Prices go up there too, though. We moved to a little tiny town in the middle of nowhere in 2020 and our house has nearly doubled in value.

They go up but it doesn’t matter because you’ve more than made up for it in the higher cost market.

When someone from SF sells their $2.5 million dollar home to retire to Orlando, it doesn’t really matter if Orlando median prices recently doubled from $200k to $400k.

Rich people cashing out of higher value markets and/or investing in lower value markets is what drives the price up though.

Someone in Orlando who bought a house at $200k might feel excited that their house is worth $400k but it’s irrelevant because if they wanted to move house then wherever they might like to move has also increased in price.

So? The discussion is about how you’re better off being in the top end market. The people who spent their life in Orlando or wherever else that had normal housing are at the whims of people coming from crazy housing markets

So you retire to some rural community where there's no services, and the local hospital has either closed or has terrible service because all the competent nurses and doctors have left, right when you're getting old and need a lot more healthcare services.

Can 100% confirm this, still in Australia.

I was at a drop-in health centre the other week. There was an old guy - 80s - who had come in from country NSW to have his wounded leg looked at.

While we were waiting he told me that there were no doctors in his local hospital. None.

His son lives in Canberra and he'd told him to drive in to be able to see someone.

This isn’t how it works in the US, so… no?

People very frequently sell out of high real estate markets like the Bay Area and move to places in Arizona and Florida that have much better elderly healthcare.

What makes you think Arizona and Florida are inexpensive?

Talking to people who did exactly what I said and looking on Zillow myself. AZ and FL are inexpensive by comparison to the Bay Area.

So why moves into the house you're selling? That sounds like a ponzi scheme.

Because people want to live there while they have a career and raise a family.

Setting that aside, it’s not a Ponzi scheme when anyone can sell their security. You’re probably thinking of the Greater Fool Theory.

Either way, it’s still not correct because making money isn’t the primary reason everyone is buying homes in the Bay Area at least. They need a place to live and don’t want rent to go up in perpetuity.