Hi Annabelle,
We are snowflakes. We rent our home to snowbirds and we come to TV as often as we can. We plan to live in TV full-time when hubby retires.
As you noted, central Florida is quite hot in the summer and late spring. If you are concerned about your toleration for the heat, you might want to rent for a few weeks or a month July or August before you decide whether to sell your house and move to TV full-time. We live in Atlanta, so we are quite use to hot, muggy summers. You might be less tolerant.
I've been told that the Villas probably have a higher percentage of snowbirds than other neighborhoods. But truthfully, snowbirds are a fact of life in central/ south Florida.
You are likely to find a mix of full-timers and snowbirds in any TV neighborhood. That said, our neighborhood in Springdale, an older community on the North side, seems to have more full-time residents than snowbirds. That might tend to be the case in the older neighborhoods, as many of the residents might have started out as snowbirds and later became FT, although that is just speculation on my part. BTW, I thought it was interesting that you might want to be a snowbird, but you don't want to live in a neighborhood with many snowbirds.
A couple of posters said that as renters, they did not find their neighbors all that friendly. Although we are just snowflakes for now, our experience has been just the opposite. Our neighbors are very friendly and nice to us. We love our neighbors! I think anytime you are the "new kid on the block," you need to be the one to make the effort. If you reach out to your neighbors, don't be surprised if they embrace you! Ours did.
TV is a wonderful, magical place. I think you will love to call TV home whether it's FT or as snowbirds. If you have the time, you might want to rent in different areas of TV, talk to the neighbors, find out about their residency and assess how you think you would fit in.
I wish you all the very best in deciding what is right for you!
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