I turn 55 next month and have never owned a home. I wanted to several years ago as I had a lot of liquid assets, the housing market was severely depressed and it was a house I really liked. But the sellers real estate agent would not deal with the agent I engaged to represent me (lesson learned - do not be your own lawyer, do not do your own surgery and do not buy a house without someone working for you). Looking back 7 years now I am so happy it did not go through. Taxes AND FEES here on Long Island keep rising by insane amounts. The corrupt Nassau and Oyster Bay town governments are sucking more money from us every day in order to feather their nests and pay off their friends (Nassau gave 7% raises to all non-union personnel last year at a cost of over $3 million annually to us taxpayers - police budget is about $1 billion now). My salary was reduced to $20K/year last year with full medical at least. No IT jobs for those of us over 40 or so and I have to muddle through for a few more years somehow. Just a fact of life. However, I have not had a vacation in years, drive a sixteen year old car and spend very little money on myself. Instead I saved and invested it which means in 10 years I am going to retire out of New York with enough money to live the life I put off in New York. In fact, I may wind up in a higher tax bracket due to the RMD's than I had when I worked for a decent salary LOL. Plus with the proposal to eliminate the Federal deduction for State and Local taxes, which I am not really opposed to even though I pay income tax to the state, it will make New York even more miserable and I will love watching the New York politicians try and explain it away.