My daughter who was living in California did this recently on a house in Maryland. She had her agent (whom she had never met in person) check it out and made it contingent on her seeing the house, inspections and so on. She had never been to the neighborhood as far as I know but an uncle of mine had lived nearby; my daughter knew the area in general and had friends from college living nearby - one of them had got her the agent. It turned out the owners had a growing young family and needed more space. They moved not far away. Also the neighbors are great!

My concerns would be had smokers lived in the house? Did the owners have cats? What are the neighbors like? Are there traffic issues? Power lines? Had the house been the site of a major crime, had someone with a highly infectious disease resided there or was the house notorious for some reason?

i used to invest in real estate and it was always 'boots on the ground'. Since i wanted to be able to walk to lsl i came down and made sure. i doubt i'll ever move again.

Some people get mail order brides this way.

We bought our 2nd home in The Villages sight unseen. We only had 8 interior pictures. We were in Seattle when a home "similar" to one we had looked at dropped in price to our price point. Salesman called Friday evening while we were flying in - knew it was the last CYV 2 car garage available in the area and knew it wouldn't last until we got back.

Called Saturday morning, sent them money - and now couldn't be happier. It was everything we wanted that was not in our first home and more!

My husband any my first purchase was this way. We visited in spring of 2011, looked around, got a feel for what we wanted. When one that met our criteria became available, we got a call from our agent. He sent photos and videos through e-mail. We purchased that property. Keep in mind, we already had the model of CYV selected, and that is what we bought. It was a new home.

I'm so glad we bought sight unseen in 2007, and didn't overthink it.....
We knew the CYV backed on a golf course, so we'd have privacy guaranteed.
We ended up with wonderful neighbors (most people feel that way).

This has been a most interesting thread. I have looked at TV homes on line for several years, and often thought I could see myself living in this house. When I go to The Villages, I try to visit as many open houses as I can in my price range so I get an idea of neighborhoods, room sizes, distance to shopping, etc.

One MLS agent has posted a few videos on YouTube of him touring homes a customer is interested in. Apparently she was shopping for TV homes from a distance. In the videos, he also included the surrounding neighborhood homes and the distance from the back of one house to Buena Vista Blvd. and the back of another house to Belvedere Blvd.

Thank you for starting this thread, Tomcat!

Nice thing about google maps is you can see everything, pretty much everyone knows where the power lines are. As far as noise, that can change in 15 minutes. Our first house we were first to close on the street, at night it was so quiet, you sometimes walked to the end of the drive to see if there was life. We all loved the quiet on our street enjoy the closeness of our neighborhood, and the block parties in the driveways.

Then at 6 months, 8 houses down a guy with a passion for woodworking moved in.
Staring at 5am, till sometimes midnight, it was like living in a commercial zone. Not only the noise, but friends over to use the equipment.
Neighbors politely asked to keep noise at reasonable hours, then community watch, then houses on both sides, and across the street went up for sale. So the quiet neighborhood you move into can change overnight

You can't pick your family...or your neighbors.


You can only hope that both...are reasonably palatable.


At least with the latter...you can do something about. :shrug:

We bought our's three yrs ago =only saw pics on-line

We were looking online for four years. When the right on came up we pulled the trigger. Haven’t regretted it.

We stopped and visited The Villages three times over three years, each time checking out a few open houses. The last time we visited, we toured a model that we really, really liked. On the way home to North Carolina, we decided to definitely buy a house in The Villages and probably one of that model. We checked online and found about a dozen houses of that model that were for sale. We did virtual tours of all of them and dismissed them one by one on the basis of orientation (we wanted southern facing to keep the lanai comfortable longer each year), flooring (I actually prefer carpeting over wood or tile for the living room for the acoustics of my home theater) and choice of colors of cabinetry and such. When we decided on the one we liked the best, it turned out to be the one we'd actually toured. We contacted our realtor and got the purchase going. So we bought almost based on looking at pictures on the computer.

We didn't move in for almost 2 years as we hadn't retired yet so we were a little apprehensive about fitting in with the neighbors we'd never met. We needn't have worried as they were all very welcoming and many have become good friends. From what others have told me about their experiences moving into neighborhoods with strangers for neighbors, we're not that unique. Most of us moved here to make new friends, have new experiences and enjoy this stage of our lives. A few have told us some negative experiences about neighbors but that does seem to be more of a rarity than the norm.

Hopefully will be down next month to look. I will let everyone know when I am living in the Villages. The post will probably read something like “Finally.” Thank you for all the comments coming in. You have been so kind.

We did it and couldn't be happier. Trusted our Villager realtor: John Northcott, (352) 446-1392, and he sent back great info. We didn't see it until an hour before closing and that was 5 years ago. No regrets. Evelyn and Ron Taylor on Ashwood Run

We bought in 2014 while we were living in Atlanta. We had a contingency that we had to see it in person before being held liable to buying it. We wired the deposit and looked at it a week later. It worked great! No more heartbreaking when the house we liked got sold before we could get down to look at it! I don’t think there is a downside to this.