Issues with owning a home in TV if the owner is a snowbird.
 

I am currently considering purchasing a home in TV but I would only live there during the winter and spend summers in my current home. While it is fairly easy to calculate the cost of purchasing a home I would like to hear some input on the cost of maintaining the home during the 6-8 months that I am not there.

Thank you for your thoughts.

Definitely want a Home Watch service.................comes in the house every week, walks the outside every week, runs water, checks refrig/freezer.

Home Watch services should have a checklist for you to compare offerings.

Cost will be the same in or out of home, with the exception of indoor water use, and the ability to keep temp higher saving on cooling. Everything else trash, amenities stay the same.

Many here started as a sort of bird, flake, or landlord.

There are a number of discussion on the "Landlords of the Vilages" Facebook group.

Basically, the overall cost of carrying a house is about $35,000 per year. This was done by Dick Betts, a local realtor who has his own web site with lots of info. So, dived that by 12 and you have an average needed rent just to break even. Most people post their houses on RFAV or VH4R web sites and know well that you can only get a good payback during peak season (maybe Dec-Mar)...So, you'll have to do the math.

Agree with other comments that even with remote security, cameras, etc you will want an entrusted home watch service to flush toilets, check for critters, make sure the landscaper is doing their job, etc. About $100-$200 per month....

Monthly guesstimates based on when I'm not there...

Amenity fee with water during dry season (including trash, etc) $350
Internet $65
Some home watch service. $65. I've not found one that is over $100. I used "Affordable Home Watch". $65/month.
Lawn mowing: $65
Weed spraying, fertilizer: $85
Gas if you have natural gas appliances: $20-50
Electric: $35-60

Just the added home watch cost
 

You’re paying the same for the yard, the bugs, the pool, basic maintenance year round anyway.
The only real added cost is home watch. Everything else is negligible. We just shut down home watch while either of us are there and start back up when it’s empty. Thought about renting but the hassle of what to do with our truck/golf cart/ important stuff…etc and the hassle of renters in general was more than we cared about dealing with. Do it! It’s a fun place to vacation. Hopefully we’ll be able to live there more often but for now it’s great!

I will be selling my home in the Villages sometime in December. I am selling it completely furnished, with a golf cart. If you are interested, please send me a note. Thank you

You will want 365 internet to access smart home devices. These include a water monitor (for leaks) perhaps cameras, whole house energy monitor, thermostat, and a wifi lock. The lock can confirm that homewatch actually visits your home. The energy monitor (sense.com) can confirm the fridge is working.

I have an average sized designer home in TV, on an average sized lot. I do not have a pool. There is about $10,000 bond left to pay and no mortgage. My annual costs are about $14,000 a year for upkeep of the home including landscape service and Empty nest looking after it when I am not there. I do look around for reasonable property insurance every year.

Looking for recommendations for weed spraying, landscaper, and home watch.

Even at the high end, your number added to $8880 annually. That is a far cry from Dr.Hitch's post of $35,000 !!!

Methinks he's adding in Mortgage costs and Taxes...

An average house in lake denham is going to run us about 22k a year. This include taxes, homeowners insurance, auto insurance golf cart insurance, amenities, all utilities, Internet service, bond, yard maintenance, landscaping maintenance, pool maintenance, home watch for 6 - 8 months a year.

No mortgage, golf cart maintenance, auto maintenance, home improvement or upkeep, daily living expenses (food, clothes etc) costs included.

I’m updating my electric cost in summer to about $110. Just got my bill and the heat is definitely costing me more for AC in summer. It’s set at 78 degrees before air conditioning.

I used Randal at affordable home watch. They were pretty good. I just switched to Hannah exteriors for mowing. I canceled Son Life after I found out they were charging me for weeding my beds but not doing it. I use Fertigator for fertilizer and insect control and now weed spraying also and no issues so far.

Are you thinking of a pool home? That might have different numbers for electricity & maintenance than some others have mentioned.

Based on our experience, it’s no less expensive owning a home whether or not you’re actually there (assuming you don’t rent it). When not there you’re electric bill will be a little lower, and if you typically use a lot of water your base water and sewer charge could be a little lower than the actual usage rate. Besides that, there is no savings on homeownership, but there are added expenses such as a home watch service, having to pay someone to pull/spray for weeds, mow, spray for bugs, trim hedges, etc… since you won’t be there to do it yourself. And then there is the homestead property tax benefits that can save you real money, but you won’t be eligible for.

That being said, the worst part about being part time is knowing your home, that you are paying good $$ for on an ongoing basis, is just sitting there empty and you wish you could be there. And when you finally get to your home, there is always a lot of deferred maintenance work to be done, and ditto when you return to your other home. Bottom line, owning and maintaining multiple homes can begin to really wear on you over several years.

Unless you have an irrigation maintenance contractor, you should have a home watch service that is capable to get a sprinkler leak repaired. If you have a geyser in your yard from a broken sprinkler, how do you get it repaired from out-of-town?

When I'm out of town I set the sprinklers to run at 7am, my neighbors keep an eye out for geysers. They have identified 2 in the past year, I called a sprinkler contractor to address it.

I do something similar.
I split my sprinkler Tim Erin half for each zone.
If the zone needs to run for 30 minutes.
I run one zone for 15 minutes at 4AM and one for 15 minutes at 7AM.

What's the difference between yard maintenance and landscaping maintenance?

Lots of yard guys won't treat the rock/chip areas inside the landscape bricks for weeds, bugs, etc.

Some firms are one-stop-shops and do it all.

I know folks have good reasons for continuing to be snowbirds. It took only one year for us to decide that we hated it. Having an empty house 12 months of the year; (either FL or VA), the hassle of travel back and forth, closing up the homes etc. So we sold our house in VA and we're now fixing up our villa here in TV and very pleased with the decision. I admire all the snowbirds who seem to do it effortlessly. Some enjoy the drive up north, stop to visit friends, for example.

What he said ⬆️, it stinks to come back to a nicely mowed lawn and knee high weeds in the landscaping or brown palm fronds laying everywhere.

We are in the same situation and as soon as we sell our Northern home and vacation home we will be full-time here. In the future I only plan to have one home, here. We will spend a handful of months vacationing in the cooler areas across the North or Northwest during the hot months here.

I am not thinking of a pool home and since it will be me only probably just a two bedroom.

You can reduce you internet’s cost for 6 to 8 months while gone by using their vacation plan, cut my cost to1/2 of what I normally pay.

We own a rental villa in the village of Richmond. I keep detailed records. Annual expenses run about $14k. Includes taxes, bond, amenities, utilities, insurance, internet with streaming tv, and yard maintenance. It does not include a mortgage or a pool. It also doesn't include increased utility cost caused by the renters. The $14k is close to what it would cost if it sat vacant all year. I agree with the person who said that prices of everything are rising, even faster than inflation, so you might want to add some for future estimates. Bond payments vary greatly. You can view them somewhere on the CDD website. Your realtor should be able to provide the bond info by area.

I have my house completely automated: my refrigerator tells me the temperature of the freezer and refrigerator and if the doors are open, same for my gas range. Then all of my doors, garage doors, are controlled thru my phone so if I need to let someone in when I’m in Europe, no problem. My thermostat, lights, cameras, sprinkler system, water leak detection devices are all controlled by my phone/ipad. I get alerts sent to me if a door opens or somebody comes to my front door, I can talk to them. Also, I setup lighting routines when I’m gone so the house looks like somebody is home.

JB
 

Hi JB,

I have a 2 bed 2 bath home for sale in the lovely older part of TV near The Chula Vista Rec center. It comes furnished with a cool golf cart. Call me on 336 337 5885 if you are interested.

I think you could easily get by on around $5000 for the months you are not there.

Your largest cost would normally be electricity; I had an electrician come by to advise me as most friends told me that they left their air on at around 85 degrees. He said it’s perfectly fine to turn it off completely and even with the humidity being high in summer so long as you run it for a couple of days every 6 weeks or so you won’t have a problem. (my super friendly neighbor did that for me)

Good luck,
Lanie

Please send me you phone number and we can discuss this in detail. Thank you

Why get pool home with two bedrooms. Just get home convenient to pools. Our home is half mile from adult pool and family pool. That way have way to meet new friends and have people to talk with during going to pool without cost or worries of ownership.

Please send me your phone number and I can call you to give you details. Thank you

Find out who your new next door neighbors are, contact them, and ask who they use and if they recommend them. Then hire the same people.

My total Amenities Fees, including water and trash, is around $261. My electricity in a courtyard villa (including charging my car) was $105 this month. I don’t fertilize or pay for termite service, as termites are extremely rare here. Bugs are also rare. When I’m gone, I leave the AC at 74°, which prevents mold. Because I don’t have fertilizing done, I only need to mow several times a year, and I do it myself with a manual mower in ten minutes. I pay taxes and insurance when the bill comes. Internet is around $85 for extra band width. I don’t use cable tv. So, whether I’m here or not, my house costs me about $800 a month, as I have no mortgage.

You can save money by turning your thermostat up to 80. You will not get mold. You can also turn on the humidity control setting, which will overcool your house by about 3 degrees when it detects high humidity.

Cost of ownership is what you're looking for.

Internet only as good as provider (and battery backup)
 

Ok, so when someone visits our house:
1) The Ring doorbell buzzes my phone
2) The MyQ garage door buzzes my phone
3) The Cove security system buzzes my phone
4) The indoor camera buzzes my phone.

Think we've got it covered? Haha

Same for us.
We retired last fall and spent 6 months at our home in TV and loved it. Our plan was to keep our Indiana home for 2 summers and do the 6 and 6 thing.
But after being back in Indiana for only a month we were already bored and missing TV. We also decided 6 months is too long here. Yes, we got to see the kids and the grands, but that's not enough for us since we like to stay active and busy.

Plus, keeping up 2 homes was more work and hassle than I anticipated. When we were in TV I worried about our home here, and when we're here I worry about our home there.

We decided we don't need a home to come visit for a couple weeks at a time. So we put our house here in Indiana up for sale. They start showing it tomorrow. Our plan is to rent an Airbnb when we want to come back here to visit.

That said, our good friends just bought a home in TV and plan on doing 6 and 6.

In our experience, the only difference in costs between when we are there and not is related to weather and daylight and of course use. Inside water use is basically just the standard service charge when we are not there, the same with sewer use fee. But there is still the outside irrigation, which uses more gallons in the summer. Garbage and amenity fee is the same. Our utility bill this month, including $195.34 amenity fee is $282.62. Last month, it was $277.54. The biggest item aside from the amenity fee is irrigation. Also garbage pickup remains the same at $22.52. By comparison, when were there in February, March, and April of this year, the bills were $308, $320, and $305.

Electric with SECO is basically a/c. We keep ours set at 80 and there is 1,938 sq. feet. This month the bill was $82. Last month it was $89. February, March and April when we were there was $110, 110, and $142.

We pay the same for grass cutting and treatments year round. For the months we are not there, we pay $60 for Home Watch services which is the best $60 a month we spend in The Villages in my opinion. Our Home Watch is excellent and gives us great peace of mind (Relax Home Watch--outstanding, but I don't think they serve north of Brownwood).

Best of luck. A few blink cameras or similar may give you some more peace of mind. Basically, the costs are not dramatically different when we are there and when we are not. It's under $100 less in the summer per months, but we pay $60 for the Home Watch so that's where much of that savings goes so I find it to be pretty consistent all year round.

Would appreciate a PM or a post with the details and systems of how you make this work. Sounds like an ideal setup.

Snowbird
 

My wife and I wonder how someone can spend up to 500k for a beautiful new home and use it so sparingly. Such a waste, so we choose to live year round and forget about CT. Florida is our home!!