On My Way
 

Finally have a buyer for my home of the last twenty years. We have arranged a three month rental while we look for a place to buy.
Question.....Does anyone have any comments on local Mortgage Lenders, good or bad? How about VA Loans? Any experience there?
We've been wanting to get to The Villages for about six years, and looks like we'll finally get there. Hope I'm not getting too old to enjoy it!

Mortgage? VA Loan? Dude, most pay in full and do not have a mortgage.

I suggest a resale because you can also negotiate with the seller, have upgrades included which would cost extra in a new home, and have a much, much lower bond than a new home.

:thumbup: Congrats on selling ur home! Moving to TV is the best decision u have ever made in ur life...! Try ERA if ur interested in a VA loan. We did ours through their agency and it went off like clockwork..! One caution however, u can only use the VA loan for the purchase of a preowned home. At this time, there are ample preowned homes to choose from in all the different neighborhoods! The comment about most paying cash is not exactly correct. A lot do, but a lot don't. Just take ur time and explore ur options. Don't get caught up in the hype and drink too much of the kool-aide! Good Luck on ur journey..!

Can you tell me where you found the data that most homeowners in TV have no mortgage?

Just a wild a-- guess. No harm intended to anyone.

Too old??????? Nobody here is old. You'll feel much younger when you get here.

Great point! There are some who are fortunate to move to TV and not have a mortgage, but there are others who need to have a mortgage. In either case, welcome to TV!

BigJohn, Welcome to TOTV. Congratulations on the pending sale of your home. I'm a TV wannabee, and I arrived in TV today for my 2nd visit. Staying at the Waterfront Inn tonight, then tomorrow moving to a rental home in Village of Chatham for 7 short days. I hope to return to TV in October to rent for another week -- would like to try renting closer to 466 or closer to 466A. I can't comment on your mortgage question, but it seems that other posters have answered that question. Good luck to you. :wave:

After 23 years you must have some equity so pay cash for a smaller home or villa.
Do you still want to be paying a mortgage when you are in your 90's?

And there are some who consider paying 4.49% over 30 years an investment compared to paying off :D

BigJohn:

:welcome: to TOTV. I see this is your first post.

Congratulations on the sale of your home. Renting for a while is a smart move.

I can't comment on mortgage options but I wanted to wish you the best in finding a home that suits your needs.

I heard some people feel younger after being in TV for a while. :)

Best wishes on future happiness.

Welcome! Yes, low mortgage rates now allow you to use some of that cash for some excellent investment opportunities. Do check with a financial planner on this. Citizens First Mortgage is excellent to work with.

Hi BigJohn,

Even though I do not live in TV, at this point, I know the territory fairly well, and I also know the territory that is TOTV -- possibly way too well. (been around forever here) So anyway, I have been trying to figure out a way to help you with your question about mortgages.

The Search button that you see at the top of the opening page will take you to a "Search" like none I have ever seen before. The "Search" part of TOTV is capricious at best and maddening at worst. And often thread starts do not have keywords in their titles that would help to make topics easier to access later. (sigh) Now, I am sounding like some kind of librarian. Geez.

In an attempt to help you, I ventured into "Search" and typed in the word 'mortgage' and put the green dot in the post section where I thought I could pick up the keyword.

What I got was way too many hits, some of which have nothing to do with what you want to know, but then many actually do. And even though the posts number in the hundreds (EEK!) you can probably glance through and weed and then read. Some line up in the same threads so that helps a lot.

https://www.talkofthevillages.com/fo...=2426541&pp=25

And maybe there is somebody out there in TOTVland who has figured out the "Search" thing here for real and can help you better than I can. I sure hope so because I feel like I brought you a truckload of stuff to go through.

And now for Part II........

While I am hanging out here in this thread, I want to comment on mortgages for retirees -- because that was a parallel track this thread took. (It happens sometimes here on TOTV.)

Anyway, where mortgages are concerned, I think there are many retirees who could pay cash for a house, but they choose not to. And quite possibly some of those retirees could probably write a check for any house in TV, if they so chose.

I think sometimes what happens is that such potential buyers run the numbers to find out what size house payment works with their certain cash flow. At that point, they then plug in whatever size down payment it will take to comfortably reach that monthly number. (And not everybody buys the most expensive house they can afford.)

Buyers who choose to carry a mortgage make sure that any mortgage they take does not have a pre-payment penalty, in case they decide to pay it off.

And those buyers are likely to perfectly understand exactly how the mortgage deduction really plays into their personal financial picture. They know how it works and how it does not work.

When I think through the idea of retirees carrying mortgages, I end up with the theory that SOMETIMES it can be perfectly fine and possibly the smarter thing to do -- after assessing the risk, of course.

There are retirees who like to keep as much liquid, or relatively liquid, money on hand as possible, and they might not choose to give up those investments for a paid off house. So they take a mortgage that they know they can keep covered with their income stream when they buy a retirement house. Not right for everybody, of course. But it works well for some.

When I think about financial decisions, I always end up boiling them down to one thing -- the cost of sleep. And the cost of sleep varies by individual.

So that painting with a wide brush about retirees paying cash for houses just does not work quite the way it used to. (just my guess) We all know there was a time when it did not take much of a stretch of the imagination to consider real estate to be almost liquid. Not quite -- but almost. And it was rare to see real estate hemorrhage money. But now that things have changed so drastically, there are those who decide to keep a bigger chunk of change in something more liquid than real estate. And those buyers may choose to take a mortgage, even though they do not really have to.

And so, to each his/her own numbers and cost of sleep.....

....Just my thoughts this afternoon, as I sit here avoiding hot gardening work. I sure am not qualified to give financial advice on whether to mortgage or not to mortgage -- nor do I have any business giving gardening advice. My poor butterfly garden -- here I sit on the computer.

Boomer

Addendum: I checked my link after I logged out and saw that it expired itself or something. It was fine before I logged out. Oh well. I tried. I probably somehow ticked off the nasty "Search" part of TOTV by saying it was capricious and maddening and so now it is not cooperating at all with me. It was all there before I logged out. Really. I checked. If you just try what I tried, as I explained above, maybe it will help you -- if it feeeeeeeels like it. I guess I had to stay logged on forever for my "Search" link to stay current. Good luck.

DO not use TOTV search engine
 

As taught to me by folks with more experience use google.com to search talkofthevillages.com. The TOTV search engine is not ..... ummm.... as good as google

Go to google.com, in the space you type what to search for type:

site:talkofthevillages.com whatYouWishToSearchFor

Thank you, aj. I will try that. When I use -- or I should say, "try to use" the search thing here, it eventually starts makin' me CUR-AAAAA-ZEEEEEE. There is so much good info in these archives but it can be so hard to find sometimes.

Boomer