In the meantime, he’s renting out his future retirement home, reaping the tax benefits and getting a step up on the retired baby boomers who he hopes will flood the housing market in years to come.

“And they’ll be looking for their place in the sun,” he said.

Kelner, a CPA for the accounting firm Schechter Dokken Kanter in Minneapolis, has already found his. He’s among a growing number of boomers who are buying retirement homes now, but using them as vacation homes or investment properties until they can live there full time.

While most second-home purchases are for immediate use, the 2006 Baby Boomer Survey by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) shows that those born between 1946 and 1964 are more active than any other group in the second-home market — they own 57 percent of all vacation/seasonal homes and 58 percent of rental properties. And many of them plan to use them as their eventual retirement homes.

Where are the hot spots? Typically by water and near the mountains. A 2008 NAR survey says that the sunny South had the largest share of second-home purchases, with the West coming in second.

A rising number of those second-home buyers are boomers who plan to use their investment as primary residences when they retire, said NAR spokesman Walter Molony. He attributes the trend to changes in tax laws, changing demographics (more baby boomers) and a desire to diversify investments.

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/homegarden/20559634.html?location_refer=Prep%20Sports

• Preparing Your Retirement Plan for Tax Increases One aspect of retirement planning that cannot be "set and forget" is tax planning. Our political leaders are regularly adjusting (and mostly increasing) the different taxes we must pay on our income and property. As things stand now, 2011 will begin with a host of tax increases that will affect......
• Worst Case Scenario Retirement Planning Regular readers know that for retirement planning I am a proponent of preparing for the worst and building from there. That is the subject of a post I wrote for a new collaborative retirement blog published by U.S. News and World Report. Entitled "Three Worst Case Scenarios to Avoid," I......
• Boomer and Retirement Weekly Reader - Entrepreneur Edition Six weeks ago I was persuaded by experience and research to make some radical changes in our retirement planning philosophy. Four weeks ago I converted that changed philosophy into a new retirement investing plan. I developed spreadsheets and other tools to aid in developing and implementing our plan. Three weeks......
• What is a Retirement Plan? The phrase "retirement plan" is at the core thousands of baby boomer conversations and Internet searches each day. Yet, I wonder if all of those conversations and searches are directed at the same information. That's because a "retirement plan" can mean different things to different people and in different contexts.......
• Personal Retirement Plan Investment Options Good financial management consists of two different distinct facets, the first of which is learning how to make the best use out of your limited earned income in order to best meet your current expenses, and the second of which has to do with learning how to implement strategies that......