Buying and renting
 

I have been looking very hard at purchasing a CYV for the past 4 months. My wife and I visited TV earlier this month and have a very good "feel" about what and where we want to live.

Our questions always come down to finances. Our plan would be to buy now and rent out for at least 2 years then move once we get everything else up here in order. What I want to ask is about renting out our CYV

We met with Bob King at The Villages Rentals. He gave us 2 options.

We can rent out on the short term, mainly for the winter months. We would have to furnish the home and such.

Secondly, we could rent it out long term 6 months to a year at a time. In this case, we would not have to have it furnished since these renters usually want to move in with their own furnishings.

I would appreciate any advise or opinions on these two options. I have found two different CYV's that would suit either purpose and feel the time is right for us now to buy.

If your financial situation will be really stretched unless you can rent successfully, then my suggestion is DON'T BUY YET. Lots of people can tell you you will realize X amount of income from rents, but it often doesn't materialize that way.

I've rented my place part time for six years with four different agents managing things. Our rental income has fluctuated significantly and two of the managers (The Villages Property Management and JD Management) did a lousy job of securing rentals and keeping our costs down. I've done monthly and weekly rentals only and while long term rentals sound more attractive, especially if you don't have to furnish the home, but I'm told they are very difficult to get. Send me a PM if you want to discuss this further, but my advice is don't buy until rental income is a nice plus, NOT a requirement for protecting your investment. Good luck!

Confusing
 

I'm not experienced in renting out a home, but....... I have been trying to find a home for a 7 month (or more) period of time. The home can be furnished or not. All I am finding is rentals between $2800 and $3800, and folks seem to be interested in only renting out for Jan, Feb and March. Some folks have actually rented their homes out for ONLY Feb...which really cuts out a whole lot of possible renters....Anyway, why not take a sure thing with a long term? Wouldn't it be financially better to rent to a long term couple at a lower rent base and have it rented for a 7-8 month period? I must admit, when I started looking for a rental, I was shocked at the $$$ that ya'll are getting in The Villages. My purpose in renting is to get a "feel" for the lifestyle...figure out which neighborhood will be a good fit for us and then proceed to buy or build. I do hope that we will be successful in finding a place for a long term rental. Thanks for listening to a "newbie".

It might be different with a CYV vs. Patio Villa but I can tell you about my neighbor's experience. They bought a patio villa in August 2008 (brand-new, great location) and were told that they would be able to find long-term rentals where they didn't need to furnish the villa. They got one rental for about a month (the people basically camped out in there while looking to buy something). After almost one year they came back and furnished the villa so they could get short-term renters.

Mark,

There have been some very good thoughts posted here. The first thing you have to realize is that your real estate agent is trying to sell you a place. He will tell you that a rental property will be rented out all the time and you should make money each and every month. DON'T BELIEVE IT! There are a lot of headaches with renting. Think twice about it - and then think more.

However, I have seen some great CYV's for sale that are in excellent shape and are fully furnished. To me, this would be the perfect set-up for a rental. I think that makes more sense than having longer term people move in and out with furnishings. I would think that renters would like a furnished place a lot better.

A final thought, if you do decide to buy a rental - do not go with the cheapest you can find. Renters like nice homes and desirable areas. As with anything, quality shows.

Best of luck.

Another consideration is how quickly your current home will sell. There are many folks trying to sell right now with few buyers. A close friend has had her home on the market for a year. She keeps dropping the price and still no buyers.

Don't forget to address having or not having a golf cart to include with the rental.

My 2 cents for what it's worth. If you need to depend on renters to comfortably afford to pay the mortgage, I wouldn't buy now. There will still be homes for sale in the villages in two years (when it sounds like you will be able to move full time). From my own personal experience, there are a lot of miscellaneous expenses associated with owning a second home. We bought a second home 2 years before we retired as we were afraid prices would go up (this was before the housing downturn). As it turned out, it wasn't really the home we wanted to spend our retirement years in, so we sold it. Even though we got most of our down payment back, when considering the monthly mortgage and taxes we paid, we would have been better off not buying that home, but rather just saving those monthly payments for 2 years to go toward the down payment on a house that we really wanted to live in full time in retirement.

Whatever you decide, I wish you the best.

What is a CYV? (I'm new to this!)

Court Yard Villa.

Renting before buying or building
 

If you decide to build the odds are pretty high that you will not be building in a village you have been renting. Depends if it's a villa or a designer.

By monitoring TOTV for the past year or so we have found out lot's of the good some of the not so good about TV. We have enought info that renting is not an option. We're going to jump in head first! We've only spent 3 days in person in TV spending most of the time looking at new model homes... that was in 2/10 going back in 4/12 buying probably a few months later if all goes well.

Good luck!

Cyv
 

In 2005 we purchased a CYV in Tall Trees. We have never been unappy about the purchase. At the time, we had a dog and we bought for the fenced yard. She has since passed away but we still have no regrets. We have two bedrooms and two baths and a 1 1/2 garage, corner lot. It is perfect for us. We never wanted to rent. We had sold our home in Virginia and were living in our RV while they built our villa.

I would only rent if I were unsure about wanting to live in Florida or if I were unable to sell my primary home.

Best of luck to you and your spouse. Hope you find the right path for you.











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