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