Makes you wonder why anyone would want to live here:1rotfl::1rotfl::1rotfl:

I'm glad you cited the source. I feel confident re-posting it now. :)

The best place to be is an individual decision, some like north and some like south of 44. One true fact is that a lot of those living north of 44 are selling their homes and moving down here and very few if any are leaving the south and heading north. This relaxing country atmosphere is not for everyone but once here it's hard to leave.

Ignore the boo birds. We bought new 3 1/2 years ago in Pine Ridge (Fruitland Park). The boo birds said "why would you live there? Taxes are higher than Sumter County." Well, for one, we are equidistant from Brownwood and Lake Sumter. We are at what was the geographic center of TV ( now slightly north). We have access to all the shopping on 466, 466A, Leesburg, etc. I can get to Costco in Orlando in 50 minutes. Buy where you will be happy. Even Sumter's taxes have gone up.

More like a few hundred not thousands but still cheaper down here than in Lake County.

:blahblahblah:

Your opinion.


Try to be nice..................'tis the season.

With 60,000 more homes announced above the current added 24,000, where are the 12 new 27 hole championship golf courses? Seems the ratio based on announced plans will be way off. What am I missing? I am only aware of one new golf course in the current plans. The Villages was built as a golfing community. Maybe that is changing. But not so with the few I have talked to.

Not sure they have "pushed" the golfing community slogan for a while. The website is:
The Villages®

Fun and affordable active adult community where everything you could possibly want, need, or dream of doing in your retirement years is just a golf car ride away...




I think it's very clear, their vision has changed years ago and they are assuming less golf demand............just like the rest of the United States is experiencing.

Surely you must have noted how they can create scarcity out of plenty. Even I remember when they weren't ever going south of 466A and I'm only 51 LOL. I think we heard the term "Final Buildout" for about 2 years.

It's possible that this is the mother of all real estate bubbles.....but personally I'm building in Linden.

Here's a direct link to Open streets maps:

| OpenStreetMap

You will love it here. I live north of 44 but it is beautiful south of 44. There will be so much available by next spring no worries. As far as commercial I don’t use all the services by cart from where I live there are many a few minutes by car and fit my needs. You will find your nitch for sure. This is a good life here it’s what you make it and my advice to you stay away from the negative people. Happy home hunting

Where do you get your groceries delivered from?

Don't forget that many homes are available already built, and either barely lived in or not lived in at all after a year. There were some beautiful homes in Fenney that I saw for sale early this year - they had been built last year, the property owner rented it out for a few months, then put it on the market. You still get the warranty, all appliances are brand new, everything is in tip-top-shape, but the landscaping is more settled, the neighborhood is more filled out, and you have more access to "stuff" in and around the villages.

Publix Grocery Delivery

https://www.instacart.com/grocery-de...?zipcode=32162

Walmart Grocery

After more than 50 posts, here is the article in its entirety.

The new construction wind mitigation insurance discounts more than paid for the tax difference.

So, ultimately more than 300,000 residents? That will be a sight to see!

Not to hijack this thread, but can you tell me about your grocery delivery? Who do you use? What about persons like milk and ice cream? TIA

Geeesshhh after reading these posts were very happy we chose to live in the northern part of The Villages. Less traffic, more golf, more shopping and less taxes.

Check with the sales office in brownwood, they will know- you should be working with a sales person anyway

Ohiobuckeye
 

Before you know you’ll have to check into a hotel over night just to get from one end to the other.

It might require a bigger gas tank on golf carts to be able to go all the way from the southern Villages to the Northern villages, play 18 holes, and return home. Notice I had to say go from the south to the north and not vice versa, because north is where the Championship Golf is located.

The Wildwood City millage of 3.398 per $1,000 assessed valuation would be close to one thousand dollars on a low end patio villa. I don’t think the realtors will bring this fact up and the prospective buyers should have this information available to them.

We are on our third home. First 1.5 garage. Second 2 car, third 2 car and golf cart. But there may be a fourth if we find something we love. We are not attached to any home here. Selling and moving is easy. First 2 were new, third was preowned. We still have our up north home for holidays and summer.

New construction, until the street is opened you can’t drive into the construction zone.

If you want a corner, a view site or room for a pool, let your rep know. They will work hard at what is available.

Although Villages agents may or may not mention higher taxes on new homes within Wildwood a Realtor selling a resale most likely would disclose this situation to potential buyers.

We have been informed each time we stop in an open house. Seniors are Smarter than you give them credit.

Many buyers are in their 50s in the new area. If one does not do their due diligence on buying a home, maybe they should be looking at the no brainer lofts coming on the market soon.

Just keep in mind, not just the cost of the property tax bills, but also the $30,000+ Bond that is added to price of the new homes here. That gets added to your NON Ad Valorem side of the annual tax bill. My NON Ad Valorem part of tax bill this year was $2,600 for a home built in 2013. ($1000 MORE than my ENTIRE property taxes were in South Florida.) Any discounts like Homestead, Disabled Veteran, etc are only applied to the Ad Valorem side.
I am not being negative, just stating facts, so everyone can save their "then move" comments. I feel people have the right to know what they are getting into and to be aware how expensive it really is to live in TV. Peace.

That's because they buy on impulse and don't take the time to buy what they really want and don't talk to neighbors or drive around to check out the amenities. Many neighborhood shop trying to find new friends in a new neighborhood. We took 2 years to look over plans and find the right lot on a championship golf course, then had our home custom built 18 years ago and still love the view and the house. Neighbors come and go. Take your time, do your research and you'll be happy.

One advantage to buying down south that no one has mentioned yet: nearly all of your neighbors will be fairly new as well, which I think makes it much easier to make friends and get plugged into a social circle. Sort of like going off to college (without the studying, LOL). That aspect appealed to me a lot, since I've never found it easy to make friends. It's especially hard when you move to an area where everyone there already has their social circles long-established.

You originally quoted that taxes down here would be thousands of dollars more than north of 44 due to the Wildwood taxes. You just gave an example to backup our statement, the low end price of a patio villa is around $170,000 so the Wildwood tax would be in the hundreds, not even the high hundreds. We have a designer Ivy that has a tax valuation much higher than a "low end patio villa" our latest tax bill included $1,209 for the City of Wildwood. There is not a home down here that would be in the thousands (plural), Higher end homes would break $1,000 but nothing down here would be in the "thousands" for Wildwood.

When we bought our home down here all of that was explained to us, our agent, Beth Pope, held nothing back and we had no surprises. We just bought another home from her as an investment and the very first thing she told us was the bond information. If you are working with a good experienced sales agent you will get all the information as they do not want bad press. Your bond is higher and maintenance is higher than your tax bill was in S. Florida, our total bill is less than half of what we were paying in Ohio so everything is relative.

it is starting to build where route 44 meets morse blvd. go thru the light onto warm springs ave. you can't miss it

There has been no work at all on that plaza in weeks. They just stopped. Don't know why, but nothing going on there.

I looked at the bond as an opportunity....what the bond represents is included in the price of homes up north and you have no choice. Here you can pay it up front or finance. When it was included up north that choice was not available.

While what you say is basically true, there are other, offsetting factors. The bond is amortized as a non-ad valorem expense on your tax bill, which means it is not legally deductible. In addition, it is generally charged a higher interest than is available for mortgages today. And while true you can pay off the bond, you have the same option to add to your down payment on your loan for a house up north. I’m not saying the bond is an inherently bad thing, but I think it is a stretch to see it as an opportunity. JMHO

The bond is an opportunity? As i see it, the real opportunity involving the bond is to do what we did. We took advantage of an opportunity to buy a pre-owned home with a bond balance of zero : )

AFAIK, not intuitive but there is no evidence having a bond impacts the sale price of homes. If there were, there might be rational to reduce the tax value of the home by the amount of the bond.

Yes around $7-$8k gulp, double our taxes in London !!!

And a massive bond at humongous 6% interest rate It may be better for us to clear it up front at that rate as UK savings rates are at best 0.5%...

It did re-ignite the discussion New down South or Old up North.

We bought in the northern part of the Villages and also used Beth Pope. She was great. She’s one of the top Villages salespersons and I can see why.

Of course you realize the previous owners probably set a sale price that included them recovering some or all of their bond. Look at it this way: Two identical homes right next to each other, let's say intrinsic worth of 300K each. One has a 30K bond, the other none. What do you think the sales price would be for each?