Wow. Unsuspecting northerners.

Didn't they say Designer homes in Fruitland Park would would be $500K??
 

Yeah. No sarcasm there. LOL!! I'm sure kstew is really SO GLAD we 're happy here!! ;)

As we always say, this place isn't for everyone. Some just can't handle the change, doesn't matter where you are from, some buy without doing due diligence, some just don't fit in and some just change their mind. The good news is that those like kstew43 get out of here, there are many that stay and live miserably here.

So far I am only seeing cottages for sale in the dairy section? Have they started the designers yet

According to The Villages website, there are five pages of new homes for sale in Pine Ridge, and only one is a designer home. All the rest are courtyard villas and cottages. No photo yet for the designer home.

Is it five hundred thousand?:wave:

If I am not mistaken Pine Ridge homes are available as part of the FRUITLAND PARK of Lake County. Labelle is district 10 and still part of the Villages and not considered as part of Fruitland Park and is part of Sumter County. It helps to keep the facts straight!

On sale for $455,158 plus the bond, of course.

Amazing that there are probably 90-100K "unsuspecting northerners" living here---did the average IQ north of the Mason-Dixon line suddenly drop, or was it just mine?

I'm getting mix signals after reading these threads about the bonds (or lack of) in the new Fruitland Park section. Are these bonds to be issued as normal or are these bonds built into the purchase price of each new home? I know there has to be a bond in the Fruitland Park area because I invested in District 11 municipal bonds a few months back. Now if these bond prices are built into the purchase price of each house, I could see my investment being paid off much sooner than hoped for since a lot of folks pay cash for their homes in TV and this, I assume, would automatically pay off their bond debt in the process.

You may want to check with your bond broker. I was looking at villages bonds also. Here is what I found: Most of the bonds have a date far out; yours may be 2030, 2040, 2050. There is also a callable date of maybe 2020 or something like that, when the bond can be called anytime after that date. There is also a provision in most, but not all, of these bonds that allows the bond to be paid off much sooner, even as early as six months or less after you purchased it. It's called something like "extraordinary circumstance", or something like that. Basically, whenever enough people pay the bond off, several of the bonds are called in and paid off. The risk is that if you paid a premium for the bond, which you probably did, then you could lose money if it is paid off in six months, or three months, or whenever, but you can calculate when you would break even. That's the way I understand how these bonds work. If you don't specifically ask the broker about this possibility of early payoff, they may not tell you. I had to talk to a bond broker at USAA to find this out.

You can pay that bond (the one for the cost of the infrastructure) off the day you close if you wish.(Well actually the day it comes due I think which is tax bill time) We paid cash for both homes but kept the bond so that if we decided to move again within The Villages we would not have to add the bond price to the asking price of the home. Many people do this.

Yes, your pretty much correct. Even though my district 11 bonds have a maturity of 2045, Village bonds are always paid off sooner. I bought them knowing they would most likely be paid off in full in 10-15 years. I don't see there being any risk for them being completely paid off in only a few short years though. As you said, when enough people pay off their bonds in a district, the money is divvied up, split and distributed to all the bond investors of that particular district. I have only had this happen once when I was reimbursed only a small amount ($2k) of my initial investment back from some older district 6 Village bonds which I had purchased a year ago.

Bonds in Fruitland Park
 

Just confirming that there is a bond in the Fruitland Park areas. There are two Villages there: Pine Ridge and I think Pine Hills. The bonds are a little higher than the ones in District 10. Designer area is running about $23,000. This area is in Lake County. Looks like it is going to be another beautiful area.

The prices of houses in the Villages is far from extravagant, I feel they are fairly priced as well as the amenity fees-combined with low taxes--this place is a steal

Point of comparison--go to Zillow-Chatham,NJ --hang on to hats as your mouths drop-this is where I used to live-rentals are @ 5K a month-houses make our biggest premiers look cheap price wise