A LOT of people will tell you to take it slow, perhaps rent for several months before deciding where you are finding friends and which neighborhood appeals to you most. They also point out that the average Villager buys twice more after first moving to TV. My wife and I really wanted to follow that advice but ended up ignoring it. First, we don't like paying rent, we'd prefer to put that money towards paying off a house. Second, The Villages is so big (and getting bigger all the time) that you might well have to live in the Bubble for years before really experience most or all of the neighborhoods. Third, after seeing several models during a few visits of a 2-year span, we walked into one and just loved it. We liked the layout, the orientation, the color scheme inside and out and pretty much every other option selection that had been made. We just had to have the house. We bought it and rented it for a year (as we're not yet retired) and have only recently started moving our stuff down in preparation for retiring (coming soon!). During those visits, we have met some outstandingly great neighbors. I'm sure we're going to love the neighborhood. Perhaps we were just lucky, but I'm thinking it's far easier to be lucky in that regard in The Villages than other places we've lived. Nobody grew up in The Villages; everybody is from somewhere else. They all moved there to be happy and have fun. With that attitude, they're more likely to be great neighbors in my book.
One bit of advice I have heard relates to your age. You're on the young side for The Villages. I've been told that newer neighborhoods are more likely to attract younger (well, relatively younger) buyers. To find folks closer to your age, you might want to consider the south end of the main Bubble vs. the northern, more "historic" end. That could be totally off, but it happens that most of the people we've met in our neighborhood (Dunedin, in the south end) are about our age (62). So maybe there's something to that.
Good luck in whatever you decide!
|