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Americans are retiring to Vietnam
- neonate 7y agohttp://archive.md/zXfVz http://archive.md/zXfVz
- gunnihinn 7y agoTurns out the Vietnam war was a savvy retirement plan setup: clear out some space, return to the US to bask in the most generous ROI in history for 30+ years, return to that patch of land that’s conveniently clear now. At least the conquistadors had to live there in the interim years.
- ausjke 7y agoliterally that land is not cleared well, many land mines are still in the ground, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-vietnam-war-is-still-killing-people https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-vietnam-war-is-...
- riffic 7y agoAmong other toxins.
- CapricornNoble 7y agoYeah dousing carcinogenic defoliants all over your future retirement property is pretty piss-poor planning.
- codr7 7y agoMore like a savvy deep state drug trafficking plan. But yes, bombing the crap out of other countries does make it easier to walk in and take what you want. And you get to sell more bombs, which is also great for the economy.
- cagenut 7y agoI can practically hear the journalist giggling in my head as he writes some of these quotes down.
- starpilot 7y agoIs there a clever acronym for best low cost countries for Americans' retirement? I think MVP = Mexico Vietnam Panama might work, but are there others?
- chrisseaton 7y agoWhat do you need an acronym for?
- riffic 7y agoCan you not further overload an abbreviation that already has multiple meanings? It's anything but clever.
- pcurve 7y ago"They bought the four-bedroom, 3½-bathroom unit, measuring about 1,840 square feet along with a separate veranda, for about $250,000 in 2011." I'm sure it's a very nice place, but that sum is nothing to sneeze at. I wonder how much it costs now, and what is monthly expense is. Good thing is, American government has sensible reciprocal arrangement with many countries that offer national pension system that you don't necessarily have to wait until you hit full retirement age to live abroad and collect social security checks from there.
- TurkishPoptart 7y ago>Good thing is, American government has sensible reciprocal arrangement with many countries that offer national pension system that you don't necessarily have to wait until you hit full retirement age to live abroad and collect social security checks from there. I did not know this. How does this work?
- pcurve 7y agoWe have agreement with the following countries. (Vietnam isn't one of them) https://www.ssa.gov/international/agreements_overview.html https://www.ssa.gov/international/agreements_overview.html In a nutshell, all national pension systems work pretty much the same way in that, the longer you put into it, the more you get out. There is also minimum that you have to put in. For the U.S., it's 40 points (or 10 years). Let's say you work 9 years in the U.S. but then decide to pack your stuff up and move to one of the above listed countries. You will get credit for 9 years worth of work and not have to start over in your new country (and the other way around too) I'm actually conflating two different topics... one is reciprocal arrangement in terms of pension point system. Another is, just being able to collect pension from abroad, which is actually not a big deal at all. https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/110614/how-can-i-receive-my-social-security-benefits-if-i-want-retire-outside-us.asp https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/110614/how-can-i-re...
- iudqnolq 7y agoI'm surprised by how well written the social security administration article is. I found it interesting and readable enough to read all the way through, which I absolutely wasn't expecting. Our tax dollars at work, I guess.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago> Historically, the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia were more common destinations for American retirees. But a higher cost of living, especially in coastal areas like California and New York, has pushed many farther afield. Why would a higher cost of living within the US push expats out of Malaysia into Vietnam?
- Moodles 7y agoI would guess they save less so have to retire to cheaper places.
- i_am_proteus 7y agoIncreased demand for properties outside of the US as more people decide to retire abroad.
- MaupitiBlue 7y agoEverything you want.
- bane 7y agoSomething many people (especially Americans) forget to consider when selecting a place to retire is the almost guaranteed need for lots and lots of high quality medical care wherever you end up. I suspect many people here on HN will retire with large enough retirement savings (and other assets) to settle down like kings in many places in the world. But the distribution of high quality care for ahem people of advancing ages, is very uneven and most of the places with better care have very high costs of living (e.g. Northern Europe) or very high costs of medical care (everywhere U.S.). There's also a desire to try to make daily costs of living stretch more and many retired people will find themselves retiring to rural environments. However, those places may also be very far away from the kind of emergency medical care that's likely to be needed. The intersection of decent cost of living, close to medical facilities, high quality medical establishment, and affordable medical care leaves not too many places in the world. At the moment, my wife and I are considering retiring to South Korea (not Seoul) or Japan (not Tokyo) since those seem to be places with that rare intersection. I'm sure some places in Western Europe may also qualify.
- quaquaqua1 7y agoBased on my medical care in the USA I can assure you Asian doctors are,at the very least, at the same level as US doctors. It sounds like an insult to my ears.
- DeepYogurt 7y agoAsia is a big place. Which area(s) are you referring to?
- 0x0aff374668 7y agoI've spent significant time in HCMC (about 6 months over four years). It is vibrant, friendly, booming, tech heavy, and goddamn cheap. I didn't need medical care, and didn't have to cook because food is amazing and cheap. I computed about 1/10th to 1/12th the cost of my life in Northern Cali. I hope when I'm older it is still cheap and not environmentally wiped out. (I'm also biased because twice I met a woman who I thought was waaaay out of my league and we ended up dating.)
- teamwork007 7y agoOne piece of information the article doesn't acknowledge is that property rights in Vietnam aren't the same as they are in the US. So if a foreigner "buys" an apartment in Vietnam, they can only have it for up to 50 years. In other words, it's an asset that is steadily decreasing in value, and not one that the "owner" can necessarily hand down to the next generation at a higher or the same value unless changes are made to those laws.
- jjeaff 7y agoCan they sell it at the end of those 50 years and buy something else? If so, I can't see why purchasing one would necessarily be steadily decreasing in value, except for the requirement of a rushed sale if you waited until the very last minute to sell.
- teamwork007 7y agoBecause you wouldn't get your money back at the end of that 50 years. If you sold it after 35 years, you would essentially be selling a 15 year contract to own the apartment, which would likely be factored into the resale price.
- teamwork007 7y agoWith that said, 50 year property rights are likely a stepping stone to something "better" since no one has hit that point yet, so the laws could change before then. However a lot of other things could change before then that might work against you (e.g.increase in corruption, attitudes towards foreigners could sour, property rights policies could revert back to less rights, etc).
- tartoran 7y agoThen wouldn't it work out to rent instead?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tempsy 7y agoSeems like the reporter not so shyly pointed out that an incentive for these men to retire to SE Asia is not just the healthcare but the women?
- buboard 7y agobecause men liking women is shameful?
- tempsy 7y agoIt’s not but the old white man/submissive younger Asian woman dynamic is one of those uncomfortable stereotypes that ring true
- fxtentacle 7y agoI'm not sure it's limited to Asian women. I believe those old white dudes who can afford it are just trying to avoid dating the stereotypical modern western girls. Here in Germany, rich guys go for a Czech, Turkish or Italian wife if they hope to have plenty of kids. And it's no secret that British guys will travel all over Europe to try their luck at dating, because apparently most aren't too happy with the supply at home.
- tempsy 7y agoThe dynamic is that these old white men aren’t actually that rich by Western standards but are by SE Asian ones, so they don’t have the status or wealth to attract a young attractive western woman but do in SEA. If they were actually rich they wouldn’t need to retire overseas to stretch out their retirement.
- fxtentacle 7y agoWhat I meant is that even old white men who are actually rich by western standards tend to choose young attractive non-western woman.
- fxtentacle 7y agoThat guy must have been incredibly lucky with the timing. When I researched housing prices in the nice areas of Saigon in 2018, 50 square meter 1 bedroom apartments were sold at $300,000+. And "sold" here means you rent it perpetually from the development company to circumvent that 50-year land ownership limit. But that can put you at risk in case said company folds. Oh and I've also heard a lot of stories about Vietnamese women becoming rather disenchanted of hip cool American backpackers, the latter of which presumably read articles like this and decided to try their luck. The backpacker area of Saigon is considered more like a slum that you try to avoid at night. One other thing that the article dangerously omits is the fact that food hygiene and/or safety testing is still pretty much non-existent even in the richest parts of Vietnam. If you're old, a bad food poisoning could well kill you. And in Vietnam, you'll probably have one per year. That said, food is super tasty and impossibly cheap.
- pixelperfect 7y agoIs there a big disconnect between buy and rent prices? My brother was living in a nice area for a few hundred dollars per month just a few years ago.
- fxtentacle 7y agoAbsolutely. Renting - for example on AirBnB - is quite cheap. I had a nice apartment with balcony for $300 monthly. But the buy prices are hugely inflated at the moment.
- onlyrealcuzzo 7y agoPrice to rent everywhere has been pretty crazy for the last 6 years. So this isn't a Vietnam specific thing.
- fxtentacle 7y agoThe thing specific to Vietnam is that purchase prices are very high, while rental prices are comparatively low. I believe it's due to the vicinity to China with rich investors looking for places to deposit their cash.
- adnjoo 7y agohow about retiring in Bali, ID? :)
- latchkey 7y agoUS :: Mexico : Australia :: Bali Bali is expensive and honestly not that nice. Kuta is a train wreck and places like Ubud are now some weird yoga retreat city with too much car traffic.
- ncmncm 7y agoIt takes a lot of cheek to kill, what, 2 million people? participating in a pointless war, and then retire there. Americans, AIR?
- latchkey 7y agoYea, I felt the same way, but I realized a couple things after living here for 4 years... Vietnam is now a very young country... in the same way that kids born in the late 1990/2000's don't remember the Gulf War, kids in Vietnam have no association with the war. They don't care about it at all. The kids also do not trust their govt. or the education they get in school. They now have access to the Internet and can learn things on their own. For the older generations, the other part is that America has, in a way, redeemed itself. First was the attempt at the end of the war to rescue millions of people. We've also brought great wealth to the country and for better or worse, taught them capitalism (Clinton in the 90's). People may be dirt poor, but nobody in Vietnam goes hungry anymore. So yea... it just isn't how is looked upon anymore.
- tboyd47 7y ago* Americans with Vietnamese spouses are retiring to Vietnam