Turnkey Question
 

We are looking at a Turnkey CYV. WOuld love to here experiences w turnkey purchases. Did you change alot or did anybody just move in?

I would have moved in. Mrs Snowbird to be had all the flooring ripped up and replaced. We also got all new counters. I thought that we would change nothing 'till we became frogs and moved our things down. I got lots of practice saying "yes dear". A turnkey was still the right choice for us because we didn't need to buy everything in week one.

We bought a turnkey home...was previously a model. We were living in Europe, so our "stuff" was in Europe and some stuff in storage, when we first got to TV. So, we did just move in. However, we did have to do some heavy duty purging later...both from our stuff coming from Europe and most of our stored items. Now that we have settled in, we have about 75% of the turnkey furniture left and 25% of our stuff.

If we were to do it again, we would still buy the turnkey... By the way, we are full-timers...

Hope this helps....

We bought turnkey---moved only our clothes and personal items.-except for a small desk. I haven't changed a thing--I'm not a decorator and was pleased with colors, etc. in house that we bought. We have been here since 2007---House built in 2002--we were 4th owner and first ones to live here full time. I would like smaller furniture in dining area and new table/chairs in kitchen but haven't bought anything yet. We did pull up carpet in living room area and replace with tile and tiled the lanai at the same time. One thing we didn't think of until after---we should have had them separate a dollar amount from purchase price of home for furnishings as you start your real estate tax based on purchase price.

Turnkey vs buy your own
 

The cyv which we purchased and closed on a couple of weeks ago had all the furniture, curtains, etc. We asked to have them removed as we wanted to pick our own things. The package would have been an extra $12,000..they charged us $500 to remove it all...but we are still money ahead. We feel we bought better quality for $3,000 less.

We bought a turnkey in 2010 and because we don't plan on moving until 2013 it was the best thing we could have done. Before we even owned the house we had it rented for the two months after our closing. Upon closing we spent about a week in the house going through everything, cleaning, re-organizing, and buying what was needed. When we stayed for a month in Jan 2011 we did replace a few items of furniture and decorative items, but we don't regret buying turnkey at all. We save Jan for ourselves and try to rent the rest of the year. The amount of items you need to start a whole new household from scratch is staggering! Once we move down full time we'll do a full weeding and decide what to keep from this house and what to replace from our other house.
By the way we did reduce our purchase price of the real estate by $25,000. and attributed that $25,000. to the golf cart, furnishings, and balance of the household items.

We bought a turnkey and it has worked well for us. Enabled us to use for a couple of years before becoming full time in July. I expect we will purge about 50% of what is in the villa. Since we are moving to ST. James am trying to decide if iwill sell villa or rent it out. That will also factor in what is purged.

Excuse me, but this is one of the funniest posts I have ever read on TOTV. I could go on and on but I can't type while I'm laughing.

We bought a resale Patio Villa last fall that was essentially turn-key: the only things we needed were television sets, towels, and kitchen utensils/pots and pans/silverware. Everything else was in place and came with the deal. And we needed to buy a golf cart, too! :) We haven't changed a thing - we're only there off-and-on through out the year and we're fine with things the way they came. For us, especially since we don't spend long stretches of time there yet, the turn-key aspect was PERFECT. Is it done up the exact way we'd have done it? Probably not. But the furnishings are all nice/decent items from Southern Lifestyles and gives the place the "Florida look" that we like - it's different than the "Early Attic/Late Basement" decor that is our traditional forte........... :1rotfl:

Another interesting aspect to buying a turn-key house: You can come up with an agreed-upon amount of the value of the furnishings and "remove" that from the value of the home purchase transaction (it gets backed out in the math on your closing/HUD statement to reflect the 'true' amount of the house and land. The sellers still receive those funds from you at closing.). Beneficial for property tax purposes among other things. Ex.: Purchase price of complete turn-key house is $X. Agreed value of all furnishings that come with the deal is $Y. The sale price of the house that goes on the county's books is $X minus $Y.

Bill :)

We bought turnkey designer, love the view but came down with all of our furniture. It has been a process to sort and incorporate the two, and moved a lot of furniture out, still have more to go. Ripped out the carpet and had tile installed, still decorating. Changing the lanai into year round room. Came down with the idea of new construction but saw this and happy with our choice. :wave:

Bill:

Thank you for posting this as I plan on buying a turnkey and this is very helpful information.

I would have done a Yogi Berra, "who woulda thunk it". :)

I made an offer today on a turn key CYV. Very excited about it but my TV agent said that I cannot separate the furnishings from the sales price of the home. She said the appraiser would not give the furnishings any value.

How do I get them to separate the values?

The sales price of the home is what it is - all-inclusive turn-key home. Maybe my prior post about the "separation" wasn't expressed well - sorry!

To try to clarify: The purchase price of our villa was $X which included all the furnishings, etc. That's what we paid the buyers. Ours was a FSBO so there were no realtors/commissions involved. If your realtor is thinking that they'll get shorted on their commission because you're wanting to reduce the amount of the house sale transaction and pay the sellers separately (outside of the house sale transaction) for the furnishings, that's not what we did.

Where the separation occurred was on the HUD/Settlement Statement. See the pdf:

http://www.hud.gov/offices/adm/hudcl...ms/files/1.pdf

On this sample form, lines 102 and 402 are where the personal property amount would be listed. The 'Contract Sales Price' amount (lines 101 and 401) would reflect the agreed upon purchase price of everything ($X) less the agreed value of the furnishings.

Now......what sales figure is used to compute the realtor's commission would be up to all parties involved in the transaction. JMHO!

I hope that helps.........but maybe it doesn't!! The law firm that handled the closing had no issue with it - seems they handle such things on a regular basis.

Bill :)

Under 55 - any issues with buying
 

Not to hijack your thread, but I notice you are under 55. This has been discussed before, but being under 55, have you had any issues with your TV agent with buying in TV before you turn 55? If no, is it because you are buying a pre-owned home versus a new home? Thanks in advance.

I don't have an issue because of age since my wife is over 55. The stipulation is that one of the owners on the title has to be 55 or over.

My wife considers me a "Cabana Boy". :bowdown:

We bought a turnkey as a vacation/rental. We haven't changed anything since we only come down for short visits, anywhere from a long weekend to 9 days (i.e., a work week book-ended by weekends). We already had renters lined up for snowbird season starting less than two months after closing. It was great to not have to hurriedly set up house.

We looked at many turnkeys that we did not buy because we would have wanted too change too much. The one we bought was lovely.

Since we plan to buy a bigger place when we become frogs, and will have more than enough furniture, linens, kitchenware, televisions, etc. to bring, we will probably sell our current TV vacation/rental home turnkey, much as we bought it.

If we had to do it again, we would definitely do it the same way. This has worked out perfectly for our needs.

Well best of luck to you and Mrs. Cabana Boy as you pursue your future in TV! :wave:

Can I ask the names of some reputable realtors that were used to find turn key homes for sale? Thanks!!

Well we just got back from closing, our turnkey CYV was all we hoped it would be. It is very scary driving 16hours to close on a property you have never seen. Our realtor checked it out for us and did a walk thru video w her IPhone so we could see it as she saw it. She could also tell us if had any obvious problems or bad smells which was very important to us. We worked w her for almost 5years so she really new what we liked and wanted. We could not be any happier with our purchase. We never thought we would never purchase a property site unseen, never say never.

TednRobin, Congratulations on your closing! Great that you found a realtor you put so much faith in. Did you use a TV sales agent or an MLS realtor? I've looked online at a lot of homes for sale in TV. Most of the turnkey homes have nicer furniture than what I have now (decorating is not my forte). I would definitely consider buying turnkey to keep the moving costs down and to cut down on the "settling in" tlme.

Turn Key
 

Hi, guys, I've got a turn-key courtyard villa for sale. This has confirmed all my thoughts about what I'm planning. It was good to read this post. If you've got any friends looking for a CYV, I've got to sell quick....new job starting around 7/4. Tell them to PM me.

Turnkey
 

Now that we have spent time in our cyv, we are very glad we had the furnishings removed. Had we realized the low grade appliances that were there...not to mention the curtain rods...we would have asked for all of those to be taken out as well.