Retirement has never been a hotter topic.

The first wave of baby boomers—men and women born in 1946—will reach retirement age next year. More than 3 million Americans will turn 65 in 2011, the largest group to become eligible for Social Security in a single year.

Most of these prospective retirees are expected to remain in their current homes. Only 4 percent of the nation’s 36.8 million senior citizens (65 or older) moved to a new residence in 2008, the latest year analyzed by the U.S. Census Bureau.

But that’s still a significant number—1.4 million seniors searching for the ideal place to spend their golden years. Which communities do these retirees find most attractive?

Their No. 1 choice, according to a new study by Portfolio.com, is Bradenton-Sarasota, Florida, which earns the designation as America’s most popular retirement destination.

The top of the list, to no one’s surprise, is dominated by warm-weather cities. A pair of Arizona markets—Prescott and Lake Havasu City—are right behind Bradenton-Sarasota. The remaining seven members of the top 10 are all in Florida.

Yet there are some nontraditional sites, as well. Three Northern metros are among the 30 leading retirement locations: Seaford, Delaware (13th), Barnstable, Massachussets (14th), and Eugene, Oregon (29th).

(To download a PDF of the full list, click here.)

Portfolio.com devised a six-part formula to rank the most popular retirement destinations, using raw data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. The study encompassed all 157 metropolitan and micropolitan areas with at least 40,000 senior citizens.

The approach is different from the 2009 Portfolio.com analysis of popular retirement areas in that last year, the study was broader and looked at 940 areas without placing a floor on the number of retirees. Last year's top spot honors went to Pahrump—a community of about 44,000 people in southern Nevada where more than 22 percent of residents were seniors. Because of the difference in approach this year and the focus on communities with larger senior populations overall, Pahrump is not on the 2010 list.

The highest scores this year went to areas where the population of seniors is already substantial and is growing rapidly. The study’s six factors included the percentage of residents who were 65 or older, the share of seniors who were born in another state, and the recent rate at which retirees moved to a specific market.

Bradenton-Sarasota ranks first because of its striking performances in several categories:

• Nearly 27 percent of its residents are 65 or older, the fourth-highest concentration of seniors in any market. That’s more than double the national average of 12.9 percent.
• Bradenton-Sarasota has a median age of 48.1. A median is a midpoint, with half of all residents being older and half being younger. The national median age is 36.8 years.
• Fully 95 percent of the seniors in Bradenton-Sarasota moved to Florida from another state. Only 53 percent of the elderly residents of a typical U.S. market were born out of state.

The Portfolio.com study also pinpoints the most popular retirement communities in eight classifications of size or geography.

Urban markets: Tampa-St. Petersburg leads this group, which is restricted to metropolitan areas with at least a million residents. It’s followed in popularity by Miami-Fort Lauderdale, Phoenix, Riverside-San Bernardino, California, and Tucson.

Small markets: The Prescott, Arizona, area, with 215,000 residents, ranks first in this classification, which is limited to regions with fewer than 400,000 people. The runners-up are Lake Havasu City, Arizona, and three Florida markets: Naples, Homosassa Springs, and Ocala.

Florida: Bradenton-Sarasota, of course, is the leader on this list, the only one that’s confined to a single state. The four retirement destinations ranking next in popularity are Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Naples, Palm Bay-Melbourne, and Homosassa Springs.

Rest of the South: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, which is 25th overall, ranks as the No. 1 Southern retirement market outside of Florida. It’s followed by Chattanooga, Tennessee; Wilmington, North Carolina; Roanoke, Virginia; and Kingsport-Bristol, Tennessee.

Northeast: Seaford, Delaware, which offers easy access to the Atlantic Ocean and a fairly warm climate, is the most popular retirement destination in this group. Next are Barnstable, Massachussetts (better known as Cape Cod); Portland, Maine; Washington; and New Haven, Connecticut.

Midwest: This region is not especially attractive to retirees, which is why you won’t find a single Midwestern market among the national top 35. The regional leader is Rockford, Illinois, followed by Springfield, Missouri; Akron and Youngstown, Ohio; and Detroit.

Interior West: Arizona dominates this classification, placing Prescott and Lake Havasu City in the top two slots. Reno, Nevada, is sandwiched in third place, followed by a pair of major Arizona metropolitan areas: Phoenix and Tucson.

Pacific Coast: Santa Rosa, California, earns the highest score in this group. Four other California markets round out the top five: Riverside-San Bernardino, Stockton, Vallejo, and Oxnard-Thousand Oaks. The favorite retirement destination outside of California is Eugene, Oregon.

(To get details on the methodology used to construct this study, click here.)

---

G. Scott Thomas is projects editor for Buffalo Business First.