Can Remote Work Get You a Head Start on Retirement?

Preretirees who relocate to lower-cost states may find substantially cheaper housing “and then take that money and put it into their portfolio,” stretching their retirement dollars, says Jeremy Kisner, a Phoenix-based financial planner whose clients include Rob and Linda Nehrbas.

Older remote workers may even be able to move outside the U.S., where living costs could be lower still. 

Michael Cobb, CEO of Belize-based real estate firm ECI Development, envisions Latin America becoming an attractive spot for Americans in their 50s who want to get an early start on their chosen retirement lifestyle. He factors the need for Zoom-friendly spaces and fiber optics for fast internet connections into the designs of his company’s homes.

“Why wait to retire when you can move somewhere phenomenal right now?” Cobb says. “As long as you have high-speed internet and the type of work that allows you to work remotely, many of the benefits of retirement can start immediately.”

How to make a preretirement relocation work

Ensuring your dream locale has the amenities that enable you to keep working, including fast, reliable broadband access, is just one part of the careful advance planning such a move requires. Another is closely comparing costs to make sure savings in one area, such as lower property taxes, aren’t eaten up by, say, higher homeowners insurance. 

And, of course, your employer must agree to let you telecommute full-time. Some may balk. Linda Nehrbas, 62, worked in supply chain management when she and her husband were planning their move. Her supervisor agreed she could do her job remotely in South Carolina, but the company’s human resources department vetoed the arrangement.

Linda and Rob Nehrbas look out from a bridge at a park near their home. Rob continued working for an Arizona-based company for more than a year after the couple moved east.

Gavin McIntyre

“I had a really good job, and it was a little hard to walk away from,” she says. “But quality of life won over that.” 

Getting an employer to let you work remotely across state lines may take some persuading. It helps if you can demonstrate that you’ve been productive working from home, O’Neill says. She recommends proposing a fixed work schedule in which you’ll always be available for meetings or calls during certain hours, to ease concerns that collaboration could suffer if you’re not on-site.

Talk to your boss about the business or tax implications of you working elsewhere. For example, Rob Nehrbas’ employer had to set up a business entity in South Carolina, so his new home state could withhold taxes from his paycheck. 

Even if you get a green light from your employer, think about how your coworkers will react to your move and whether it will make working relationships too difficult, O’Neill says.

“You could be perceived as being less dedicated to the job, and it’s a potential source of jealousy,” particularly if your colleagues are dealing with harsh winters while you’re working from a warm, sunny clime, she cautions.

Keep connected — but know when to quit

If the move is long-distance, that can create additional hurdles, notes Scott Fuller, a real estate agent and relocation consultant who specializes in helping people and businesses move from California.  

“If you’re working remotely in Florida but you’re on California hours and having to work until 8:30 or 9 p.m., is that conducive to your lifestyle?” he says. 

Similarly, if your position requires you to periodically return to company headquarters for meetings, take travel time into account. “If you have to be back monthly or more often, you probably want to look at being within an hour-and-a-half direct flight,” Fuller says.

Maintaining a good work-life balance is important, so you don’t miss out on the benefits of getting a head start on life in your retirement location. “You’re constantly connected to your devices, and you can’t help but see an email come in,” Rob Nehrbas says.

For him and his wife, early relocation helped them solve that puzzle sooner by speeding up their transition to retired life. With the money they saved by moving to South Carolina, Rob was able to end his career earlier than planned (Linda still works part-time as treasurer of an Elks lodge to which the couple belong). 

“After five years of living here, and three-and-a-half of those years being retired, we could not be happier,” he says. “We feel like we chose the right spot, and we just love our lives.”