Hi May in Jersey,
My husband and I moved back to our home state of Michigan from South Florida (Palm Beach County) after we retired. People thought we were nuts, but its the best move we've ever made. We lived in a condo in Florida and came up to Western Michigan during the summers and worked on our house. It took three years (summers) to build. We sold our condo in the spring of the third year and finished the house that August. During construction we lived in our travel trailer on site, so hubby could just step out the door to work on the house. We paid for materials as we went along. So now we live in a very nice, new, paid-for, home in Western Michigan. Yes, we have a lot of snow in the winter, but then we're retired and don't have to go out in it if we don't want to. We love the hills, the lakes, the trees, the wildlife, and we are close to family for holidays and visiting and such. The money we got for our condo is our retirement fund. The decision to move back to Michigan was the right one for us, and we are very happy here, but the house turned out to be much bigger than our condo:-)