My wife and I have visited The Villages twice so far and are looking at it and other retirement communities in Florida for when we retire in a couple of years (and counting down the days!). The basic price of houses seem about in line with what we're seeing at other communities, as are the lot sizes. You get a bit less than of both for the money than what we have here in Cary, NC (outside of Raleigh), but I'm looking to downsize on the yard work anyway. Plus, I'm thinking of a house in The Villages almost like a cabin on a cruise ship. It doesn't need to be huge because you're never there anyway! We're leaning towards The Villages because of the huge number of activities available. We are definitely planning on being out of the house a LOT. That's very different than friends of ours who have built their huge, elaborate retirement home on a huge, wooded lot in the middle of nowhere. They want to be at home forever, endlessly enjoying their house, I guess. We want to be out, Out, OUT having fun, Fun, FUN!
As far a restaurant pricing, I guess it's all in what you're used to having around you. We ate at a handful of restaurants and found some to be a bit overpriced and some to be bargains, much like the variety of restaurants we have here.
We're still trying to figure out what other costs there might be to budge for that we might have overlooked. The Bonds (or CDCs or whatever) are a bit off-putting and the other monthly fees aren't cheap. But we know that infrastructure like that (all those golf courses, rec centers, pools, town squares, nightly music, etc.) doesn't come free.
We're also trying to figure out how much we'll need in "fun" money. We hope to travel more in our retirement. I want to take golf back up (and that ain't free, even on "free" courses!). We don't want to be "house poor" and not be able to socialize and entertain the way we want. So, we continue to work for now. However, if I were to win the lottery today, I'd be down there tomorrow. When we visited the first time the year before last, it was all I could do to make myself leave and go home! And that was just a "drop-in" visit, not a lifestyle preview visit!
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