[Bill14564]

Originally Posted by DAVES

Actually that is too common. So much per month is common You should check and know. It is so much per month is common sales tactics As is first month is free. They know exactly how many people will forget to cancel after the first free month.

Where does the money go? It is a good idea to write it down for a month.

What are you talking about? The bond is paid on the property tax bill, the property tax bill comes once per year. There is no "so much per month" for the bond payment.

My bond payment is in the neighborhood of $1,300. My house was built eight year ago and bonds are higher for the newer areas but it is incredibly difficult to believe that even they are at $13,200 per year ($1,100 per month).

[BrianL99]

Originally Posted by bsloan1960

New owner/first time- closing at the end of June.

(using approx. numbers) $20,000 bond paid over 30 years @$1100 per month = $33,000... Ouch!

I assume this is why some people choose to pay the bond off in cash. I called the Development District and there is no creative way to reduce the interest payments- it's either pay it off in full or pay it monthly.

With this in mind what is the best way to pay this bond?

Thanks,
Bill

Your math is way off.

[Wilharm]

The $1100 payment must be per year. Not per month.

[Mushkie]

Originally Posted by bsloan1960

New owner/first time- closing at the end of June.

(using approx. numbers) $20,000 bond paid over 30 years @$1100 per month = $33,000... Ouch!

I assume this is why some people choose to pay the bond off in cash. I called the Development District and there is no creative way to reduce the interest payments- it's either pay it off in full or pay it monthly.

With this in mind what is the best way to pay this bond?

Thanks,
Bill

Your math is off or it’s a typo. The bond is paid YEARLY not monthly- so $1100 per year- it’s a line item on your property tax bill along with the regular property tax, maintenance fee and fire station tax, etc. i think the bond is about 3.45% but your agent would know. You can also go to district.gov to find out.
You didn’t say if this is a new or pre-owned home or if you used a Villages agent or MLS agent- but either way- your questions should be answered by the agent.

[crash]

Originally Posted by bsloan1960

New owner/first time- closing at the end of June.

(using approx. numbers) $20,000 bond paid over 30 years @$1100 per month = $33,000... Ouch!

I assume this is why some people choose to pay the bond off in cash. I called the Development District and there is no creative way to reduce the interest payments- it's either pay it off in full or pay it monthly.

With this in mind what is the best way to pay this bond?

Thanks,
Bill

That is $1100 per year it appears on your tax bill.

[Bay Kid]

Paid mine off the 1st year. I looked at it like credit card debt, bad.

[KimmieK]

Do you mean $1100 per year? If this is NOT your forever home, do not pay it off.

[VApeople]

We bought our house in 2016 and our bond was about $22K at 6% interest. We had to pay about $1750 a year.

After paying our taxes in 2018, we paid off the bond.

[thevillages2013]

James Bond?

[eeroger]

Originally Posted by jchase

We heard the Villages refinanced the bond and its now about 3 percent. Anyone else heard that?

Yes! You can look up the interest payment you are paying on the districtgov.org website. Our bond was refinanced 2-3 years ago and is now 3.7%.

[DanMac58]

Originally Posted by bsloan1960

New owner/first time- closing at the end of June.

(using approx. numbers) $20,000 bond paid over 30 years @$1100 per month = $33,000... Ouch!

I assume this is why some people choose to pay the bond off in cash. I called the Development District and there is no creative way to reduce the interest payments- it's either pay it off in full or pay it monthly.

With this in mind what is the best way to pay this bond?

Thanks,
Bill

I believe you meant to say PER YEAR, not per month as per month would be $396,000

[GOLFER54]

Pay it, save money and one less headache.

[dewilson58]

Originally Posted by GOLFER54

Pay it, save money and one less headache.

[defrey12]

Originally Posted by Bill14564

We paid off our bond. We calculated the break-even point to be about seven years (YMMV). We felt we would be in this house long enough that we would save money by not paying 8+ years of interest.

Some would argue that with a 3% interest rate you will be better off by investing the money. That's a good theory and sometimes it works to your advantage. However, if we had invested that $18,000 we would have something like $14,000 today and still have a bond payment due. Given what we are seeing today, we are happy with the choice we made.

Depends how you invest that $18k. If you’re in “the Market”, yeah you’re taking a bath. There are other avenues. Look at “Self-Directed IRAs” and real estate…we took our money out of the market in 2019 and haven’t looked back. That was after the last “financial advisor” told us “you just gotta hold out for the “long-term!” I was 61 then…”the long-term is here”, I told him…greeted with only a blank stare

[Quixote]

The bond on our first home here—a Designer—had been paid off by the original owner, so we never gave it much thought. It was our understanding that the bond was the same amount for all homes in a neighborhood, no matter the size of the home, and that the one on our home had been about $12,000. We lived in that home for 2.5 years.

For our second home (built the same year as our first), we 'downgraded' to a Courtyard Villa which resulted in a larger home with features we learned in our first home we really wanted—a separate eat-in kitchen, an entry hall, a larger lanai, a larger master bedroom, generally lighter and brighter, and infinitely more privacy—the tradeoff being a smaller garage. The bond had NOT been paid off. This has turned out to be, as put earlier, our 'forever home,' but even not knowing that initially, we paid off the bond rather than have it running for another 25 or so years; the total payoff was about $5,500.

Doing so worked for us; I'm not saying it would work for everyone. Then too, we hear current bond figures are outrageously higher today than when we bought. Several years ago there was a big to-do about a 25% property tax increase. That didn't seem accurate for us, so we pulled out our tax bills for all the years we had lived here to find that our taxes had NEVER varied more than $20 up or down; that one year we actually did have an increase—of a total of 8%. Fiscally speaking, we have no complaints.

IMHO, the bond misleads enthusiastic homebuyers to overlook it as part of the price of the home they're buying. But that's a whole other story in itself....