How did you hear about The Villages

[PR1234]

My hubby & I are in TV until 1st of March and are SO thankful that we found out about this place! How did YOU first find out about The Villages? A lady that used to work for me was on a airplane and she said everyone talked about it non stop....so I Googled it and the rest is history:):)

[mac9]

Saw an advertisment for it on a golf show about 10 years ago and sent away for the brochure and tape.

[villages07]

Was starting to research 55+ communities in Florida and 2 different friends knew people that lived in this place called "The Villages"...did a little research, came down in Feb 06 and did a Central FL tour of 55+ communities with the last stop being TV....and, the rest is history. Nothing else came close to what TV had to offer.

[F16 1UB]

In 2005, while having a deck installed at our KY home, the contractor said he had a place in Springhill, FL and we may find it to our liking. We went there for a week, looking, looking, more looking. Actually thought it was quite a nice area. Then friends in Pompano Beach said they were selling out and moving to TV. They moved, invited us down, SOLD!!!!
Now if we could just sell our KY home because this p/t visiting stinks.

3-6" snow by Wed temps hovering around 30. Ya think we wanna move?

F16

[Sidney Lanier]

Close friends of ours (fellow New York retirees who were living in a lovely spot in south FL) recognized that one day the TWO of them would be ONE of them, had heard about the great sense of community in TV, and came for a month on a LSP a year ago May. Found a place, bought it, closed in August and moved in. We were on our way to an annual trade show in Orlando early in Sept (my wife is a travel agent) and they asked us to come a few days early to see their new place.

We arrived on Labor Day '07 and I was immediately struck with that lightning bolt accompanied by that voice that said, "This IS the rainy day...." And that was it; the next day we were sitting with a TV salesperson. Assumed we were looking for a Patio Villa as we're snowbirds. Left after a couple days to the trade show and then as always went traveling after that.

After we got back my wife started researching online about TV--and there is WEALTH of info available online; it's pretty amazing.... We returned in mid-October with appts with TV salesperson, MLS salesperson, and some FSBOs to look at. Meantime our friends also took us to meet their neighbors who HAD to sell (in real estate parlance, "highly motivated sellers") and we ended up buying their home privately and now own a small Designer home that cost us barely more than the upscale Patio Villas we had been looking at, with bond fully paid and many extras. We swear by resales!

A few months later other friends from up north were visiting and asked about the trolley they had seen. "A tour," we explained, "want to take it?" "Sure!" they replied. I said, "Well, I'll join you; we've never been on it, never did a LSP, never went through what others who want to consider TV usually do."

We're here and without a doubt very happy with the product that's been developed here. I walk out early in the morning to pick up the newspaper in the driveway, look around me, and still can't quite believe it!

[BarryB]

5 years ago a friend was here for a visit. He gave us the TV video. Came here in 07 for LSP the video doesn't do this place justice. We have been here for a whole 2 months now

[MMC24]

Close friend had visited TV and told me about it. My wife and I had been visiting other 55 and older communities in the Arizona and New Mexico Area trying to find one we both liked. Contacted TV Sales Office to arrange a lifestyle visit. We drank the kool aide and the rest is history. Moved in about 2.5 years ago. We love it here and can't imagine living anywhere else!!!! :pepper2:

[Safe Home Watch Mary Edwards]

Our son is a salesman,and sells the trim work for all the different buildings in TV.He said mom&dad you got to go see this place,their is golf carts everywhere.Well to make the story short we did visit. We bought a lot, 90 days later settled on our new home Sept.08 in The Village of Hemingway.We did lived on a golf course,with large Marina,had a great little Home Watch business. We gave our business to our neighbor and packed up and moved here.Still have our house In Punta Gorda Fl.for sale??? Life is so short not to enjoy every moment and we found the right place to do it in TV.

[annie2]

My husband saw the advertisements of TV during The Masters.

He sent away for the package and then March 2008 visited for an afternoon with my parents (snowbirds in Clearwater), ended up staying the night in a "cottage" (hee hee).

Booked a Lifestyle Preview in June 2008 (what a blast) and watched sales and listings until we found our perfect home.

Became happy homeowners at end of December!

Can't live here permanently yet but will visit as often as humanly possible. We are from Canada but my husband is American (Indiana).

Gracie Girl - I feel like you when you say that you can't possibly describe to friends back home, how wonderful this place is and how happy you are to own a piece of it. They just don't understand and they are begining to think I am a bore.

[rshoffer]

The golf channel

[Peggy D]

Heard a broadcast from TV on an oldies radio station and told hubby we needed to go check it out. We did, and the rest is history...

[Floridagal]

We lived in South Florida 5 years ago and decided we wanted to move but didn't know where. My son was visiting his in-laws that live here and told us to come up for a visit as he thinks the found the right place for us.

Well we did and the rest is history.

[SABRMnLgs]

My wife and I lived in Oviedo and a maybe 2-4 times a year I had to drive from Orlando to Leesburg as part of our x-ray route coverage. While in Leesburg one day someone mentioned TV to us and I drove the extra 16 miles to take a look.

[Donna]

Friends of ours from PIA Pa. have a house in TV..They begged us to come for a visit, told us how great TV was..

I didn't want to go to a retirement community, thought it was too old for me..

Well, we booked the lifestyle preview, bought a house a day later!
We love it there, and can't wait for the day we say http://www.millan.net/minimations/smileys/bye.gif (http://www.millan.net) to the snow, sleet, cold, and gray skies of PIA Pa.,>>That's all she wrote!

[Halle]

:pepper2:

I heard about TV from a friend I work with. Her parents moved there from Ohio in 2003, when she went to visit them she couldn't stop

talking about how wonderful it was and thought that I should check it out for my parents.

We did a Lifestyle Preview with my parents in October of 2007.

Well long story short, they didn't buy a house but we did. We thought we would just be snowbirds but now we plan on being full time

once we retire. These Alaska winters are too long and too cold.:cold:

[villages07]

Donna,

A clarification..... you bought your "first" house

[Donna]

Donna,

A clarification..... you bought your "first" house

:ohdear:Oooops, :ohdear:007...I forgot about the other house!

[renielarson]

I found TV only by accident...and in my opinion...by fate.

I came down to Florida to look for a lakefront home (we live on a lake here in Michigan and I didn't want to give that up in retirement to Florida) and stayed in Tavares because of the Lake Harris chain. My hubby didn't come with me because he said that I had to find the home that made me happy and his input would make no difference...:laugh::laugh::laugh:

After spending days with realtors and discovering Florida lakefront wasn't for me because of the alligators I decided to take a day off from house hunting and drive to Silver Springs.

On that drive along 27/441, TV appeared out of nowhere. I was intrigued as to what this "oasis" was. I even took pics through my windshield while driving past this beautiful place so I could share them with my hubby. I had no idea what it was!

Upon my return to Michigan we did an Internet search. A few months later, my hubby and I returned to TV for a visit.

The rest is history.

By the way...we trailered one of our boats down last Fall and it is now on Lake Harris. Although I refuse to swim in Florida lakes, at least we enjoy going out to fish, relax, and cruise the chain. The scenery is absolutely beautiful and there are lakeside and riverside parks along the way for midday picnics! Also, the locks are quite an experience!

[Boomer]

I know somebody who spent each vacation at a different Florida retirement location. Avid golfers. They went to lots and lots of places. All over the state. All over the coasts. When retirement time came, they picked TV. Said it was no contest. So much to do, in addition to golf.

So how did I find out about this place?

Well, I guess I copied somebody's homework.

Boomer

[ouma1938]

Awhile back I kept seeing this cheerful commercial while watching the golf channel. I Googled it and came upon TOTV. I started reading the posts, people kept saying how much they loved TV and TV was just wonderful and I thought, gosh so many TV addicts, wonder what programs they all like, when dimwit that I am I realised they were shortening The Villages. Anyway, after joining TOTV and becoming a part of the community I knew it was for us. We made a Lifestyle visit and since then all I can think about is getting this house sold and getting to TV. So, basically thank you Admins for TOTV. Your great site and all my new friends on it got me hooked.

[colleenj]

I first heard about TV through the commercials on the golf tournaments. I checked it out through the internet and then found TOTV. Came for a 5 day lifestyle visit last May and ended up buying a house.... Can't wait to move here full-time.

[BritParrothead]

We saw an 'ad' in an English Sunday newspaper, about 15 years ago. We were in orlando with our sons on vacation and decided to take the tour. Our boys were teenagers then, now 31 and 32. Each year we came over to Florida for our vacation, they would say lets go up to The Villages for the day :coolsmiley:
Now we come to TV for our vacation and will be buying a home very soon :pepper2::pepper2:.

[Niels]

My wife and I were looking for a place in the Orlando area. We found a few nice homes but they were either off by themselves or in isolated developments that seemed to be lacking a sense of community. We looked at homes in Celebration, Florida but that community seemed to be very expensive.

I started doing a search of retirement communities in the central Florida area. I came accross many retirement communities in the area including TV. Initially, I wanted to be closer to the Orlando area than TV is. However, when I started reading online about all the clubs in TV and all the places accessible by golf cart I figured I had to check out the community.

Now I just have to wait until I can retire so I can move here.

[njgranny]

My daughter's brother-in-law's parents live in TV, and I'd heard my daughter talking about it frequently. When we were in Florida, last winter, we went to visit and have since done a six-day lifestyle preview. We love it, and hope to be there sooner rather than later.

[Dirigo]

My wife, Diane, and I first discovered The Villages in 2000 by chance. We were on our way from Davenport, FL, where we were staying with friends while on vacation, to Ocala National Forest for the day.

We passed under the cart bridge on Rte 27 and saw “The Villages” sign and thought “What are 'The Villages'?” Curious, we stopped in at Spanish Springs on the way home and were immediately taken with TV.

We came back and spent the next day of our vacation at TV driving around, taking the trolley tour, talking to a sales rep., looking at model homes, and walking around Spanish Springs (for LSL was only a twinkle in the developer’s eye at that time).

We started getting the videos and have quite a collection of them now. We watch them on cold, snowy winter days and dream of what life could be like living in TV.

We are doing a Lifestyle Preview Feb 24-Mar 1 this year. Diane says I may have to drag her kicking and screaming back to Maine (where the sub-zero temps of late have been replaced by a forecast of 1-2 feet of snow today).

[wdwduo]

In 2005, we were sitting in the cardiologist's office, waiting for Larry to have his 1st stress test after his heart attack, and started talking to another patient there. We talked about job stress, possible retirement...(Larry had to wait until he was 55) but we really didn't know what we wanted to do or where to go.

The other patient told us all about TV and the Lifestyle Preview and it was almost an "ah-ha" moment, (Oprah watchers know what I mean!) and just felt like fate was telling us to look into TV. We came here for a week, loved everything AND the fact that we're only an hour from DisneyWorld, went home and put our house on the market.

Almost three long years later, we sold our house in Sea Girt, NJ, bought into a small retirement co-op in Brick,NJ (so we can stay in touch with our kids and grandkids) moved to the Keystone Villas, became FL. residents and here we are!

[imbrennan]

Hi, I still think that we are probably the most unusual in that we heard about The Villages in Muscat, Oman. (The country shares its borders with the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the Yemen). Oman is a great place to visit by the way, Muscat is not so commercial as Dubai and the people are so friendly.

A friend of ours was playing golf on our golf course in Muscat and happened to mention that he had bought a home in The Villages where there was "free golf". Of course my husband's ears pricked up at that and we decided we would come and have a look.

We are from England and a lot of the Brits have bought in Spain, but we went over there and didn't like what we saw, so we thought we would come out and have a look at the Villages.

On the way over on the plane my husband said "don't get too carried away, probably nothing will come of it". On the way back though it was a different story - all we could talk about was how we were going to finance it. We bought originally in Piedmont and then moved a couple of years ago to Sabal Chase. We love it in this area because we are more or less in the middle of everything.

No-one in the U.K. realises what a great community we have in The Villages with all there is to offer. Friends come out to visit us and can't believe how great it is. Trouble is when they fly over from the U.K. they want their money's worth because the flights are expensive and stay for 3-4 weeks at a time!!!!!