[jrref]

Originally Posted by MandoMan

True. And all of the homes in The Villages apart from the Historical District are under that code. I’m not a builder, but I read Fine Homebuilding and The Journal of Light Construction cover to cover for a quarter century and designed and built my own home and restored a couple others (one a two hundred year old log cabin). Every home requires upkeep, including roofing, paint, HVAC, etc. My sense, based on seeing construction methods here and seeing a lot of homes, is that homes in The Villages are very well built, and if maintained, they should last a century. Perhaps “they don’t build them like they used to,” but building methods have changed. Steel studs, roof trusses, much better windows than were used in the sixties in Florida, more insulation, safer. You don’t need to worry about the quality of construction here, and don’t listen to the people on here who don’t really know much about building methods. Yes, the fixtures are contractor grade, which isn’t the best, but they work. Yes, I wish there were even more insulation, but I’ve seen worse. The Villages looks beautiful, and under that beauty is good bones.

Just to add, a lot of areas including HVAC are engineered in our homes meaning someone took time to figure out which sides of the home get the afternoon hot sun and add more HVAC in those rooms. These homes are very well built but as someone pointed out, the cabinets are builder grade so a pre-owned home with lots of upgrades is probably a better deal.