Skeptical to the WOW Factor
 

I was just thinking it might be fun for people to post their experiences that were skeptical or had no intention of buying in TV and had changed their minds after a LSV. Or bought much sooner than expected.

What changed your mind so quickly? Was there one thing you can honestly say convinced you?

I thought it might be good to have this in one thread.

I could NOT believe my eyes when we drove into The Villages and I am still in awe.
 

We had vacationed in Florida many times. And there were favorite places we went including Disney World but I never EVER wanted to live there. I don't LIKE Florida and I still don't.

Florida and getting old meant couples dressing alike and men wearing white loafers and a LOT of geezer hair cuts and fifties hairstyles for the women and eternally the same small social group and playing Mahjong and dances at the Elks Club and having cocktail parties........... and leaving lovely, LOVELY Ohio which is where all the nice people I knew lived, including the smartest and sweetest and cutest grandchildren in the world.

Until the lifestyle visit.

I just loved the people and their quick wit and the varied experiences and the friendliness and the opportunity to finally study art and play golf without competition and I adored the immaculate streets and PERFECT landscaping and all of the things you could do and an opportunity to meet 80,000 new people who were all old enough to know what I was talking about and didn't look right through me.

I loved the golf carts and the fact I didn't have to worry about my figure and that the gray hairs were quite common, even the ones that are misplaced.

I loved the belly laughs and the fun. The knowledge that those decades also spoke of some heartbreak and sadness and disappointment...you just can't get old enough to live here without some of that.

I liked that some people thought just as I did and plenty did not. It was new and different and pretty and interesting and fun.

And...our grandchildren were going away too...to college. That made it easier.

LOL....we had our lifestyle visit after we closed on our house... ;)

I had no intentions of buying, I was just looking around to keep Mike happy and....I was curious. Well, after that first visit, I knew we would buy...and a few days later, when we came back for one more look see before heading back to California, we told our agent what to look for. Bought our house while still in CA...isn't the internet wonderful!!!

The place was absolutely beautiful and the people we saw driving and walking around looked so happy and busy. Actually the first people we talked to, in Johnny Rocket's, were from a community not too far from ours in CA. They loved it here....and so do we.

Why We Moved to TV
 

We were looking for a place to rent for a month in the winter and my sister had shown me the video of The Villages. It looked like a fun place so we rented in March of 08. We thought it was a great place. We rented again that November and decided to move here. I was impressed when people we met at the golf course or at the square would tell me how they had no intention of moving here when they came to visit, but then they went home and put their house up for sale and moved. None of them regretted it. We were already 50 miles from most of our family when we were in upstate NY and the property taxes were terrible. We decided to "vote with our feet"and leave NY and what better place to move than The Villages. We love it here!

Someone fed us "the beverage". ;)

Bill :)

Everything said above was our experience too. Gosh we just love this place!

We drank the kool-aid....

Since I started this thread, here goes.

I was never skeptical as I had never heard of TV. I was invited to visit with an old friend. What I saw and experienced blew me away. I thought TV was built with a person like me in mind because it fit me to a "T". I was walking around the squares in a stupor as I was thinking, "I can't believe this place is sooooooooooo beautiful".

If I had my checkbook with me, I would have bought instantly. :)

Still a wannabee. :(

2BNTV :sigh:

I started researching TV on the internet 3 years ago, ordered the DVD, and registered with TOTV in December of '09. Being the curious type (and a former educator) I like to research fairly thoroughly anything that I am interested in, and TV interested me. By early '10 I had seen enough to be convinced that The Villages could be for me and wanted to take the lifestyle preview. My wife had not sought out information, though I encouraged her to do so, and was highly skeptical. I finally got her to agree to an LSP in April 2010 by promising I would take a day to visit her old friend in Sarasota. We came on the LSP and went to the squares every night - she loves to dance - and took in the beauty of the place, and by the third day she was ready to buy! We are trying to sell our home now in order to buy a home in TV, and will be spending Feb. and March in Hemingway. We will continue to maintain a home in Missouri near our three kids and six grandkids, but plan to spend six months per year, or more, in TV. There is clearly no place like the Villages where you can live the lifestyle available to virtually no one else, no matter how wealthy, anywhere else in the world. It is almost impossible to explain to anyone who is not aware of TV what it is like there, you have to experience it to believe it.

Ed:

I totally agree as this statement is sooooooooooo true.

BTW - Your pictures show that you have a beautiful home in Missouri. :)

Last week, my traveling companion gal pal, whom I met on an Alaskan cruise in 2007 and with whom I've traveled frequently since, came to visit for most of the week.

We went to several open houses, both new and pre-owned. She knows now that she shouldn't have any trouble finding something that will fit her budget once she sells her house in a Nashville, TN, suburb.

I've bent her ear over the lifestyle enough that she knows what happens here. She visited now, because she is finding the winter more and more "problematic" in Tennessee, and wanted to see how she might be attracted to Florida. This week she's visiting other friends in Port St. Lucie, and will move on to Bonita Springs.

I think she will choose The Villages!

Maybe I'm a good salesman. Maybe not.

SWR
:beer3:

I'm with Gracie - Florida is not a pretty place. I've enjoyed coming to Florida in the winter over the years for the tourist traps, but never wanted to live here. Then we drove into The Villages in 2008, and it was all over. The place is just wonderful, and that's not a word I normally use. I love Gracie's description of driving into TV - It's like when the color came on in The Wizard of Oz. Other than Disney, I've never seen a prettier place. Doesn't look like Florida.

We looked for 3 years on and off in TV and many other places. We could not find anything like TV and at first I did not want to look in TV I had something in my head ( old people) and TV turned out to be the best of all the places we looked. Six weeks ago we closed on our home in Hemingway, we will only be there part time for the next 18 months than NO MORE WORK and will be there full time.
Kathie
From, Long Island and Weston Fl.

It happened so fast my head is still spinning, spinning so fast that I've been invited to be in the cast of the next remake of the exorcist!

Actually, it started on our planning on a place to go on a winter vacation after attending a convention in Orlando and spending some time with our son at Disney World in 2010. I started to consider where we would like to go and started with the Myrtle Beach then we moved on down to Florida. I searched both coast lines and couldn't find a place we really wanted to go then figured on staying 2 weeks in Orlando then another two in Daytona.

After all reservations were arranged and confirmed, we started hearing The Villages advertisements on television and so I looked at their website and requested their video. We eventually started to change our plans a number of times until we... well a little complex to fully explain. We wound up with two weeks in a lifestyle then proceed to Daytona, which we eventually also canceled after our closing.

To make a long story short, we started to look to see what was available and before we knew it we found, with the help of friends down here, our place in Hadley. We went through all the paperwork from NYS and arranged our closing based on when our Amtrak reservations were already set months in advance.

On the day before closing we arrived in TV and checked into the lifestyle which in the end we only stayed for the first 6 days that we reserved for. It wasn't the villa they advertised, but a Gardenia, the same as we were purchasing. Made for a few confusing days. I wasn't sure which house we were in a few times.. TV had made us an offer we couldn't refuse, to move out after only 6 days and into our new home early with only having to pay half price for the actual days instead of the two weeks we had reserved. That included refunding the other 8 days we already paid for.

I just mentioned that we arrived one day before the closing. Well today is the first anniversary of that day and tomorrow will mark the first anniversary of being home owners here in TV.
So that's my story and I'm sticking to it! :spoken:

We were sold the first time we came down for all the reasons Gracie, Ed and others mentioned. We loved all the wonderful activities, the friendly people, the golf cart lifestyle, the golf courses, the beauty, well... everything.

However, at the time, we were a long way from retirement. We visited a few more times and then in 2009, five years after the first visit, we began seriously looking for a small vacation home in TV to tide us over until retirement. We bought a turnkey resale that fall and have come down whenever we can ever since. Looking forward to the day when we can finally say... RIBBIT!

Here's my story....my inlaws both lived in TV when I married my husband almost 10 years ago. My husband and I are from upstate NY. My inlaws lived in a manufactured home community. (My husbands parents are divorced but both managed to stay inTV). We would visit a few times a year and each time we loved our visits and mostly visited Spanish Springs because we stayed at a hotel there. We'd walk around and I'd say to myself " it's so beautiful here but everyone is too old for us.". The grass would be greener in a younger community. So years went by and we decided we wanted to live in Florida but not TV. We decided on Lake Mary, about half hour away from TV. Younger population and research said it was a great place to live. We contacted a real estate agent and spent an entire day house hunting. We were so disappointed! The community was very family oriented and we passed the toys in the driveway, basketball hoops outside, kids running around...you get the idea. My mother in law called to see how we were doing with our house hunt in Lake Mary and we said terrible! She said "you really should give TV another chance". So we said what do we have to lose? We drove to TV and contacted a realtor who my mother in law knew and he promptly showed us model homes. We instantly fell in love! As Gracie said it was the manicured lawns, the beautiful flowers, the golf carts....and it was a retirement community. We had to admit we were ready for retirement and all it had to offer. We hadn't met anyone yet so we hadn't made any friends but the sales people were wonderful so we were good. We decided that we wanted to build on a golf course and he had one designer lot left and we bought it right there. So, by default we will be a part of TV family. We haven't looked back once. We will start building next month. The rest will be history! Moral of the story...no grass is greener than the grass in TV :laugh:

I grew up in South/Central NJ which is a haven and final resting place for every senior citizen in the NJ/NY area to spend his or her final days. Or so it seemed to me when I was growing up. You can't drive a quarter mile without finding an adult community. I knew I never wanted to live in ONE OF THOSE. And besides, I have dogs and need a fence and no adult community I ever heard of had fenced yards for your dogs and they have dog size restrictions. Then 2 of my friends bought in TV and kept telling me how great it was and that I should look at the website. I resisted for years! Finally in a weak moment I did look at the website and found it was true, the CYV do have fences and it does NOT look anything like the 'old folks neighborhoods' from back home. I decided to check into it further. I was totally into all the clubs and activities and it didn't seem like a place to grow old and hide until you died of old age. This might be different than what I thought. It took a year of research but we scheduled a visit. We were hooked immediately. It was like Stepford, all happy people walking around with these grins on their faces ALL the time. We talked to so many random people and no one had anything negative to say. We spent the whole LSV looking at homes and before we knew it, we bought our home. Whirlwind experience with no time to look back or be afraid.

I had learned about tV from a clogging friend up north who came to TV for 8 years and she gave us a tape (that's how long ago it was). We always thought it would be too expensive but then in 2009 we called for a new DVD and then got motivated to check out a LSV. However when we thought of the drive down from Canada we figured that we would be better off renting for a month and getting to know the place. Fortunately for us the CYV that we rented in Poinciana was perfectly located for all the activities. When we first talked to the owner she told us it was for sale and asked if we were interested. Of course we said "oh no" as that was the furthest thing from our plans. To make a long story short, we walked into a beautiful CYV that had the same style dining room set as we had at home and living room furniture that we loved and the bonus was a king size bed. By day 3 we were talking about buying it turnkey and we ended up buying before we left and then closing the following spring as she had it rented for the winter! It is such a joy for us to be able to vacation twice a year in Lower Paradise. We have always felt at home in TV and our neighbours are, of course, the best.

LW888

15 year search
 

We started looking for a place to retire 15 years ago in Fl. Nothing we looked at fit the bill. One golf course. Kids in the movie theater. Yards not maintained. Some houses not maintained. Eight years ago with the advice from a friend (who has been in TV for 6 years now) we drove into Spanish Springs. We saw people walking along holding hands. We saw people riding around smiling in their golf carts. We walked up to the sales center and my wife said where do we sign up. We went and looked at models and fell in love with the kool-aid. We weren't ready to retire so we promised ourselves that we couldn't come back down until we were ready to retire. We - maybe I lack self control. We came down again in June of 2011. They gave us a year to build. The called in December and said they were willing to knock off 4% if we bought early. Monday is our closing. We will be frogs by March 1st. I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with my bride of 25 years in The Villages.

These are wonderful stories and they fill my heart....thanks for letting us in on your journey to TV. :)

I've always found it interesting to hear the stories of how and why people end up where they do and the journey they have traveled.

From reading this thread and others, I think I might be the only one who actually likes the state of Florida, but I'm probably biased as I was born in Florida (I hope you don't hold it against me ;)). I haven't lived my entire life in Florida but I have had the pleasure of living in some beautiful areas of the state as I grew up and again after returning to the state in '97.

I do agree TV is like a beautiful oasis in the middle of nowhere!!

The main reason we are planning to retire in TV is for the lifestyle....now THAT is something you won't find anywhere else in the country....that is the WOW factor for us!!! We love the area where we live now...if we could have golf cart access to everything we might not go through the trouble of moving at all. :laugh:

Except for the months of January and February. :laugh:

Its the air they pump into the place
 

Even though I live 200 miles south of the Villages, I really think its the air (like the Vegas casinos) . I have sold my condo with a closing date of 2-2-12 and I am coming up this weekend with check book in hand to make the purchase of an existing. Don't know yet which one but before this weekend is complete, I will know.

A smart person!!! :icon_wink:

You're on a mission - hope it goes well for you!!!

Bill :)

WOW - Congrats on selling your condo.

You sound very decisive and it is a smart thing to do.

Best wishes on your house hunting adventure. :)

I've had the pleasure of living in Florida in three beautiful communities. The first was Key Biscayne which is a paradise. The second was Hutchinson Island a barrier Island and also beautiful. While living in Florida I always thought central Florida was a bug infested swamp and if I couldn't live with the ocean as a backdrop I wouldn't be happy. Well after a trip to TV I fell in love. We rented for a couple of months just to be sure. Since moving here 3 years ago we have never looked back. Some of the most amazing things I learned about Central Florida is that in the Summer months the evenings are breezy and lovely and sometimes downright cool. Another thing is the lack of mosquitoes and bugs. In my other locations in Florida the Summers and Spring were difficult when the noseeums were out. I love the beautiful lakes and springs surrounding out community as well as the rolling hills and horse farms. Most of all I love the incredible light. I realize that TV is not for everyone but I feel blessed that I get to live in paradise.

Well-
 

This started on honestly how did you get here.

I had a promotion mailed to us from " Top of the World"

Of course I lost it. Ruthie said "Honey did you book that place in Florida I would like to visit?"

Of course not I was lazy. So I got on the computer quick and by mistake Googled The Villages vs Top of the World. Booked the life style visit.

That was four years ago. Our sales agent has patience!

Just closed January 10th. Boy am I glad I did that Google search wrong!

This is the funniest story yet!!! :laugh::laugh::laugh:

Now that's cute and funny :laugh::laugh:

Best mistake you ever made. :)

I had a conversation with someone who moved to Top of the World and they didn't seem overjoyed about it.

Ditto! That was first thought I had too! :agree:

we have friends from TN who used to live in the Tampa area for many, many years. They left to go to TN because they did not like FL.

After their first visit with us shortly after we built our home here and spending a few days with us they both remarked....now this is what living in FL is supposed to be like!!!!!!!

btk

I actually just "stumbled" into TV. Yup, hubby and I had decided to move down south and since we had a daughter living living on the southern east coast, though she really liked the area, close to night clubs, the beach, I found it not for us and set off for a 10 day driving tour of Florida with it ending visiting a friend in Longwood, who had mentioned TV to me as possibility that I should keep in the back of my mind. The idea of "retirement" community wasn't really what I had in mind as hubby and I had talked about living somewhere on a lake that he could fish after retiring.

That said, I started my journey driving over Alligator Alley to Naples and worked my up the west coast, some beautiful areas, but lots of congestion and not finding anything that really fit for us. Got all the way up to Crystal River and decided to cross over and weave by lakes that I found out had dried up on my way to Longwood. Hours and hours go by, hubby is calling me asking me what am I seeing. Well, to be honest, I felt like I was in Pa., lots and lots of horse farms, cows, had no idea Florida had areas like that, was nice, but no lakes and kinda like nowhere land. Needed a rest stop for the night and hubby told me just down the road was a Holiday Inn Express, which unknown to me, was actually in Spanish Springs. Being very tired and hungry, I check in and ask the front desk where can I get a bite to eat that was close by, they tell me just less than 10 minute walk there was a square that had free entertainment and some restaurants, I should go there.

O.K., I go and WOW!, I see signs saying Welcome to the TV, I am like what? Oh yeah, I am supposed to look there, well, maybe tomorrow, I must be close, so I keep walking and I hear music and lots of golf carts are scooting by me, I am like what is up here? I walk into the square and never looked back, the band was playing some Jimmy Buffet type music and I am a parrothead, so really liked that, and sat outside just in awe of everything, the people I met as I walked around came up and welcomed me, guess I had that look, as they told me they too, had been where I was that day.

I stopped in TV sales office and decided to have a look, WOW! again. Later, I called my hubby and told him about this "city within a city" out in nowhere land that he would not believe!

Rest is history, did bring him back to TV for two visits, and our house will be finished being built Feb. 14th of this year! I love everything about TV and all it has to offer us. Looking so forward to new friendships, getting involved with all the wonderful activities that are here for everyone and may actually try my hand at pickleball too! I feel our lives will be enriched living here and an exciting new chapter of our lives will begin and awesome memories will be had! I have never ever seen anything like TV in all my travels and I have traveled all over to lots of places.

Great thread! Sorry to be so lengthy, but we you all get to know me more, you will find out I do have a hard time saying what I want in five sentences or less, just can't seem to do it.

Graciegirl you said everything better than I could've, and covered most of my reasons for moving here.

Here's how I found TV:
I had never heard of TV, and never even saw the commercials, so it was a miracle that I learned about it.

The mother of a friend of my daughter was driving North on 441 from visiting friends in Miami, returning to her home in Maine. She drove past the previous sales center on 441, which was the building across from the P.O., now La Badega (sp?). She was immediately drawn to the beautiful Spanish architecture, turned around and went inside to use the restroom. She fell in love with the tile in the ladies room, then went to a sales person, and bought a house! She had never intended to ever leave Maine and move to Fl, but she loves it here!

So, when I was getting ready to move somewhere warmer, and considering AZ or CA, my daughter suggested I take a look at The Villages. It was an easy decision, for so many reasons. I've thanked her many times for her suggestion, and I thank God every day for this place. :)

Very nice story and you told it well. :coolsmiley:

Great stories
 

It's a lot of fun hearing your stories. The most amazing thing is....nobody regrets it! It is like nothing else on the planet.

Totally agree with you,but i first came to visit TV only to shut my adorable girlfriend up.She saw the ads on Fox News and wouldn't stop talking about TV.I figured since i wasn't close to retiring and still had my business in Lexington,there was no way in h*ll i was buying anything in Florida, at this point in my life.Well the rest is history,it took just one visit in 2010 and i knew she was right(are you females ever wrong????).No regrets,except i keep hearing"i told you so" over and over again ,by you know who;)

DebbieB:

I loved your post. You could have written a novel and I would have enjoyed every word. Thank you for posting your experience. :)

DebbieB -- Excellent post. And you and your husband are closing on Feb. 14 -- what a great Valentine's Day present for yourselves! Hope your moving and settling in go smoothly. :wave: