Where can I afford to retire in Florida on Social Security?

What a lender measures against your monthly income is what you would pay each month, not the price of the house: the new house payment with its taxes and insurance, plus any car loan, card or other debt. Fannie Mae's rules for the home loans it buys cap that at 36 percent of monthly income on a loan a lender approves by hand, 45 percent with the credit score and savings left after closing that it asks for, and 50 percent through its automated approval system. Social Security that a lender confirms is not taxed can be counted as a quarter more than it pays. Even the lowest-priced county, Madison, had a typical home above $150,000 in the three months to June 2026. Retirees on Social Security alone can also buy with cash from a house sold up north, buy a condo or a manufactured home, or rent. The counties that are both older and lower-priced are Citrus, Highlands and Marion, where more than a quarter of residents are 65 or older and the typical home sold for under $300,000. Sumter, where most of The Villages sits, is the oldest county in the state, with more than half its residents 65 or over. Once you own and live in the home, the homestead exemption lowers the tax, and the counties and cities that have adopted it take up to $50,000 more off the assessed value, for their own taxes, for residents 65 or older whose household income is under the state's limit, $38,686 for the 2026 exemption.

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