Money manager Matt Patsky stood at the window of his hotel on the Portuguese island of Sao Miguel in March last year, looking out over the Atlantic, and thought: I’m not sure we can retire here after all.
He told his husband, “I don’t know [if] we could live here. It looks like the people are crazy. There are people going in the water, swimming in the ocean. How crazy do you have to be to go swimming in the Atlantic in March?”
Patsky, 56, mentioned this to a local real-estate agent later the day. The man didn’t understand the issue. The water, he said, was probably no colder than 65 degrees.
How these Americans save money in retirement: They live in Spain
As Boston-based Patsky adds: In New England you’re lucky if the water gets that high in August.
It’s “one of the great selling points of the Azores,” he says. “It is rarely below 60. It is rarely above 80. And the water temperature tends to be steady between 65 and 75 degrees.”
Patsky says he and his husband, a retired businessman age 66, are “80%” sure they are going to live outside the United States when they retire. They are tired especially of the politics and the racial tensions.
The number one thing that attracted them to the Azores wasn’t the weather.
It was the emigration.
Portugal, they discovered, offers the all-round fastest, cheapest, easiest way to get a so-called “golden visa,” meaning a fast track to permanent residence and citizenship.
You have to have means, but this is not purely for Rockefellers. If you want to get Portuguese residency, and a passport, you need to buy a home in the country and spend at least some money fixing it up, and spend at least seven days a year in the country for the next five years.
After six months you get a residency card. After five years, a passport.
The threshold prices vary, depending on the type of home you buy and where you buy it, but they start at 280,000 euros (About $310,000).
As part of the deal, says Patsky, you have to buy the home with cash. You can’t take out a Portuguese mortgage. But you can always raise the cash by remortgaging your U.S. home. The money thresholds are lower than in many other countries. And the seven-day requirement lets Patsky continue his job in Boston, as the CEO of socially responsible investing company Trillium, during the five years.
Hot springs in January, no traffic, and universal healthcare. The best
Money manager Matt Patsky stood at the window of his hotel on the Portuguese island of Sao Miguel in March last year, looking out over the Atlantic, and thought: I’m not sure we can retire here after all.
He told his husband, “I don’t know [if] we could live here. It looks like the people are crazy. There are people going in the water, swimming in the ocean. How crazy do you have to be to go swimming in the Atlantic in March?”
Patsky, 56, mentioned this to a local real-estate agent later the day. The man didn’t understand the issue. The water, he said, was probably no colder than 65 degrees.
As Boston-based Patsky adds: In New England you’re lucky if the water gets that high in August.
It’s “one of the great selling points of the Azores,” he says. “It is rarely below 60. It is rarely above 80. And the water temperature tends to be steady between 65 and 75 degrees.”
Patsky says he and his husband, a retired businessman age 66, are “80%” sure they are going to live outside the United States when they retire. They are tired especially of the politics and the racial tensions.
The number one thing that attracted them to the Azores wasn’t the weather.
It was the emigration.
Portugal, they discovered, offers the all-round fastest, cheapest, easiest way to get a so-called “golden visa,” meaning a fast track to permanent residence and citizenship.
You have to have means, but this is not purely for Rockefellers. If you want to get Portuguese residency, and a passport, you need to buy a home in the country and spend at least some money fixing it up, and spend at least seven days a year in the country for the next five years.
After six months you get a residency card. After five years, a passport.
The threshold prices vary, depending on the type of home you buy and where you buy it, but they start at 280,000 euros (About $310,000).
As part of the deal, says Patsky, you have to buy the home with cash. You can’t take out a Portuguese mortgage. But you can always raise the cash by remortgaging your U.S. home. The money thresholds are lower than in many other countries. And the seven-day requirement lets Patsky continue his job in Boston, as the CEO of socially responsible investing company Trillium, during the five years.
A small but growing number of Americans are choosing to retire abroad—some because it’s cheaper, some because they have family or roots there, and some because of the lifestyle, culture or ambience. The numbers receiving Social Security checks overseas has risenby a third in 10 years, and that doesn’t count all the “retirement…
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