Don't forget about the "Bond"

For what its worth. It's good that you are experienced house hunters.. but moving quickly with any real estate in a strange area isn;t necessarily a good thing. Very good that you like uglies, as you will be able to see past paint, carpet, formica tops, dated light fixtures etc. You're obviously moving from out of town, probably out of state. So the next question is size.. How big of a house are you moving from. The great majority of homes are in the 1300-2100 sq ft size. They are 3/2's .. no basement. Are you prepared for that ? I think many villagers over downsize, and find themselves screaming for space in 1500 ft.. others are fine with it. Now your setting.. golf course, water, kissing lanai;s, a solid wall, or "no homes behind" - a code word for backs up to street. All have issues that are different for each person. As an aside, last week we looked at a Premier $$ home. When we went out to see the pool area, we could hear every word our new kissing lanai neighbors were saying, and they weren;t screaming.. Then we met their nice, but yippy dog. Have you sampled the 3 town squares ? have a preference ? Do you think you;ll be a golf cart person ? How far of a ride will it be to your favorite water aerobics activity.. or the poker game, or your favorite restaurant? what might be fun the first few times might be a PITA after a while. Structurally, look at the inside. are you a bath tub person, or is that just an ornament ? A walk in shower became standard a while ago, and accommodate walkers etc, while in later years you might think only a gymnast can get in and out of the tubs. So now start looking.. Block vs siding may or may not be the deal breaker you think, given all of the requirements you;ve already listed. In the end, after doing 2 lifestyle previews, we looked at over 50 homes (culled from many more for sales eliminated via the internet) listed by both the Villages and MLS (you do know that they dont sell each others listings, dont you). We, too can go into a house and within 5 or 10 minutes decide whether it bears further consideration. That was in 2016, and we didnt want to build. Now, you have another choice.. south of brownwood. and the blogs are full of opinions. BTW, we ended up with a large block designer (turn key) with lanai facing a street - many people would have eliminated it from consideration. Best and luck, m advice is to use your speed and experience to look at MORE homes in DIFFERENT areas to optimize time spent and increase likelihood of a successful first purchase.

It's not for sale. I haven't found ONE house on the Village site for sale site that is. Thanks though.[/QUOTE]

The icon "bad request" is a home for sale on Woods Way in Desoto. New. I don't know why the words "bad request" came up. The mysteries of the internet....

Most resales that I have seen that stay on the market too long here are overpriced. That is not a phenomenon specific to The Villages, it happens everywhere.

My advice to you in picking a resale home is

1) Determine what general area (Spanish Springs, Lake Sumter or Brownwood) you want to buy in and then try to narrow that down using specific criteria such as

What type of view are you looking for?
Do you want another home directly behind you?
How far do you want to be from a town square?
How far do you want to be from shopping?
How far do you want to be from doctors, the hospital etc?
How much of a bond are you willing to take on?

Once you can determine that then look for a home that suits you in terms of size, number of bedrooms, is the bond paid etc etc.

If no houses meet your criteria this trip, continue looking at what goes up for sale in the area you have chosen. Something will come along shortly.

Good luck !

I put the address into Zillow ...it's off the market. Yes...the mysteries of the internet are many...:)

There are actually three basic types of construction in The Villages, block walls with stucco, poured concrete with a decorative cement finish (not actually stucco), and wood frame with vinyl siding. In my opinion, the best and most durable is the poured concrete. However, I don't think the type of construction should be an absolute deal breaker.

Golf Cart Garage
 

I also searched The Villages website and saw the same home Gracie posted. Yes, it is for sale (for today)

Bad Request

Wow....lots of great info here, thank you all. I'll have to print this out for reference.

Re size: It's not so much about SF many times but how a house is laid out as to how it functions. We'd like to find min 1300sf, 1500 would be more than enough. We're not worried about downsizing as we went from 4000sf, a huge barn/workshop and 5 acres to 1700sf with a tiny driveway/no garage in our current house. Now that was a bit of a challenge. Although we've shopped and bought long distance successfully with out last 2 homes, we knew the areas. It's not the easiest thing to do so we'd get familiar with the lay of the land in TV by renting sev times...maybe Nov this upcoming year. We're always ready to jump though...lol.

I've looked at enough homes at this point at all price points to know that what we want to spend probably won't get us some of the things that are recommended but that's OK. Big baths, bedrooms have no weight with us nor does turnkey. I've never seen a house that we wouldn't have changed. Wonder how I can find out if there are any yippy, barky dogs about....carry treats in my pockets? :) Except for our current house, THAT was a problem at every single home when we lived in in CO.

Thanks for the great input so far...some very specific things here which people only learn through exp. We'll be a lot smarter in Feb when we're down there and get a feel for everything.

So I guess what I'm seeing is these homes are NOT being listed on the MLS or with realtors. It's just on the TV site?...or at least many of them are perhaps. That would explain why they're "off market" on Zillow.

Thanks for jumping in...

ONLY The Villages can show and sell NEW homes.

Keep in mind that a lot of this is just personal preference or opinion. For example I have a west facing lanai and love it.

There are new homes in Fenney/DeSoto, and McClure with golf car garages priced in the mid $200,00's. And I'm sure there will be plenty of them in Marsh Landing.

Exactly. I'm a little different in my tastes too from many people.

...

We're not interested in new homes primarily because we'd be paying a premium for design choices I wouldn't choose...e.g. dark kit cabs. We're also interested in more established landscapes.

So, what are commission rates for TV realtors? It must be lower for resales or they'd be no incentive for an owner to list with just TV. They're missing out on too much of the market.

Thanks for the info.