[npwalters]

So you are planning to buy a house in The Villages. Great! There are literally 10s of thousands of people here living the dream. We hope to keep it that way.

Please note this word of caution from a current resident. The Villages sales force mantra is “you are not buying a house, you are buying a lifestyle”. The lifestyle is rapidly changing – for the worse in the opinion of many.

You will probably consider paying a premium to have your single family home on a golf course and/or near a “country club”. Learn from the developers recent actions and decide if that is worth the risk. Here are a few facts.

There are several country clubs in the northern third of The Villages. These were built in the 80s and 90s and belong to the developer. Many people paid a premium to locate near them fully expecting to have access to a CC pool, tennis courts, a nice restaurant, a 18 or 27 hole course – you know, the things one normally associates with a country club. Two country clubs are now either non-existent or just a CC in name only (TDS in my opinion); Tierra Del Sol and Hacienda Hills. IT GETS WORSE.

The developer demolished Hacienda Hills CC and now states they plan to put an apartment complex on the site. Yes, an apartment complex in the middle of single family homes. To do this they had to get approval to offer amenities to the future apartment residents. A meeting was held to hear the current residents and the OVERWHELMING OPINION was a loud and clear NO. The Amenity authority (after meeting one on one with the developer) voted to ignore the residents and give approximately 280 amenities to the developer. There is much more to that story but this is already long. Read any post on Hacienda Hills on this blog.

Look at Hacienda Hills Country Club on Google Earth to get an idea of the area. The developer owns all the country clubs. Ask your real estate agent if the CC near your home is guaranteed to be there in 5 years.

Bottom line –do your diligence. We all hope the developer shows some respect to the current residents and reverses course. It is the right thing to do.