[bimmertl]

We just got back from a 3 day house hunting trip to TV. Spent two days with a Villages sales rep. Looked at both pre owned and new Villages listings. Sales person did not pressure us to buy new versus pre owned. We decided we liked some of the new Premier homes the best. Best price around 468K. Of course this included $46,800 worth of furniture!!

We live in Florida and have furniture so we don't need $46,800 worth of furniture. In addition, the bonds on the new Premier homes are a whopping $47,000!! So we had some concerns.

We spent some time in the Villages Southern Lifestyle furniture store and realized we couldn't even come close to buying $46,800 worth of furniture as it would be more than the house could handle. So the " wonderful" free furniture deal had no appeal. Our sales person seemed fairly confident that "management" would consider a 5% price reduction of the home in lieu of the $46,000 furniture credit.

So we went back to the sales center where a "manager" came in and told us it was take the furniture or nothing. Lovely!! Last time I checked I didn't think the US housing market was that strong.

Fortunately, we were aware that there are other pre owned homes for sale in TV and they are listed by realtors who are not employees of TV. Villages homes are not in the MLS system and homes in the MLS system will not be shown by TV employees. We spent a full day looking at homes listed in the MLS listing service and ultimately ended up buying one of them.

TV has plenty of smiling friendly faces greeting you at their sales center. Their sales personnel know their stuff and are very helpful. Having said that, at the end of the day The Villages entire sales pitch is strictly aimed at their bottom line with little real concern for the buying public. It's their way or no way.

If you spend some time sitting in the sales center you will see people walking in who are in awe of the entire place. Unless they are aware of the fact TV personnel only market their product their options are limited. The friendly greeters have the script down. See the place talk to a sales rep, pay sticker price for a new home and get 10% of the purchase price to spend at our previously failing furniture store which is now getting a pump of 3.5 million in new sales to get it back in the red. They make the money on the house and the furniture. What a deal!!

Well in this instance anyway, it didn't work out the way The Villages had planned!!