[Villages Kahuna]

Your choice seems may be a bet on whether the current “opening up” will cause a serious spike in new cases of coronavirus or not.

If the coronavirus situation gets worse we can expect the clamp down on travel and human interaction to be reinstated. That would be bad if you’re selling a house but good if you’re a buyer. But that also depends on whether you can travel here yourself. Being locked down up north or coming here and finding no place to stay while house shopping doesn’t help you.

Right now the curves have not completely flattened. President Trump estimates significant increases in deaths and in the next breath claims he’s done a spectacular job. The governors are a bit better but we shouldn’t forget that they’re all politicians running for re-election.

I’d suggest we should all seek information from reliable sources. Drs. Farci and Brix have become accepted sources of reliable information. The New York Times has begun to publish maybe the best and most understandable charts that I’ve seen. They show both daily numbers of new cases and deaths as well as a moving average. All the numbers are searchable down to the county level. Easy to understand and very accurate. By the way, Marion, Sumter and Lake counties are all well down the list of Florida counties which have had problematic numbers of infections and deaths.

So there you go, it’s a gamble. Personally I don’t think you’d save much money on the purchase of a Villages home by betting on some worst case scenario. That’s particularly true for new homes. The Villages will put sales spiffs on but they’re well-known for not panicking on pricing. Existing homeowners may be less disciplined but the new home prices tend to prop up used home prices as well.

I think if it were me, if I saw a home in a location I liked which checked all the boxes of features you want, I’d jump on it.

Good luck.