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.