fell in love after our first visit
 

My wife and I are from MD and we just got back from a week in the Villages. We want to move down as soon as we sell our current home. The people, the lifestyle, and the overall feel pulled us in.

We both want to simplify our lives and get rid of a lot of our possessions and downsize in TV. We have a couple of questions. One, in the crowded season can one still enjoy the restaurants and golf or is it such a major hassle that you end up staying home? Two, I have a regular group at my golf club in MD (4-15 handicap of about 30 guys), will it be easy to find a like group in TV?

We can't wait to come back!

Where in Maryland are you from? I moved to The Villages about a year and a half ago from Silver Spring. Best thing we have ever done. Spent about 36 years in Maryland and commuting to Washington DC every day. It is just like a slice of Heaven down in The Villages.

I have lived in the Baltimore metro area all my life. My wife is from Germany. We currently live in Reisterstown about 15 miles NW of Baltimore. I retired last July and my wife is planning on retiring in a month so we can stage our home for sale.

Welcome! Yup, TV is easy to fall in love with. Restaurants are more crowded, golf courses are used more, clubs are fuller. So, you either eat earlier or later; accept you may not get the tee time or course you want; arrive way too early for club meeting. But, you do get to eat at your favorite restaurant; play golf almost every day if you want; participate in your clubs, exercise groups. From what I understand, it may take you a little while to find your golf group, but find it you will. Level of play here is from non-existent (like me) to truly awful to very, very good. You'll find your niche.

It's easy to love it
 

We stopped for 3 days last March, fell in love, went back to IL, put our house up for sale, sold it, got rid of a lifetime of "stuff", and moved here last July 2. Our friends and family thought we had lost our minds. We wake up each morning loving our new life here. Our neighborhood welcomed us with open arms. Our village has its own website where we can sign up for golf 5 days a week if we want. It does get a bit crowded during high season but we still were able to do what we wanted. Hope you can come soon.

You will hear that the roads are crowded, restaurants filled to capacity, etc during snowbird season. Trust me, after being in a crowded metro area, this is absolutely wonderful. You can go anyplace in your golf cart, arrive in 15 minutes, and if you get there and find a wait - just go to the bar for a while. It is more crowded in snowbird time, but nothing like the Baltimore-DC area.

Hope to meet you once you get down here.

Hello Maxman,

I'm from Maryland too. Born and raised in Baltimore . . . worked for the Social Security Administration until retirement in 1991. We've lived in Pinehurst, NC for the past 20 years but we close on our home in Tamarind Grove in late June. Like you, my husband and I fell in love with TV lifestyle on our first visit in February and were fortunate enough to sell our home in NC in just 19 days. Can't wait to meet our new neighbors and make new friends.

Welcome to you Maxman. You will find something more wonderful every day you are here.

Hope you join us soon.

Don't forget to bury St Joseph.


.

Thank you Chuck. I was reading along on this thread and responded to jadlos post about selling in 19 days and posted as to how she did it so quickly, and then realized I had highjacked the thread (again) and hadn't welcomed Max, so I completely removed that part about selling a house and welcomed Max and so you responded to my post before I changed it...and yours didn't make sense.

Now I have confused everyone.

Thank you Chuck. I also have the Baker group on my side...You can't have too many celestial friends at a time like this!

Chuck was giving me and all of us advice as to how a house quickly....

Come on down, you will love it. We sure love it here, lived in the Baltimore area for 58 years, glad I am here.:024:

:welcome: to TOTV.

I had the same experience several years ago but I wish I had moved immediately like you are planning to do.

Best Wishes for a quick sale of your home.

Moved from MD
 

Lived in Hagerstown all my life and also fell in love with TV on the first visit. After we returned home we decided to sell our business then our home and move here. That was exactly 3 years ago, moved here October of 2009 with no regrets. Never had a problem with tee times, I would suggest becoming a priority member, if you and your wife play 2 to 3 times a week as we do it easily pays for itself. You can also use the country club pools that are not nearly as crowded especially south of 466. On the warmer days in the winter
neighborhood pools are pretty crowded with visitors.

How nice to hear from so many Marylanders. :wave: We are counting down the days. Won't miss all the snow and cold weather. Hope to meet you in TV. We did bury St. Joseph. And he answered our prays, sold our home in six days. Good Luck

I love reading your posts. They are so full of information and are very entertaining.:wave: :wave:

Hi Maxman,

:welcome: to TOTV. You will not regret for one minute your decision to move down here. It gets better and better the longer you are here as the people are so friendly and you get to participate in-- not just dream about-- all the wonderful activities.

I've got my fingers and toes crossed for you to sell your house in no time and come on down!

Your experience sounds a lot like ours. It didn't take us long to know that TV was the place for us! We are in the process of getting rid of "stuff" (oh, so much stuff) to get our house on the market. Our goal is to list in July, start building the end of July, and move the end of October or 1st of November. So, what's the secret to a quick sale of your house?
We are from Severna Park, MD, south of Baltimore, a little north of Annapolis and are anxious to head south.:pepper2:

Thanks for all the great replies. We are meeting with a Realtor on Wednesday. The only problem that I foresee is that we have all of our money tied up in IRA's and will have to take out under the rule of 72T. This will make our income a little tight for 5 years. We are hoping to be able to get a little income from part time jobs in TV. If not we will just have to budget. :024:

FWIW.........
I'm sure someone who knows a ton about what to do to properly "stage" a home for sale will chime in - all valid stuff. But if you've got a properly staged home that's clean and not needing a bunch of work done to it, the deal will come down to The Price. That seems to be the ultimate driving factor nowadays given there are so many houses on the market for the shrinking number of qualified buyers. Price it as low as you can stomach for a hopefully quick sale. And finding a good realtor who knows the local market well is key. They will be able to successfully guide you through everything you need to get it priced properly and sold pronto. Take it from someone who learned about "good realtor" and "market pricing" the hard way! :wave:

Bill :)

Maxman, What is "the rule of 72T"? I'm not familiar with this. I participate in a 401K from the company that bought my company in 2001, but I also have quite of bit of my retirement money in a rollover IRA from money accumulated from 1988 to 2001.

Schaumburger check out this site. It explains the concept. Basically it allows for withdrawals before age 59.5, but under strict rules.
http://www.dinkytown.net/java/Retire72T.html

What we would like to do would be to withdrawal more now and scale back when our SS kicks in at 62, but unfortunately we can't withdrawal as much as we would like.

Bill:

You always give great advice.

IMHO - Priced properly is what the realtor calls a motivated seller.

I live in a town where there are numerous condo's on the market.

I agree that pricing a home is of the most importantance. One person in my complex marked down her unit to a rediculous price and it still did not sell for the six months that it was on the market. No realtor has been able to explain that unit not selling. :confused:

Hoping this coming Sunday's open house finds me a buyer. :)

2B - Thanks!

The 'staging' stuff can really make a difference - perhaps that's at least part of the reason the other condo didn't sell.

Best of luck with your open house!

Bill :)

Yeah we are going to price our home to sell. We want out of MD asap. Keep your fingers crossed.


:crap2:

I used that rule when I was 53. I used the amortization method and got a lot more than if I used the minimum distribution. You have some leeway on your future expected rate of return.

Hello Maxman,

We're from Belair in Harford County, about 35 miles northeast of you. We were also just down in TV for our first time from April 17th - 25th, they put us up in a $400K cottage just east of the LSL sales office. Came back on the auto-train, it's a nice way to go.

We listed our home with Advance Realty this past Tuesday night, they only charge 4.25% commission. The next morning at 9am, yesterday to be exact, we got a call that Long & Foster wanted to show our home at 10.

So we don't have a yard sign yet, no multi-lock and we're barely in the MLS system and the people bought our home. Cash deal, money verified and backed by Wegman's Grocery store. The new Wegman's Belair is located about 500 feet from our house and the buyers were the new Wegman's Belair assistant manager and the wife is the new Hunt Valley Wegman's manager. He'll be very close to work and she has to drive about 25 miles, but he's the one that doesn't like driving.

We just had inspection at 2pm this afternoon with them and everything went fine and they're flying back to Rochester, NY tonight.

I just got done on the phone with my sales agent at TV and we booked another LSV for June 6th, coming down for three days hopefully to put a deposit on a home. Right now, I'm thinking it's going to be a villa of some kind or a possible resale, but I definitely like the area south of 466. We've got closing on our home here June 29th, so I guess we'll become Villagers during the 4th of July.

I also play golf, I started as a teenager but then gave it up for forty years and then started back two years ago, I'm now 60. It was kind of like riding a bike, I've picked up right where I left off. I played Cane Garden when I was down there and shot an 80 from the white tees, and if I had known where everything was I could of done even better. The course wasn't too hard.

John W - WOW! Now THAT is a quick sale! Good for you - hope the closing there goes well.

Enjoy your upcoming trip to TV. And remember..............don't forget to bring the checkbook!!!!! :)

Bill

Our house will be on the market in one week. We have it priced low...we listen to Bill and do everything he tells us.

Please do not say you buried a statue of St. Joseph. I just can't do that.

But what I am interested in is duplicating your golf score from the white tees.

Tell me precisely how you did THAT!!!!

Maxman, My head hurt reading the concept :confused:...I will leave the math problems to the engineers I work with. Thanks for the posting the info. I will be working full time for several more years unless I win the lottery.

Gracie, send me a signed check. Leave the amount blank. I'll take care of that part. :1rotfl:

Best wishes for the quick sale of your home. Got my fingers, eyes, et al. crossed!

Bill :wave:

Hi John,
Wow, wow, wow. You must have a genie. What's you're third wish?

P

p.s., May all the rest of your days be as golden!

I thought about burying a statue but didn't, but I do wear a St. Joseph's metal around my neck.

The golf course I played at TV as compared to what I'm use to here works for my game. For my size of 5'9" 153 pounds I can drive past most other players my age, about 250 on average but sometimes not so straight. On our courses I will end up in the woods on 2 or 3 holes whereas on Cane Garden it was pretty much wide open and I found I had only short irons left to most greens. The day before I played the executive Heron and shot 33, so that was a good tune-up for irons.

Right now I'm getting ready for a community yard sale tomorrow, Saturday. Also, I had good luck in that the buyers want to buy most of my furniture but I still have a lot of other stuff to sell.

I found a really nice resale yesterday online. A 2 BR 2 BA rancher, built in 2005 with volume ceilings and fully furnished, which I don't need but it's very nice furniture. The home looked immaculate and was only $159K. The only downside I could see was it was in the Village of Tall Trees near the High School. The backyard has a wall, which is good privacy, but it's against businesses on the southside of 466 and only a couple of blocks from the football field. Does anyone think this location is more problem than it's worth?

I have friends who might be your new neighbors. Same wall etc. They love it. The wall borders Parr Dr with business on the other side of the street.

John:

WOW!!!! What a quick sale. That's got to be the record!!! Congratulations.

Wow to your golf game. I am hoping your closing and move to TV goes smoothly.

I'm sure you will find a home that is perfect for you.

Best Wishes

Thanks, if it's still on the market come June 6th or so, I'll have to check it out. It also had white cabinets which is my first choice, we had remodeled here in 2008 and used white Dynasty cabinets with granite and stainless steel. Unfortunately they don't put stainless in the villas I've seen.

2BNTV, I'm addicted to golf. I was out here on New Year's Eve day, it was a beautiful 40 degrees but shot my best round of the year. At least I've got until June 29th until closing to finalize everything here. Now, what do I do with 3000 record albums?

If Pturner guessed right that you are a genie, your third wish might be to get a hole in one.

Google "record albums to PC" and a list of options comes up such as PC, CD, MP3 and iTunes. This will save you a lot of space and keep the quallity of your records intact.

A member that is more technically adept may be able to help you. :)

2BNTV Thanks, but I bought a USB turntable a few years ago but never really got into burning my records to CD. I found as we get older I no longer need to sit around and jam to my records.

I've been hooked on concert DVD's since 2003 and now have about 300 of them. It's so much better to watch a show on a wide-screen TV and hear the enhanced sound that DVD's produce running through my surround system. When we were at TV on our recent stay we went to Lake Sumter every night for the music. I've got a few ideas for the records, I heard that the local FYE store is now buying vinyl.

We have friends who own a ranch home in Tall Trees and we have been very envious of their location. They have all kinds of shopping and restaurants within a mile or two. There are numerous banks in that area, not to mention a Super Wal-mart just up the street and several gas stations nearby. As far as I know the football field has never been an issue. If I was looking for a resale ranch I would most likely look in Tall Trees or Summerhill. As far as I am concerned that location has a ton more positives than it has negatives (I can't think of one!)

John, a huge congrats on the insanely fast sale..Your story is a dream for those of us who have their home's on the market. Please send some of your good luck vibes to Natick, MA...Our house went on the market this week and we are having our first open house this Sunday....

You will have a lot less stress during your LSV visit in June. After less than an hour on our LSV tour, we knew, without any doubt, we wanted to buy in TV - and we did.