Patio Villa vs. Designer Home
 

We are getting close to purchasing in TV....the worry I have is I would like a neighborhood with more year round residents. I don't know if most Patio Villa neighborhoods have year round residents vs. Designer homes? My thought is that Designer Homes would offer more year round residents.....but I thought I would ask current residents for their opinions. We are looking at both for different reasons.....but would prefer more year round residents vs. seasonal residents. Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Your thoughts are on mark
 

You are correct. Patio villas are cheaper and wouldn't necessarily require the amount of maintenance a designer home would have. Yards are smaller in many cases and the homes are just more utilitarian and minimal landscaping cost. In most cases it’s cheaper and easier to furnish less square footage for the turn key look. Also don’t have the overhead costs for view etc that some designer homes have. The smaller tighter option is better for those who want to run an AirBnB business and turn profits through renting. A designer is generally more spacious and favorable for those wanting to relocate permanently so in probability, less likely to be rentals.

When all is said and done though, some designer homes are still rented out. Owners can still be and often are snowbirds but desire the privacy of not renting their homes out.

In my experience I would say that there are more full time residents in villas but also more renters. In designers, etc., I would say there would be more snowbirds than in the villas and less renters. In either case most neighbors are great people with the occasional bad apple. If you want space to walk around your home go with the designer, if you want more of a low maintenance home with close neighbors go with the villa, either way you will have hundreds to choose from, north, central, or south.

Depends on how close you feel living feet from your neighbors and I hope get along with them? At least designers are yards apart usually have bigger garage and square footage and of course at higher price. IMO more full time residents in designer neighborhoods in my area? Only patio villa I would be interested in would end of street where at least on one side open and not in middle, but that’s me. CYVs have walls which provide some privacy, but still close. Even patio villas are around or over 300K, few years ago there use to be large separation of costs vs CYVs and designer. Now not so much?

Patio Villa neighborhoods have the highest probability of rentals. Designer neighborhoods will have less rentals, but may have more people who are off on a cruise every 2 weeks, are snowbirds, or who may keep to themselves a bit more (especially if they have a pool).

A Courtyard Villa neighborhood might be the sweet spot, but there you have to be careful of neighbors who leave Fido out in the enclosed back yard (or lanai/birdcage) yapping for hours at a time. I know of people who moved because of that problem.

We were concerned about being surrounded by rentals, so you could do what we did - once you think you've found a home that is "the one", take the addresses of the homes on either side of "the one", behind it/across the street from it, and run them through the top 5 rental sites. This will give you a good idea of the number of rentals nearby. Obviously you can include the entire neighborhood if you like, but this method worked out perfectly for us.

Our neighborhood south of 466a and north of 44 is almost all year-round residents, this area is basically designer homes with some villa neighborhoods. The designers are going to cost more and there tends to be a higher upkeep, but IMHO really worth it.

Designer neighborhoods has much larger streets and unlike Villa hoods.....most cars are in garages.

Consider a cottage home. Again, most are year round residents. Still low maintenance , lower taxes. Mine has split floor plan, separate guest quarters. Love it.

Any dog yapping anywhere in villages is close enough to be heard due to sardine can design.

Now that’s funny like most can get car in garage….:wave:

I have a designer and have 4 homes within eyesight with snowbirds and one rental across the street. It’s a quiet street for the most part. The patio villa we rented before this in Richmond had several rentals around it. Never saw a beer can in the yard but did see a large number of POA papers blowing around the first of the month since homes were not occupied (true and pics).

I'm not sure that I would apply that statement broadly. I live in a village with mostly designer homes and most cars have a car in the driveway usually due to other items in their garage like additional cars/golf carts/motorcycles/stuff. I'm in a village south of 44, so it's a much younger crowd, so maybe that accounts for some of the difference.

Why is this a worry? As a resident of TV for 3+ years, that's the least of my concerns. My street is around 1/2 year round with the rest snowbirds or people going back and forth between other homes. Many of the full time people on my street are away on trips and cruises frequently though from what I can tell.

I have friends all over TV and the ones that I know in less than ideal situations either have barking dogs outside of their courtyard or veranda, or they have neighbors that are busy doing noisy activities in their garage.

I haven't had anyone complain to me that not enough of their neighbors are home.

It Should Be A Worry
 

It should be. There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about your neighbor being switched out every month. You shouldn’t always have to think it’s a crap shoot again on our neighbors this month. We all desire and deserve some security and consistency in our lives even if neighbors aren’t always perfect.

No one on this site will tell you they want to live next to a rental. We certainly don’t!

But if you have a bad neighbor who is there permanently, that might be worse. We don’t have a problem with our neighbors but some nearby homes do have dogs that are constantly barking. I have never seen a rental with a dog (although I am sure that there are some). And even if there were, it would only last a short period. Lots of rentals prohibit pets.

IMO it’s not the type of home that determines whether or not the residents are full time, but the age of the Village. A more established Village would tend to have more full time residents.

there is really no sure way to tell snowbirds vs full timers. Sales happen all the time. At best, go to the neighbors and ask.

Othen less expensive properties are purchased as income producers like Airbnb's.
There's no regulations preventing that. Just something to keep in mind.

If you reference home listed on ****, it’s probably a fair listing of both Designer and Villa homes. I would also consider Villas for safety reasons because they’re always in a closed neighborhoods. Overall, always consider location, location, location. Realtor reports show the Brownwood area still holds a high demand due to its proximity to Brownwood and Sumter, as well as numerous access to grocery, shops, restaurants, and golf courses. Anything south of 44 lacks all of that.

If you have noise concerns an area that has a lot of backyards that are enclosed will draw dog owners and with it the possible noise pollution, I haven't made a study of it but I believe that the higher priced units have more unfenced space between them leaving an escape route for your pet, what would ARC have to say about fencing in your yard?

You want to be in a neighborhood with year round residents but you didn’t state that you will be one. Inquiring mind ….

Year Round versus Snowbirds...
 

If you would hire me as your Realtor, I will send you designer and/or patio homes in neighborhoods where I've researched if your future neighbors are snowbird or year-round. I'll need price range, preferred area, and desires (such as: stucco only, no pool, enclosed lanai versus open birdcage, view, etc.). Paul Ledbetter Realtor with Realty Executives in The Villages. 352 661 5309

We live in a Courtyard Villa, and do have a lot of neighbors who are rentals. Really don't see the difference between living with people who are renters and those who own. Maybe we have just been lucky..our street is very quiet and very friendly.

If you are like where we were from, where your neighbors become your best friends, and are you concerned about that, well don't be. We have great neighbors and enjoy occasional driveway parties, but most of my friends are people I have met at clubs and events. They live all over TV.

We love our Courtyard...we have walls around us and don't have to deal with kissing lanais and noise. The walls are very good at keeping the noise down and offering privacy. We looked Designers and did not care that the people behind us are almost on top of us, and I know people who have to deal with neighbors who LIVE on their lanai, watching loud television for all hours and talking loudly on the phone, etc. That would bother me more than living with rentals. So I would look closely around your surroundings if you go with a designer.

Good luck and welcome! We love the Villages! People are much nicer in person than on social media. :wave:

If you are used to living in a house, get a designer home with a golf cart garage. I would not focus on renters, but on the lot. Get as much privacy as you can afford. There is plenty of inventory right now. Be patient.

We own a courtyard villa and are south of 44 in a village that is about 6 years old now. We have very few rental units in our neighborhood, I believe there are 3 out of a total of 66 in the whole neighborhood. No problems as most are long term and become part of the group. We prefer the privacy of our walled in backyard, the only barking dog comes from the designer behind us but we don’t mind as we have always been dog owners.

We close in May and bought a designer home. It's a second home for us so we will be coming and going through out the year but we won't be renting it. We know people with both patio villas and designer homes that do the same thing so my guess would be there is a mix with both.

Not my experience at all in renting houses when my kids visit. I can always find designer homes - harder to find patio villas! But I live near Sumter landing, and I have hear that in the new construction in some areas well more than half the patio villas immediately become rentals

I’ve only lived here full time for two years now, but we owned for two before that (didn’t rent out - visited every month). Our courtyard villa neighborhood was built in 2006. When we bought, the majority of the residents were original purchasers and had become full time residents. But many started as snow birds. Now we are losing the oldest and a few of those homes have been sold and are being rented. And some of us “youngsters” have become full time.

While the type of house might have some impact, I think the age of the buyers does as well. Therefore you might also want to visit areas other than new construction. Keep in mind there are a lot of “true snowbirds”. Live here in the winter - but home empty in the summer and NEVER rented out. Good luck

Poster, if you are looking for factual information, you are not going to find it here as most comments here are just a matter of opinion.

Its all about the neighbors...
 

We live in Pine Hills on Bell Terrace, a cross street with 21 designer homes. The homes are approximately eight years old. Yes we have a few snowbirds but for the most part the majority are year round residents. Obviously we all have different social/club interest but we gather quite regularly for driveway get togethers as well as holiday dinner and/or pot lucks.
Our street is exceptionally inviting thus the other cross streets and connecting street, Kauska, participate in our get togethers.
BTW, we have two very nice houses for sale at this time due to folks moving back to where their children live.

I bought a designer home in Shady Brook a few months ago. I have made many friends here. One difference no one notices is that designer homes have concrete curbs and drains on the edge of the street.

I am surrounded on 3 sides by one AirBnb and 2 rentals (one is a snowbird that rents half a year). This is shocking to me frankly. The belief you avoid this by upgrading to a designer wasn’t true (at least for me).

I think you would get a more accurate answer if you named some villages that you were interested in, and asked people in those villages.

Property Management
 

I am not sure “opinions” are what you need. If I were you, I would call property management at The Villages and maybe Realty Executives to get an MLS company’s perspective. Ask how many villas vs designer, veranda homes they rent out. They may even be willing to share which villages they don’t have a lot of business in. Good luck.

lol. This is true. I live in a designer home. It's not only yapping dogs it's people talking outside the house. It sounds like they are in the room next to you. There is little to no privacy in the villages but it wasn't really designed for that anyway.

I stayed in two villas before buying a designer home. To me, the main differences between them is the number of bedrooms, the size and type of the yard, and the size of the garage.

Villas are two bedroom, designer homes are 3+

You can buy villas that have no grass at all, but have landscape rock.

Villas typically have a one car garage where designer homes have a two car garage, with some having an extended space for a golf cart. They also tend to have smaller driveways.

For me it's utilitarian. I wanted a two car garage and three bedrooms. I still work (remotely) and wanted to have an office plus a spare bedroom in case people came to visit (which they will).

The Villa I stayed in was in Pennecamp. It was very nice and if it wasn't for the garage and the number of bedrooms I would definitely consider buying one.

FYI....................there are Villas with three bedrooms.
Yes, Villa garages are generally smaller, but there are fully size doubles available.

We will be year round residents moving from Sarasota area,

Welcome to the North.
Much colder up here.

:wave:

Everything here is hearsay. Just like I said, the hearsay is that the smaller homes south of 44 seem to have the higher quantity of rentals. People buy them and wait out the year to sell them and meanwhile rent them out.

So True
 

Absolutely correct. Sometimes there are zero problems, sometimes there are many. Some are very short term some are not.

We built a designer home. The main reason is we knew space, especially storage, was going to be an issue. The designers are larger, and by building you can stretch the home. I would recommend maximum stretches in at least the garage with a roofline that maximizes above garage storage, which you can use safely with solar fans, etc. to keep it cool enough to use. Our 3rd bedroom is really office/storage. I'd also stretch the liana by at least 4'. Lastly, there were articles I think in TOTV about certain style homes (I believe the walled communities) that "own" the interior roads, as opposed to the city, and are responsible for maintaining them at THEIR expense. I seem to remember a stink in CCD8 about it and the creation of a fund to eventually have to pay for replacement/repairs, which some homeowners went nuts about. While designers do have a modestly larger lot, ours in only 0.15 acres. LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION, avoid high traffic, noise, light pollution areas. Eastport may be the new hub, but with schools, ball games, school bands outside practice, the family village(s), they'll be more traffic young and old and all that goes with it. Peaceful evenings on your liana may not be so peaceful.

By definition, this post is hearsay.

:girlneener: