House prices and rents
 

Although I was fortunate to close sales on both my business and my house in late March due to the pandemic I have decided to remain cautious and not move down until at least June. It appears housing markets around the country are being adversely affected. Sales contracts are being canceled and rents are coming down. Now I realize The Villages is literally an anomaly which cannot be compared to typical American communities so I thought I might put it out there. How do current residents view the housing market in The Villages?

Do you see the pandemic impacting rents and sales and if so how much and in what ways?

I am friendly with the real estate agent who sold me my house. I saw him the other day and he said that he has seen a very slight decrease in customers.

Sent you a private message.

They are still selling a lot of new homes (our realtor told us still 5 to 6 per day) and prime building lots go the day they are released. There are a few clusters of homes that they have reduced the pricing on but they are not on very desirable lots and not in desirable areas. Used homes I guess depend on the area, designers on view and/or golf course lots south of 44 are selling at pretty high prices and many are realizing 6 figure profits.

Your making a wise decision..The fat lady hasn't sung just yet
Recovery will be slow .I don't think rents will be weak they may actually increase as prospective buyers throw caution to the wind
By opting to rent rather than purchase until recovery is well under way

A friend of mine that has some rentals properties implied that rentals are down (apparently due to all of the closures in TV), however I have not direct knowledge on this matter.

Home Values in The Villages
 

Today’s paper has an informative analysis of the market values here in The Villages. It covers the past 20 years of market values. You can read it on The Villages app if you don’t subscribe to the newspaper..'

That is why I do not drink cheap wine.

New short term rentals are banned till May 1, per the stay at home order by Governor DeSantis.

The most recent housing market data has already shown signs of this playing out in the United States. Web traffic to real estate portals like Zillow and Redfin dropped by almost 40 percent in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic. New listings of homes for sale initially dropped by as much as 70 percent in some markets like New York and East Bay, California. Weekly mortgage applications dropped 17.9 percent in early April.

How coronavirus will impact the housing market - Curbed

From a buyer and seller's perspective:
We put our house on the market with The Villages Properties in early February. At the time, our house was showing and we had a couple of open houses. For the past month, showings have been rare and the Villages suspended all open houses. So very little activity from a seller's standpoint. As buyers, we found that some people did not want their houses to be shown during the shutdown and some even took them off the market. Fortunately, we just found a house we love and the owner who was looking to downsize suggested we swap houses. So we sold and bought a new house in the same day. I am not sure that happens very often so we were lucky. Depending on what section of the Villages you are considering and your price range, there are many anxious buyers out there. It is a good time to be buying especially with lower interest rates but we did not see a lot of drop in prices. We live in the north end of The Villages and with our price range, size and other requirements there were only 6 or 7 houses to consider. A little farther south near Sumter there are probably 50 and probably more even further south. Also, all the individuals (appraisers, inspectors, bankers, etc.) needed to make a closing happen are working and signing all paperwork can be done electronically. If you want a really wonderful real estate agent, contact Linda Canada-Stuck at The Villages Properties. When she found out that the seller of our new house suggested we swap houses, she jumped on it and the deal was sealed.

haven't met a sales person yet that wasn't 100% optimistic and upbeat....that's why they do what they do

You might be wise to rent for 2 -3 months to really get a feel for TV before buying if you're not real familiar with it already

I would be very surprised if the current situation did not affect the housing market. How bad or how long we will see. People seeing the value of their stocks etc diminished are not feeling as flush either and may not move forward.

20 million unemployed meansnorthern homes will reduce and that means less money to buy here.

We had our home on the market when this all happened. We went from 2-3 showings a week to 0 once the Pandemic hit. We decided to stay put until we see where the market goes. We have been getting phone calls and postcards from realtors....more than normal.

I manage 40+ rentals and activity is way down. Most April Renters cancelled and there are few requests coming in for May and Summer months. Activity still strong for 2021 Prime Months. As to Sales it looks to be a buyers Market, I am also a Realtor here. During the Jan-March Prime months there were approx. 250 homes on the MLS, around mid March it jumped to almost 320 Listings (usually starts to go down during normal Markets.

We found a wonderful home just prior to social distancing started. Put our deposit down and our house on the market. We had 2 or 3 open houses until they put an end to that. Very few showings since then. We’ve dropped the price twice, but I think there’s too much apprehension right now. The market is very slow right now, but there is still interest in moving to TV, so we’re optimistic. Just hope the virus is eventually controlled enough to get things moving again without a glut of homes available from Covid victims.

Would you pay to go to the circus if the animals were all locked up, maybe at the right price?

Good news, bad news. I have 4 rental houses here in TV. 2 leases were ending April 30. Because of the virus, one tenant decided to extend the lease 6 months. The other beautiful rental needs some prayers because phone calls are slowing down and rental agents can't ride with perspective tenants to show it.

Regarding rentals
 

We are moving into The Lofts mid June. We moved here from Jacksonville FL on the 2nd of April.
We are remting a villa until 1 July.
Our realtor was happy we were still coming because many coming in April wanting a short rental lease had canceled.
We are happy we came because we are having an easy time finding our way around without as much traffic. We walk around Brownwood Paddock Square in the evenings wearing our mask. I even have a shield since I have a lung disease.
I don't know about house sales but the construction is still going strong.
This is the sloer time for short term rentals so it probably hasn't done too much damage to the rentals.
Word of advice
Bring toliet paper & bleach. I haven't been able to buy any since I have been here.

Yes there has been some downturn in new sales and rentals although the general market continues to be sound from what many can tell.

The real estate portion of the Sun continues to display very few Sold or Pending notifications compared to February. Does not indicate too much recent movement.

I believe it would be premature to venture down before I can physically look for a rental house, learn the various neighborhoods and then start to look for a home to purchase much less actually live the lifestyle, try the restaurants, visit the businesses and get to know fellow villagers.

Truthfully, I am getting a little stir crazy.

Whether your buying new or preowned I would definitely rent for 3 to 6 months, you should be able to get a great deal on a rental. Then take your time in figuring out where you want to live. Real Estate has a tendency to lag the downturn so prices will fall but probably not right away. In 6 months at worse the market will be flat but probably down.

Last 3 times I've been to Walmart at Colony they've had TP.

Good Luck to you -- In 2013 we also exchanged houses -- similarily to you -- however there were no realtors involved and we closed with a title guarantee company - both parties have remained happy and never looked back -- and as I said at the time {only in the villages{

There's no more circuses

That is just what I plan to do. Thank you. I agree that housing prices can lag a stock market downturn.

I wonder how the pandemic and its consequences will affect retirement communities.

If you look at the asking prices for pre-owned houses that are less than 5 years old, you will see that many sellers are asking as much as 40 to 60 percent more than they paid for the house. So, I think it will be a huge buyer's market in the next 3 or 4 months, because these sellers will need to accept substantially lower prices if they really need or want to sell.

Securities have taken a significant hit and it may not be over. This of course affects people just retiring who may need to lower their future income stream expectations. This may mean less house. People who are already retired may want to examine their financial situation as well. Some may need to downsize.

In MA, I spoke with a realtor on Saturday, and the system has designed ways to protect the home owner, the buyer, and the realtors as MA does not allow electronic signatures. However, most of these houses are based on employment movements, which is very different than a move to retirement, which is a very big decision and investment for many.

So my intuition predicts that TV sales will be hit a bit more than the employment buys/sells, meaning that either/or/both volumes and prices will be hit harder than employment purchases, and will take longer to get back to pre - virus volumes and prices. How much longer or discounted, no idea nor any research. Just intuition. . .

The upside? lower mortgage rates for those having to sell a house to move here. the downside, the price may be lower than planned. But there will be sales again in the future, this virus is not permanently closing the US, just slowing us down for awhile.

sportsguy's opinion

If things start to open up without much of an upsurge in virus infections I may come down in June at the earliest although it is still premature to commit to an actual rental.

It may be early but I am getting antsy so I plan to start looking at available rentals virtually. Why not?

Most rent online never seeing the house till they arrive

Yes. I have done that several times for short term rentals of a week to a month and shall probably do that before I come down to look around for a long term place. I am generally familiar with the Sumter Landing area which is or perhaps used to be centrally located.

As I understand it growth is proceeding rapidly south. I want to be open to where I may eventually settle.

It’s off season, rent in a couple of areas, that’s what we did in 07, only unpacked what we needed at each