Are you thinking of retiring in Healdsburg? Or maybe buying a home there as you move towards retirement? In this blog post, I will share everything you need to know to decide if it is the right place for you if you are considering Healdsburg as a place to retire to.
For many people, the obvious draw is the dream of sipping wine amid rolling vineyards or strolling around the Plaza but there are some key things you will want to check off your list before deciding to make Healdsburg your home.
Let’s start off with the things that draw people to Healdsburg in the first place
There is a reason Healdsburg was voted one of the best small towns in America by Smithsonian Magazine. Conde Nast Traveller magazine recently called Healdsburg “Sonoma County’s most charming town”. This is clearly an attraction for a lot of people. The idea of growing old, walking to the Plaza, eating at one of the many great restaurants, and stopping by the tasting rooms sounds like a pretty good retirement!
However, there needs to be a lot more to retirement than that! The great thing about Healdsburg is that it does have so much to offer from the outdoors to civic involvement to the strength of the community
If you like the outdoor life there is a lot on offer. If you like hiking or biking, just north of Healdsburg is Lake Sonoma which has miles of hiking and mountain biking trails. But the great thing about Healdsburg is that we are only 40 minutes away from the coast at Jenner where there are a ton of hikes along the coast and what’s more, it means that when it is 100f in Healdsburg you can find somewhere that is 30f cooler which is really nice.
If cycling is your thing, again we are lucky that we have some of the best cycling in Sonoma County right on our doorstep. You will frequently see people, presumably retired, cycling West Dry Creek Road during the day with a group of fellow retirees! It is just the best ever cycling and is super easy.
Photo by Jerry Dodrill
As we get older, we all want to know we can get access to great healthcare. As a Brit who grew up as the son of a surgeon and an anesthetist with the UK national health service, this is definitely an important consideration and something I have taken for granted most of my life.
Santa Rosa, which is just a 15-minute drive away, has a large Sutter Hospital and Medical Center providing comprehensive care including 24/7 emergency, specialty areas like neurology and cardiology, surgical centers, and senior care resources. Kaiser Permanente also opened a new medical center in Santa Rosa in 2019 offering emergency, hospital care, lab services, and over 30 specialties.
For more routine healthcare needs, Healdsburg has the District Hospital and its Family Medicine Residency Program right in town, so a lot of your health needs can be met right on your doorstep
For more advanced specialty care, UCSF, Marin General, and Stanford's medical systems are easily accessible within a 70 to 90-minute drive.
So between all these options, Healdsburg residents can definitely access some amazing services, you might just have to leave the city of Healdsburg but they aren’t far away.
If you are thinking of retiring here, the chances are you are thinking about how you can get to see family, spend more time with the grandchildren or travel the world! If you have family that lives in the Bay Area then San Francisco is just over an hour away and even if you have family in the South Bay it is probably a couple of hours away. It helps that the 101 runs right by the town so it is super convenient for getting straight onto the freeway.
In a couple of years, by the time you settle into Healdsburg, we will likely have a train link to San Francisco with the new Smart Train extension which is slated to be extended to Healdsburg in a couple of years
If you have plans to travel further afield, one of the real benefits of Healdsburg is that it is just 10 minutes from Sonoma County Airport. So, if you want to fly to Palm Springs, LA, Dallas, Portland or other West Coast destinations you can fly from Sonoma Airport which is an amazing experience, more akin to getting on a bus than a plane! It’s a shame that the connection to Denver has been cut because that was a great hub to fly pretty much anywhere.
For now, if you want to travel internationally then you need to fly to San Francisco or LA where the options are virtually limitless. That being said, when I went to Iceland recently I actually flew to Seattle to get a connection from there which was pretty cool. So there are options for connecting from other cities on the West Coast.
Let’s face it, if a place has all the practical things you need, great food and the outdoors but the people suck or it is hard to get to know people then everything else counts for nothing!
A common theme from all my clients who have moved here is how Healdsburg is such an easy place to land. Most of my clients are blown away by how easy it has been to meet people. Time and time again, people are excited to meet so many intelligent, interesting, accomplished people from all over the place and from all walks of life.
For so many people who live life in San Francisco where everyone is in tech, and where everyone leaves the house at 5 am to get to Silicon Valley and returns at 9 pm it is easy to live somewhere for 10, 15, 20 years and not even know all the neighbors. I moved here from Mill Valley and I did know our neighbors but it was nothing like living here and meeting so many interesting people.
It is a common theme that after a couple of years in Healdsburg people will often say how they know more people after two years than they do after over a decade in their previous home.
One of the things that makes it so easy to meet people is the number of events that are organized by the community. So whether it is Tuesday night on the plaza with free music, Cinquo de Maya or the Xmas Tree lighting ceremony, there is always something going on. On top of that, there are all the individual events that are organized by wineries as well as things like the Food and Wine Festival now in its second year. A lot of these events are quite expensive but then you have some wineries such as Lambert Bridge that will do its Friday Pizza Night for members but which non-members can also go to
So if you are wondering if Healdsburg is a good place for you to retire to then one thing you don’t have to worry about is what a great sense of community exists and how easy it is to settle here and make new friends. Let’s face it once you get over 50 or 55 it's harder to make new friends so this is a genuine concern for a lot of people.
There is no getting away from it that Healdsburg is an expensive place to live but there are lots of different options depending on the lifestyle that you are looking for. For a lot of people, there is a great appeal to living within a 15-minute walk of the Plaza. Having lived 10 minutes from the Plaza, I can vouch for the fact that it is pretty special just walking out in the evening to meet friends for dinner. If that is the lifestyle you are looking for then I have a video that walks you through all the different options and price points for living downtown.
While you likely don’t want to take on a huge rural property, there are plenty of options for buying a place just on the edge of town or within a 10-15 minute drive to the Plaza that can give you the rural lifestyle, with a pool and plenty of room to put up the whole family.
For some people retiring means becoming work optional rather than stopping work. It’s maybe that you have your third act in you. Perhaps you would like to try your hand at owning a hobby vineyard to make your own estate wine? There are plenty of people who do that and get a huge amount of satisfaction out of it. The opportunities are endless
If you are looking for a simpler life then you might be interested in buying one of the new Mill District condos, the luxury development right in town. It’s not cheap mind you. For just over $3m for a 2-bedroom place, you can get a place with zero maintenance and all the amenities of a high-end resort.
At the other end of the scale is the 55+ community which is on the southside of Healdsburg. I’ve done separate videos specifically on this community which I often think is among the best value real estate in Healdsburg. Just over a mile from the Plaza, you can buy a 2 or 3-bed home for $750-$850k. I cover this community in more detail in the video below.
The other option, this time on the north end of town is Enso Village, a senior living facility that comprises 221 independent units and 54 assisted living and memory care units. It has been developed as a partnership between the San Francisco Zen Center and Kendal Corporation. It is an interesting partnership because The San Francisco Zen Center is one of the largest residential training Buddhist organizations outside of Asia and Kendal Corporation on the other hand is an organization that runs not-for-profit senior living communities founded on Quaker principles. It has a self-described mission of “Transforming the experience of aging”. The first residents moved in last year so it will be interesting to see how it develops. Mind you With all meals provided and organized activities it is definitely not for everyone!
For many people deciding to move to Healdsburg as part of retiring is not a single one-step process. A lot of people will actually buy a second home here first to test the water and then over a couple of years will decide if they want to make the move permanent and upgrade their second home or just move into their second home!
Regardless of your timescales, if you are planning your retirement and Healdsburg is of your places to consider, then please do give me a call. I work with lots of people from the Bay Area all of whom have made the move and been through the process so I could happily connect you with someone or help you navigate the options.
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