Three LKN Towns Recognized as Top Retirement Destinations in the US

This article was reported on and written by Evan Moore at the Charlotte Observer. Click here to read the original article.

A recent study ranked three Lake Norman towns among the top retirement destinations in America.

SmartAsset, a personal finance website, ranked Huntersville as the eighth-best up-and-coming town for retirees. Mooresville and Cornelius came in at No. 17 and No. 20, respectively.

To find up-and-coming retirement towns in the U.S., SmartAsset compared 84 cities across three categories: affordability, health care and comfort.

Affordability includes metrics such as the estimated post-tax annual cost of living for an individual with no kids, state income tax and sales tax. Comfort rankings considered the crime rates, number of pleasant weather days, and dining and entertainment establishments in each town.

Health care rankings were based on metrics like the number of doctors per 100,000 residents, nursing homes per 10,000 residents and percentage of hospitals with an “A” rating.

Cornelius was ranked the seventh-best retirement town for health care, and Huntersville came in at No. 8, according to the study.

“More than 44% of hospitals in this suburb of Charlotte have an “A” rating, contributing to Huntersville’s eighth-best overall health care score,” the study says. “Meanwhile, this town’s 60,000 residents pay 7% in state and local sales tax, tied for the 15th-lowest across our study. Only about a fifth of people aged 65 and older are housing-cost burdened in Huntersville, which ranks 15th-best among up-and-coming retirement towns.”

Two other North Carolina towns, Wake Forest and New Bern, also cracked the top 25, coming in at No. 21 and No. 24, respectively.