Sarasota region gets nod for drawing retirees

The North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton metro area got a nod this week as one of the most popular places to retire in the United States.

MagnifyMoney, a LendingTree company, had the metropolitan statistical area third on its list, which used so-called in-migration and out-migration of people who were older than 65 and out of the labor force to compile a list from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series. The site didn't specify its time frame.

Florida has six of the Top 10 spots on the list, which was topped by Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale Arizona.

Second was nearby Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, while the other Florida markets on the list were Cape Coral-Fort Myers (5th), Naples-Immokalee-Marco Island (6th), Lakeland-Winter Haven (7th) and Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach (8th).

Rounding it out was Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, Wisconsin, at No. 4; Lake Havasu City-Kingman, Arizona, at No. 9; and Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin,

Tennessee at No. 10.

The data pegged the North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton market's in-migration at 9,987, out-migration at 4,237, thus a net migration of 5,750.

The least popular places with retirees?

The Big Apple and its environs. New York-Newark-Jersey City was No. 236 on the list, with a loss of 15,376 residents.

The Chicago-Napierville-Eligin metro was the next up on the list, at 235th, with Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, at No. 234.

"Dream locations like Honolulu, Hawaii, and Orlando, Florida, didn’t rank as highly as one would think," the site said. "And on a not so surprising note, bustling metro areas full of workers bees weren’t desirable spots, either. Apparently, there is a lot less need for early bird specials in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, New York, Seattle and Chicago."

The most popular places to retire, according to MagnifyMoney

1. Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Arizona

2. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater

3. North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton

4. Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, Wisconsin

5. Cape Coral-Fort Myers

6. Naples-Immokalee-Marco Island

7. Lakeland-Winter Haven

8. Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach

9. Lake Havasu City-Kingman, Arizona

10. Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, Tennessee