So much of it boils down to personal preference.
Some people love being on a golf course, but my husband and I did not like the lack of privacy or the noise from the cart paths. So, privacy versus views is a big issue. Then you need to ask yourself how important having a friendly neighborhood is. We lucked out on ours; the neighbors are super nice. But we have friends who prefer to keep to themselves, and neighbors are not a factor. Then there’s location. We are north of 466 and very close to the Savannah Center and shopping, but many like a location farther south, where the average age is lower and where The Villages is expanding.
Then there’s frame versus block construction. My oldest friend’s husband is a structural engineer and strongly advised block for Florida, so we limited our search to block. We also preferred resale to new. We felt like we were getting more for our money with resale. We liked having mature plants. My husband also wanted us to have our own pool. I wanted an indoor laundry room, not one in the garage.
Factoring as many of those things in as possible, we came up with a dozen houses that seemed to fit. We ended buying one of the top 6.
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