We spent considerable time renting there with the intention of buying and making that our home. We looked and rented at both the 55+ communities and those that were not. For us, the biggest drawback was every community is gated, so its not like you can easily go for long walks from one community to the next. All are under the Lakewood "umbrella" but they are really separate and distinct communities with some shared amenities surrounding those communities.
I'll caveat this comment with traffic is horrible everywhere, but it seems like it is especially bad there. I think some of the Villages traffic is tempered by the fact that we can travel via golf cart, where that is not an option at Lakewood. If you need to go somewhere, you and every other person is in a car driving. That ties into my final factor that led us to move to The Villages....
I can't say there is no "snowbird" season at Lakewood, but its minimal since so few of the communities are 55+. There were two when we were there, so maybe there is 3 now? Both communities were smaller than their counterparts. The majority of Lakewood is families that work, go to school, and make LR their permanent home. Where there are a few months at TV where reservations are a little harder, traffic is a little heavier, etc, at Lakewood the ebbs and flows are negligible. I say all that just to convey that the traffic and activity in the community is largely static, so if things seem busy to you then just know that is the baseline.
There were some benefits to LR (for us). Since we both still work and the vast majority of LR works, a significant number of activities were during the evenings and on weekends. Since there were so many teenagers around, there was always someone wanting to do some handyman work or wash your car for a few bucks....lots of young strong neighbors willing to move heavy items , etc. The final positive was the abundance of food delivery, ranging from Uber Eats to lots of restaurants having their own delivery service. There were 4-5 pizza places that delivered, so all the national chains plus a few local.
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