housing costs.
        I found this out during test comparisons of Hartford, CT, with Asheville, NC. I chose Hartford because it is 10 miles from my Connecticut home and I probably know the city as well as any other. On BankRate.com, the Hartford "metro" area includes the towns of East Hartford and West Hartford, as well as the larger city. You really won't find two towns much more different than East and West Hartford, the former a blue collar burg of hard working folks, many of them attracted to the area by East Hartford’s Pratt & Whitney jet engine plant which has been central to the local economy for six decades. West Hartford is home to many more upscale homes and a few multi-million dollar mansions, and its town center is a hub for thriving retail and restaurant activity.

One metro area, two different cost profiles
        Mindful that most moves from North to South will lower annual expenses, sometimes dramatically so, I was not surprised that BankRate.com yielded a 22% cost of living reduction comparing a move from the Hartford metro to Asheville, NC. And it made sense that when I checked the comparison of upscale West Hartford’s annual costs against Asheville, the drop was similar at 23%. What I was not prepared for was the much smaller reductions for East Hartford and the city of Hartford itself when compared with Asheville, 5% and 6% respectively. In short, a couple moving from Hartford to Asheville and using the BankRate number of 22% could be in for a shock when they find out that their real expenses don’t change that much. Of course, the Hartford metro area comprises many other towns, some of them with cost levels similar to West Hartford’s, but the upshot is that the BankRate number, though based on reliable data provided by ACCRA’s CostofLiving.org, is too broad in its geography. BestPlaces lists a couple dozen sources for the data it uses across its entire web site, but doesn’t indicate the specific source(s) for its cost-of-living data.  (Note:  The CostofLiving.org site charges a fee for cost of living comparisons.)
        I checked a half dozen other cost comparison sites and found that they all produced fairly similar results for a Hartford to Asheville relocation. Some provide a long list of cities the way BestPlaces does. The U.S. Department of State web site helpfully lists more than a dozen sites with cost of living comparison calculators. You will find them here. Some of the sites include multiple cities to compare in each state, others just a few (e.g. just three, at some sites, for all of Connecticut). I suggest you take a few of them for a test drive to see which ones provide the best data for you. But for our money, BestPlaces.net still provides the most helpful comparisons.