Thoughts on other 55+ communities?
 

We have been to The Villages 3 or 4 times as my parents rent there every year...love it.

However, before we make the retirement plunge we want to feel 100% confident in our decision. Have other people checked out other popular retirement communities in Florida? We plan to look at: Solavita in Orlando, Lake Wood Ranch Sarasota, and Margaritaville in Daytona Beach.

We had a lifestyle visit planned in TV last spring, but had to cancel due to COVID. We will try again soon!

I have been to On Top of the World in Ocala to visit family. IMHO, the feel of the community can not compare to The Villages. Must say, however, that you can get much more home there than you can here.

Remember though, The Villages is all about the lifestyle. On Top of the World is not about the lifestyle because there really is no lifestyle to speak of. Nada. I have not been to any other retirement community before we purchased here. We were sold the moment we drove along Buena Vista Blvd. at night.

Hope that helps.

Ditto to Sun City Center between Tampa and Sarasota....much older community with not near the clubs and activities available---the only plus to it was the proximity to the beaches less than an hour away.

Going to be hard to beat TVs, but give it a try.

I would suggest coming down and rent for at least a month, get the feel of TV and then take day trips to some other communities to compare what they have to offer.

It is really dependent on what you are looking for. We did the same thing about 5 years ago and looked at a lot of places (both 55+ and regular communities). We came to the Villages on a whim and loved the place. The first week end we were here we just looked at each other with our mouths open. We couldn’t believe the size and scope of activities. After our first visit here we compared everything to the Villages. Nothing else compared.

I would have been happy with a smaller community with a golf course, but my wife wanted activities and she got that. The Villages is a 55+ community on steroids, it is incredible what is offered, IMHO. But some are turned off by the size and the developer. That is fine as there are plenty other places to look at and live in Florida.

Solivita is nice, but on a much smaller scale than The Villages. Nice golf courses, but only two I believe. Plenty of activities too, but again, no comparison to the scale of The Villages. Worth considering.

Retiring to Lakewood Ranch
 

We lived in the Bradenton/Sarasota area for 30 years before moving to The Villages 3 years ago. Anything from the Tampa area south on the Gulf Coast is a mad house of people and traffic. We were so glad to get out and are very happy here.

What I loved from the beginning was how grandchildren friendly the Villages is. There is so much to do in and around but people who do not want to be around kids have a place also. Coming from a 55 plus community in West Chester Pa the experience was horrendous. When their grandkids were younger they were on board. As they came to the age that they didn’t visit the grandparents things got ugly quick. In short I love The Villages for that reason the welcoming atmosphere. But I would never go into a 55 plus again. And don’t get me started on HOA’s

Most of the other 55+ communities offer "more home for the money" but, to me, TV is still an affordable place. When we lived in Atlanta, we vacationed in Florida many times and when we decided we'd retire here, we explored quite a few places. This is all in my opinion, and I don't mean to disparage any place, but it's my impression. For example-

Solavita - very nice community, a bit sketchy outside when you go to grocery, banks, etc.
High Vista - (near DIsney) , same as Solavita
Highway 27 - Royal Highlands, Leesburg of Legacy, Arlington Ridge, etc. All solid communities (you don't own the land in Royal Highlands) but reasonably far from service and Highway 27 is not ever a fun drive.
Lakewood Ranch - my very good friend lives there and he moved FROM The VIllages, but he was born out that way. He gave me a list of the pro and con and it seems pretty nice. My 2nd choice after TV. The various builders each build into a different neighborhoo (ie: Village) and the conglomeration makes up Lakewood Ranch - and each"villlage" can be quite different. Lots of shopping and services, but sometimes a bit further away.
Ocala/On Top of the World, Del Webb - again, nice community, but driving on Highway 200 in Ocala is a real grind. While touring Del Webb (pricey amenity fees), I asked the realtor "who is your biggest competitor" and he said "No question, The Villages, people either love it or hate it". We visited The VIllages next and loved it. We visited staying at a hotel, the took a lifestyle visit, and then bought a home. It's the right place or us.

Hadn't visited Margaritaville, that wasn't here when we were buying. We like to visit the beach, but don't want to live there.

Before buying here, I would advise staying/renting and learning your way around, it's a big community. Again, this is just me, but the "new area" south of highway 44 seems like a great setup for the community, but the services are lacking and will be for a couple/few years. I'm off highway 466A for 12 years now, and with Trailwinds, they're just now really catching up to the population size (Colony was so jam-packed, couldn't find a parking spot).

The Villages has so many activities and all the services are designed for 55+ and accessible. The entertainment is top notch, there are always art shows, craft shows, car shows, etc. The rec centers have exercise classes, pools, clubs. It's just a full menu that's safe, clean, affordable and beautiful - like living in a resort.

Best wishes.

That's what we did six years ago. I can't remember everywhere we visited, but the contrast between them and TV was clear. There is no denying you get more house for your money elsewhere, but we decided we didn't want just a house. We wanted a community.

In other communities, there was no-one on the streets. No dog walkers, bike riders, nothing.

For us, the choice was clear.

I tried getting hubby to agree we should retire to a whole different state. West Virginia, New Mexico, or southern Arizona. He was against all three. He saw the Villages, decided he'd move there when he retired, and if I didn't want to go, he'd miss me. At another point during our "decision years" we had to move faster than previously thought due to a plant shut-down at his job. We were considering South Carolina to be closer to his sister. But he convinced me that it would be more beneficial to ME to be in the Villages, where there was a lot more to do as a retiree, and I wouldn't feel so isolated as I would in a house on 2 acres of land, not in walking distance to anything at all, and your nearest neighbors might fly the Rebel Flag.

So we agreed that we would move to Florida, but only if we could move to the Villages. No other place in Florida. I already lived in this state once, hated it with the burning passion of someone trying to walk on their hands through a bed of hot coals while needles are inserted into their fingernails. I still don't like Florida. I never will. But the Villages makes it tolerable.

Hi. I would not recommend anywhere near Orlando. Unless you like a lot of traffic. We lived in St Cloud first and it was between orlando and kississimee. Way different world then living here. We checked out margaritaville in Daytona. They only have one restaurant one stage and at that time only had entertainment on weekends. You have more options in the villages and more to do. Orlando place is way more expensive and Daytona Beach are is getting kinda bad with crime. Good Luvk

The closer you come to the coast the more you pay for home owners insurance. Hurricane's are the culprit for the rise in these payments. Make sure you look into this.

We looked at Sun City Center, On Top of the World, Solavita a few others we can't remember and decided on The Villages for the quality, affordable CYV we bought and all the activities. But there are really two Villages, one North of 44 and one South so investigate carefully Turnpike noise, power lines, shopping and flood potential.

We checked out Lakewood Ranch. I'm pretty sure the only 55 and over section is the Del Webb part.

Downside to living here in TV is the maintenance you have to pay for mowing, trimming, pest control, and fertilizing. Runs a lot of money in the course of the year. Companies that do the work are good for a while then the it slacks off. Its a headache looking for another company. Many senior communities include this in their fees.

You don't have to pay for any of it. You can do it yourself, if you're able. In an incredibly "active" retirement community where most residents no longer have to work for a living, I'm actually surprised that so many people choose not to take a few hours out of their week to maintain their own yards.

We mow our own lawn, do our own trimming, and I care for our garden myself. I have bursitis and arthritis in my hip, so I use a kneeling pad and get up to walk around the garden every few minutes so I don't stiffen up. It's good exercise, it keeps me off the streets :icon_wink: and it's wonderful to get down in real actual dirt and know that I'm helping to make things grow and thrive.

We pay a guy to come every other week to apply some pet-friendly pesticide to the grass, and it is mixed with fertilizer. He has "hands off" orders for the garden. That's just $50 a month. Not a big deal at all.

Mick Jagger and his girlfriend just bought in Lakewood Ranch, Sarasota. I doubt that that would be a fair comparison to The Villages. We don't have a lot of $2 million homes here.

I had a friend that was looking at Top Of The World and Del Webb in Ocala. I looked on Zillow and was shocked that most of the resale homes sold for quite a bit less than they were purchased for several years before. Depreciation not appreciation. This was several years ago so I don't know the current status of these areas. But resale value would be very important to me. Yes you can get more home for your money in other developments but are you likely to lose money if you decide to sell. Not to many people lose money on their homes in The Villages. I have been in The Villages for 15 years and only know one person that sold their home at a loss and that was because they were in a hurry to sell and purchase another home in The Villages.

i have to agree with those that say they moved here for the community. we stayed @ several places in Fl. before moving here full time. tampa/st. pete. is beautiful, but VERY busy in terms of traffic, & lots of younger people that go to the universities. several REALLY nice places in bradenton & sarasota, but also much more expensive due to the cost of the hoa's. we heard about the villages from a security guard working @ isla key over in st pete-- he told us his brother moved here several years ago & LOVES it. we took his advice to check it out & the rest is history. :coolsmiley:

I agree about Solivita. Community is nice but outside area is sketchy. I have a friend that lived in the Del Webb 55 and older community in Lakewood Ranch. A very pretty and quiet community with one clubhouse and pool. It took her much longer to get to the beach than she thought it would because of traffic. There are outlets close by. My sister lives in TOTW. Each village is different. Some villages you do not own your property. Very quiet. Not much activity. They are also expanding TOTW. It is right off 200th street where they are also building many more stores. You can not take your golf cart to most shopping.

When we moved to The Villages 12yrs ago it was about the lifestyle for us and we understood there was a premium to be paid for that. We had a wish list of items we wanted in a house but ended up getting only two items off the list in our price range, one most important to us was a pool.
Then last year we decided to explore leaving and searched throughout FL with an emphasis on fulfilling our original wish list. Our search ended when we found a spec home in OTOW with 8 of our 9 wish list items and that was it. Yes the lifestyle here is a bit more subdued then TV but that is ok as we have the house we wanted and are making new friends plus we are only 35 minutes from our many friends in TV.

Counter point to a couple of previous posts, yes SR200 is very busy road but since moving here we have learned of the back road network that provides us quick easy much less traffic ways to get to I-75 or even beyond I-75 in a lot less time.
Also we do have golf cart access to shopping/restaurants albeit much less access than we had in TV.

Good luck with your search & decision.

Toured homes at Margaritaville in Daytona Beach last year. Nice homes but a much smaller community (at end of buildout) so not near the scope of activities that you have at TV. Also if you are golfers there is no on-property golf course. Margaritaville is across the street from LPGA International but there is no tie- in and I don't believe you can even access it via golf cart.

Access to the beach: Margaritaville has a beach club on the beach in Ormond Beach (saw it still under construction in July 2020) but you have to take a shuttle bus to it- no parking for your POV. Beach is probably 15-20 min car drive away (Margaritaville is just west of I-95).

On the plus side it looks like Tanger Ootlets is close by so if shopping is your things, Margaritaville might be for you!!

As others have said, it really is about the lifestyle here. Activities for every interest, cerebral or sports minded.

Glad you can do this in the heat and sun of Florida. In the summer when everything is growing by leaps and bounds here, its 95 degrees out. We don't last 10 minutes out there. My entire neighborhood has services coming and taking care of their properties. Its costly. I prefer to lounge in my pool.

I love The Villages, however, I chose to live in a nearby 55 plus community because I got way more bang for the buck as well as more space. So I just ride the coat tails of The Villages and enjoy their town squares, the car shows, the craft shows, the restaurants, etc.

We certainly haven’t looked at every retirement community but visited many throughout the US. There is nothing like the Villages anywhere. Wouldn’t trade it for any other place. True, it’s not for everyone but over 135,000 and growing, it seems to be for a lot of folks.

We looked at retirement communities in Tennessee, Virginia, North and South Carolina before coming to the villages. I didn't really want to live this far south and actually only visited to shut up friends, snowbirds here, who kept insisting we visit. Nothing even comes close. Houses cost more here per square foot but the lifestyle more than makes up for it.

Stone Creek, On Top of the World, Stonecrest, Del Webb, what do these places all have in common, they're inland away from the coast. If you're going to live inland you might as well live in The Villages. When you look at homes in Stonecrest the first thing they'll say is, it's near TV and the Spanish Springs Square. If you can't live in the real deal, why live inland, live on the coast, that's what Florida is all about. Also I wouldn't live in a place still under construction if you don't have to, live somewhere that is finished. You know how it will turn out, and you know what all the amenities will be. I would go 75 minutes southwest of here to Spring Hill - Hudson area, to a community finished about 15 years ago named Heritage Pines.

In 1983 US Homes was the 7th largest home builder in America and built a retirement community in Spring Hill (Hernando County) called Timber Pines. It had a concrete wall completely around the boundary the 2+ square miles with secured gates and 3 golf courses and it was built out by 2000. My parents lived there from 1984 until 1998. A sister community was started about 3 miles south called Heritage Pines, it's just across the county line in Pasco County.

Either community would be nice, but Heritage Pines being newer would have more updated homes with vaulted ceilings and they also have a wall with gated security. The home prices are about 1/2 of TV prices, and US Hwy 19 is a mile outside the gate and has every store you could want, plus 15 miles south is New Port Richey which has a mall and many restaurants and the beach and also have easy access to Tampa and St. Pete. To give you an idea of prices, this masonry home is for sale right now for $229K.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/mlsphotos.i...776f24f71/c003

https://s3.amazonaws.com/mlsphotos.i...2a04b5803/c003

I think some of the lots in OTOTW are leaseholds so they would depreciate over time.

I have read many of these replies and all are indeed correct. We have been here 11 years now and it is the greatest place to live vs. anywhere. There is always "Safety in Numbers" and the large population keeps costs down!

Check out Stonecrest, 5 minutes from the Villages on hwy 441. Lots of activities, golf course, 2,220 homes, friendly and over the last 2-3 years 50% of the buyers are from The Villages. We are more quiet and much more neighborly. We have a lot of shopping by golf cart so try out our community.

Here was my response to a similar thread a few months ago.....


The only other age-restricted community we seriously looked at was Stonecrest about 8 years ago. We looked at 5 or 6 houses With one of their salespeople and found them well done with bigger yards and lower price tags than TV. While we were there two things caused us to eliminate that option.

1. There was simply NO activity. It was a beautiful spring day, but when we toured the pools ( they have an indoor pool) there was virtually no one there. The golf course (which anyone can play) wasn’t busy, and we saw few people out and about walking, running, cycling, or carting. Just seemed dead, especially in contrast toTV. I understand there are people who would be attracted to that, but not us.

2. The salesperson must have told us half a dozen times how we could go by golf cart to the villages and enjoy the entertainment at Spanish Springs or any of the country clubs. He said that so often that we laughed after we left that he was seemingly trying to sell us on The Villages and not Stonecrest. We said to each other, “well if The Villages is the place to be, maybe that’s where we should buy”, and that’s what we did.

As for being closer to the coast many cautions have already been stated including horrendous traffic, hurricane concerns and insurance. We love to go to the beach and in two hours or less we can be at any number of world class beaches. A day on the beach scratches our itch about once a month. Being a golfer the courses near the beach communes are often scarce and always pricey compared to the courses in TV and surrounding area, and the Execs are “free” for residents. The beauty of the development and the golf sold me.

Zero Regrets
 

This analysis is from 11 years ago but probably still relevant. We were spending a week in the Orlando area and had a day with no plans so I suggested we check out The Villages. Being only 59 at the time I wasn't planning on retiring anytime soon. We spent about three hours taking a tour and looking at some models. That weekend while driving back ti Virginia a voice said why don't you retire and we move to Florida? I managed to maintain control of the car and get to the shoulder of I-95 then looked at the woman sitting next to me and asked, "Who are you and where is my wife?"

Long story short, we returned home and started analyzing if we could afford to retire then. We also started researching other locations in Florida comparing costs and amenities. Decided The Villages offered the best overall value and my only concern was what if the amenity fees increased. Further analysis determined that even if they lifted the cap and the fee doubled, it was still the best value. Six months later we had a contract on our house and came down to buy our house. We have now been here 10+ years and absolutely love it.

Would I change anything if I were king, probably. But they would be minor adjustments not sweeping changes.

Interesting post. We are Villagers who go to Stonecrest during the winter months to play golf because it is the only place we know of that we can get to in our own golf cart that is outside the bubble, and the green fees are half as much. Stonecrest seems like a very nice place, but I agree that activity wise it appears dead relative to the Villages. The few times there we see almost no activity and the golf course has never been busy. That being said, I do find the indoor pool that is not very busy to be very appealing, assuming it is a regulation length lap swimming pool.

The sales pitch you got from their salesperson about being able to get to Spanish Springs via golf cart might have been accurate 8 years ago, but that is no longer the case with the gate in the historic section that requires a Villages gate pass.

The Villages rocks! It is what you make of it! Love it here

///

We looked at Four Seasons in Kissimmee and Del Webb in St. Cloud. We were also waiting on the new Del Webb right next to Disney. We wanted to be close to Disney. We drove out to The Villages just to check it off the list and immediately knew it was the place even though it was a bit further. We looked at each other and said "This is it!" We did a Lifestyle visit in Oct and purchased a lot in November in St. Catherine's. Can't wait!

Where is this gate and does it not have the infamous red button? We don't carry a keycard with us in the cart. I didn't know there were any gates we needed a card to go through. Thx.

kathy