A single North Texas city made a recent list of best places to retire in Texas, but don’t look for any big cities on the list.
Granbury, southwest of Fort Worth, ranked second place in the study by New York City-based financial technology company SmartAsset. It scored highest among the top 10 in the category of the percentage of seniors already there, with 30.4 percent.
Katy, west of Houston, topped the list. Livingston, about 60 miles north of Houston in Polk County, took third, and Woodway, southwest of Waco, took fourth.
Fredericksburg, in the Texas Hill Country, scored a fifth-place ranking.
For a look at SmartAsset’s top 25 places in Texas to retire in Texas, click here.
The study weighed factors including taxes, affordability, doctors' offices per 1,000 people, recreation centers per 1,000, retirement centers per 1,000, and percentage of seniors in the community.
For a breakdown of the best places nationwide, or to click through breakdowns by categories including tax burden, medical care, and recreational and social offerings, click here.
Humble, north of Houston, landed in the number six slot.
Rounding out the top 10 were Tomball, which is north-northwest of Houston, Webster southeast of Houston, Burnet in the Hill Country, and Richmond west of Houston.
Steve Sabato, a spokesman for SmartAsset, noted that the Houston area was well represented in the state’s top 10 list of cities for “Best Places to Retire” in Texas. Five of the top 10 cities were in the Houston area. Granbury was the top city from the Dallas-Fort Worth area in this year’s study, coming in at number two in the state.
Asked why only small cities made the list, Sabato said any ZIP Code with a population greater than 5,000 was included.
"We then applied the same criteria to each of the locations in our study to get an apples-to-apples comparison of how each place compared across the study’s metrics," he said.
"Personal finance is ultimately personal, and we release these studies to get people thinking and talking about financial decisions like buying a home or preparing for retirement," Sabato said in an email.
"In this case, an ideal retirement will differ from person to person. Some folks are more interested in heading for the beach and the sun, while others might choose a retirement location based on proximity to family or loved ones. By focusing strictly on the numbers, we created an even comparison across the board that identifies recreation and social opportunities, access to medical care and taxes."
