The Towns In The Ozarks Where Retirees Are Moving To
Retirement guides keep pointing people toward Florida and Arizona. The livelier story is tucked along the Arkansas-Missouri line, where five small Ozarks counties keep adding residents even though more people die in them each year than are born. The people moving in are the reason. Over the five years to mid-2025, roughly 9,700 more Americans moved into these hills than left them, and the number of residents 65 and older climbed by about 3,500.
They arrive from two directions at once. In four of the five counties, more than half of the households that moved in came from another state, a few driving in from as far as Arizona, while the largest single groups crossed over from a county or two away.
What they want is a house within sight of Bull Shoals, Norfork or Table Rock lakes, or a short cast from the trout water of the North Fork and White rivers, and Zillow put typical values in these towns between about $205,000 and $323,000 this fall.
Mountain Home, Arkansas
People 65 and older make up a larger share of Baxter County than of any other county in Arkansas, about 32 percent in 2025, and the county seat of Mountain Home is where much of this corner of the Ozarks goes for a hospital. Baxter Health's 268-bed hospital on Hospital Drive serves patients from 14 counties in two states, and its Cline Emergency Center is staffed around the clock. Health care and social assistance employed about 4,500 people in the county in 2025, more than a quarter of all the jobs counted there. Of the households that moved into Baxter County in the 2021-22 tax year, the largest single group came from Marion County next door, though six in ten arrived from another state.
Golfers have two choices in town. Twin Lakes Golf is a semi-private, 18-hole, par-70 course, and Big Creek Golf Course, open to the public, has a three-tiered, 400-yard driving range. Hickory Park has four pickleball courts, the Van Matre Senior Activity & Wellness Center runs exercise and social programs, and an evening in the Baker District downtown can end on a patio with live music at Rapp's Barren Brewing. A typical Mountain Home house ran about $239,000 on Zillow's index in September 2026, and Arkansas leaves Social Security untaxed and excludes up to $6,000 of retirement income such as pensions. On Norfork Lake, guided scuba trips go down to a sunken bridge and a submerged bus.
Bull Shoals, Arkansas
A trout float on the White River is the easiest introduction to Bull Shoals, just west of Mountain Home, where a canoe or kayak at Bull Shoals-White River State Park costs $65 a day with the haul back included. Arkansas State Parks calls this the state's premier park for trout fishing. The float slides past 109 riverside campsites and then the fishing resorts and lodges strung along the White on the way down to Flippin, and the park's six trails, the Big Bluff Trail among them, are there for a day off the water.
Up in town, the 18-hole Rivercliff Golf Course is open to daily-fee play, and Roy Danuser City Park has a quarter-mile loop built for wheelchairs. The Light up the Night Christmas Parade is on the first Saturday of December, and October has an event called the Big Dam Food Fight. A little over half of the arrivals in Marion County, which includes Bull Shoals, in the 2021-22 tax year came from another state, and the only neighbors sending enough households to show in IRS tables were Baxter and Boone counties. Zillow's September 2026 figure for a typical Bull Shoals home was about $210,000, and the county issued permits for 190 single-family homes in 2025, more for its size than any other county here. For a hospital, Bull Shoals residents drive east to Baxter Health in Mountain Home.
Gainesville, Missouri
North across the Missouri line, Gainesville is the county seat of Ozark County, where the North Fork of the White River has a Blue Ribbon trout area that the local paper's visitor guide calls the best bet for rainbow trout. Pettit's Canoe Rental and Sunburst Ranch rent canoes and kayaks for floating it, and downriver, Dawt Mill has a lodge and restaurant along with canoe rentals and camping. At Rockbridge, the dinner to plan around is trout with homemade cobbler at the Rockbridge Trout Ranch, where reservations are advised, and boaters who want a lake can head to Theodosia Marina Resort on Bull Shoals Lake.
Back in town, The Center works as Gainesville's gathering place. As of 2024 it served weekday lunches at a suggested $3.50 for anyone 60 and older, and Mondays brought an arthritis exercise class at 1 p.m., cards at 2 and bingo at 6. Ozark County has grown 7.2 percent since 2020, the fastest of these five counties, and households that moved in during the 2021-22 tax year averaged about $52,000 in income, compared with about $37,000 for those who left. Howell County, next door around West Plains, was the only origin large enough to appear in IRS tables.
In September, crowds pack the courthouse square for the Hootin an Hollarin, a festival that reached its 63rd year in 2025 with bed races and outhouse races. Ozarks Healthcare has a clinic on Medical Drive, and the nearest hospital is across the state line at Baxter Health in Mountain Home. Gainesville's typical home value, about $205,000 on Zillow in September 2026, is the lowest of these five towns.
Kimberling City, Missouri
West across the Missouri Ozarks on Table Rock Lake, Kimberling City has the highest home values of these five towns, with Zillow putting a typical house at about $323,000 in September 2026, and the people moving in tend to bring more money. Households arriving in Stone County, home to Kimberling City, in the 2021-22 tax year reported an average income of about $78,000, well above the roughly $54,000 of those who left, and the largest groups came from Springfield's Greene County and from Taney County around Branson. Most of what that money buys is time on the water. Port of Kimberling Marina & Resort, out in the middle of the lake, rents boats and personal watercraft, and across the lake toward Branson, Table Rock State Park has lakeside trails, with Moonshine Beach nearby for summer swimming. CoxHealth has a therapy clinic on Kimberling Boulevard, Cox Medical Center Branson has a newly expanded emergency department, and Missouri lets residents 62 and older deduct all of their taxable Social Security. Stone County is the oldest of the five, with a median age of 54.6 and a third of its residents 65 or older, and the Kimberling Area Senior Center delivers meals and keeps a room where members sit down to lunch together.
Eureka Springs, Arkansas
A five-mile drive separates Holiday Island, on the Arkansas end of Table Rock Lake, from Eureka Springs to the south. At Holiday Island, the community's improvement district runs 27 holes of golf, a marina, a walking trail and a recreation center with two pools, tennis courts and a pickleball court. In Eureka Springs, the outdoors is public. Lake Leatherwood City Park covers 1,610 acres around an 85-acre spring-fed lake, with trails for hiking and biking and fishing on the lake itself, and Kings River floats run anywhere up to a whole weekend. Eureka Springs Hospital, just east of downtown, has a 24-hour emergency room certified for stroke and trauma, and Zillow valued a typical Eureka Springs home at about $313,000 in September 2026.
Carroll County, which takes in both places, is the youngest of the five, with about a quarter of its residents 65 or older. Its largest groups of newcomers came from Washington County, home to Fayetteville, and from Boone and Benton counties, though most arrived from other states. Washington County was also the top destination for people moving out, so the traffic runs both ways on the highway.
Side by side, these towns show two kinds of arrivals. The largest single groups come from close by, households crossing from Marion County into Baxter and Springfield and Branson households settling on Table Rock Lake, while a bigger share overall comes from other states. All five counties have more people than they did in 2020, even with deaths outnumbering births across them by about 920 in the year to mid-2025.
Choosing among them comes down to the kind of water a person wants outside the door on a Tuesday. Kimberling City and Holiday Island put a Table Rock Lake marina close at hand, and Kimberling City and Eureka Springs carry the highest prices. Bull Shoals and Gainesville sit near a canoe launch and a trout river for less money. Mountain Home has the hospital that much of the region already drives to, and four pickleball courts at Hickory Park for the afternoons in between.
