WTB 4 BR or 3 BR + Den!!
 

We are prepping for our move to TV (yay!!!) and are beginning the house hunt. We would ideally like a Mason or Woodside with a 2+golf car garage and gas cooking. If you are preparing to list, let me save you the hassle of staging and showing! Please comment here or DM me. Thanks!!

Very few 4 bedrooms have been built here. Apparently little demand.

Not true. The woodside model is very popular and is the most common home to have a 4 car garage attached to it. Needless to say they are more expensive due to the square footage but they sell very well down south. The Ivy model is even more expensive and is larger than the Woodside, the 4 bedroom Ivy is also in demand and when listed and priced right they are sold immediately, the new ones are usually sold the same day they are released and that is why you don't see them advertised very often.

I totally get that! I think most people at this age are looking to downsize, not make a lateral move.

Going by what village realtors have told me including the fellow who sold us our house when we asked about a 4 bedroom.

Have an MLS realtor sending us listings of 4 bedrooms but only get them from her about every two weeks.

Do think most people want to downsize but if both our kids would come at same time with our grandkids we would not have enough room.

Right now there are 10 Woodside's with Pending Sales and only 1 available. There is one super expensive Ivy and 3 others for sale, 2 of them have only 2 car garages no golf car and they will sit for quite awhile, the other has a lanai facing a main street and next to a neighborhood rec. area with pickle ball, etc. Most of the 4 bedroom homes are sold instantly. TV seems to aim mostly in the $350,000 to $450,000 designer homes, the 4 bedroom modes are much more expensive and there are fewer buyers that can afford them. Moving down here without a basement is downsizing enough for me, we have 4 bedrooms and I wish we had an oversized 4 car garage.

We originally looked at 4 bedrooms, I think it was the Putnam at the time but then my wife asked why when we were trying to downsize. We went with a smaller 3 bedroom 2 bath which is easy to care for.

A four bedroom vs a three bedroom with a den is the difference of a closet in the den.
Since it is a non load bearing wall adding a closet should not be very expensive.

As I'm sure you are aware, homes are selling quickly. Saving the realtor commission?
Both the buyer and the seller can't save the same commission.

That is a good way to explain the commission savings and it's true. A seller will list without an agent so that he or she can save the commission and would be throwing money out the window if they lowered the price by the commission amount. Buyers generally don't save much on a for sale by owner home.

Thanks so much for the added details! It’s really not an attempt to save money as much as it is to find a house, as the bigger ones are a rarity. We need that 4th bedroom or den for an office, so that’s why either would be great. :-)

We used an apx 15-20 column spreadsheet and graded each of the 34 houses we looked at, 1 thru 10. A lot of the time the higher scored homes did not last a day before they sold. Scoring based on price per square foot (including bond), taxes, amenities, location,,etc. Fortunate we found a house not yet on the market that for us was a perfect 10. We bought it on the spot. Do your diligence! Good luck!!!

4 car garage needed
 

I too am having a difficult time relocating. We are two relatives sharing a house therefore two master bedrooms would be ideal. That leaves us only one bedroom. If used as an office/craft room, we cannot have guests visit, but more important than the extra bedroom is A four car garage with a preserve or water view in back. We just missed out on a veranda spec home because it sold within one day.
If anyone knows of such a house 5 years old or less, more than 2100 sqft., please let me know.

As for having extra bedrooms for guests, it’s called a hotel.

All good choices. But with all other things being equal I would definitely recommend four bedrooms, even if you intend to use one as a den.

If there’s anything that virtually all Villagers moving down from up north do, is that we bring too much “stuff”. Without a basement or large garage you will quickly discover that you too have moved with far more stuff than you’ll ever use. That extra closet will be worth it’s weight in... stuff!

The Ivy is a great 4 bedroom home. The Mason and Woodside models are 4 bedroom - 3 bath homes. However except for the master bedroom, the other three are too small to put a queen size bed and a bureau or dresser........only room for a double bed and maybe a nightstand. That 3rd bathroom IMHO is a waste, and causes the bedrooms to be small.

Too Much Stuff
 

The way to avoid having too much stuff is to get rid of it before you move-that is what I did when I moved from California. Why pay to move it then either try to sell it here or find a charity to take it?You can buy more stuff in Florida if you feel you need it.

We originally were looking at 3BR/2B designer homes with 2+ garage and ended up in a 4BR Ivy with 2+ garage and very glad we chose it. No kids, but we use the BR closest to the 2nd bath for our guest room. The front "bedroom" is a TV room and the "bedroom" in between is our office. Each of the 4 bedrooms is large enough for a king bed.

Mason for sale in Monarch Grove. Over 500k

We love our Ivy with 4 bedrooms. One bedroom is our office with a futon, one is a guest room with a queen bed and with an exercise bike in it, and the larger bedroom is a beautiful guest room with a king bed.
When our grandkids are here, I don’t want them in a hotel,I want to wake up with them and make breakfast for everyone.
And btw, our home has more than doubled in resale value in the 5 years since we bought it.

Woodside/Mason
 

Actually the Woodside sells very quickly. I know of at least 5 that are being built in Chitty Chatty.

We did a similar thing in our Ivy. The front bedroom we use as a den/tv room, the next is my hobby room, the 3rd is the guest bedroom next to the guest bathroom, and the 4th is our master. There are those that don't like having all 4 bedrooms on the same side of the house but the master is private and is not attached to the hallway leading to the other 3 bedrooms and we have no problem with it. They also have a nice size living area and come with one privacy wall on the lanai which is the extension of the master bedroom.

We got rid of everything we didn't want or felt we would not use however I have a hoppy that takes up room, I do my own lawn maintenance that takes up room in the garage, and coming from a home with a 4 car garage and basement, I filled up our home quickly with stuff that I absolutely need. I'm not allowed to have it look cluttered in the house so I keep all my extra stuff in a climate controlled storage unit. I need a 4 car stretched garage.

I knooooow, right?? We do too. :-) We love our family, and we want them with us when they come. :-)

I’ve had both of my kids and their families here at the same time. 3 bedrooms were fine. Thank goodness we have 3 bathrooms because the bathrooms were more important than the bedrooms.

Lol—yeah I get that 3 ba would be a huge help!! :-) One of our children would always occupy one of the bedrooms (she has a disability, so we expect she will be with us for a long time), and the other my husbands office. We could make do with a 3, but it would be tight.

Welcome in advance!! If you need an agent, my husband and I highly recommend Jim Amidei for your Villages agent. He is EXTREMELY patient with listening to your needs/wants/concerns/opinions, in helping you find what you want at the price you need. His number is 352 572 8747 cell, or 352 753 2270 office Jim.Amidei@TheVillages.com
Best to you. You're going to LOVE IT HERE!!

Contact non village rotors.

Get your name on the list for the Ivy model home on Spurlock Way in Marsh Bend.

Not for sale yet. View of the 9th hole on Lowlands.

One of 7 model homes in the neighborhood.

You'll have to deal with a Villages sales person, not an independent MLS realtor.

These are furnished, and were built more than a year ago. Looking at the property tax info at Sumter County, the home will likely be listed for $650K or more, and be sold in a few minutes once listed.

There are about 100 homes in this neighborhood nestled within holes 1, 2, 7, 8, and 9 of Lowlands. One entry/exit on Spurlock Way, and 3.2 miles by golf cart to Brownwood.

My Guess is mid $700,000 range and it will sell at that.

None of my business but I think you’re nuts if you’re buying for children and grandchildren. A. They have their own busy lives and won’t visit as much as you think and B. It would be fun for them to sleep in a hotel.

This is TRUE - Our former house up north was a 5 BR 4 BA on a 40 mile long lake and we had kayak, sail boat, paddle board and much more and were 7-8 hour drive from 2 sets of grand kids who made it back about ONCE a year !!! It was like a hotel once our daughters married and moved out , NOW in our Florida house we have ONE guest room and the kids can go on an air mattress when they come which I doubt will be yearly. We visit them in the summers and we were mostly visiting them before as well.

TRUE - you have to really stretch the house by custom building to make the extra bedrooms useful. We just built a woodside. You get bigger bedrooms in the 3 bedroom houses. I made the 3rd bedroom in the woodside into a storage closet. so I have a 4/2 house which is fine but we stretched it in all directions. I needed a sewing studio and we needed a den/office so we have one guest room plus the master.