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The Villages is truly a magical place. I have lived in a lot of really nice communities, and live on a beautiful lake now, but I have never experienced a consensus of opinion anywhere close to the love for this community by residents and wannabees (gonnabees) alike. It is magical and in some ways I wish everyone would tone it down a notch, at least until I buy my place, so as not to drive the prices up! I did some research on past posts and I have tallied so far:
1021 Love TV unconditionally 31 Love it, but find some fault with a few things 2 Don't love it, but admit it is pretty good. 1 undecided. So there you have it - scientific evidence that folks love the Villages. P.S. Anyone want a beautiful home on a gorgeous lake in NW Missouri? It comes with a great lifestyle (according to the owner). |
Magical Place
Yesterday January 20th, 2012 noon was a warm day. We were outside at the Lighthouse Restaurant in LSL with sunshine in our faces sipping a glass of Pinot Grigio and I having fish n' cole slaw and she a plate of fried oysters. We could see the beautiful courses of Palmer and the wonderful lake. The last time I experienced this feeling was at Sausalito Pier in SF. Now, don't over extend yourself here as now I don't know how many social groups and other activities I belong to. I only know that today is the only day I am fairly open in my calendar for January though we have Dance Social this evening. This place can get addictive and don't have enough time to get on to TOTV. I was browsing and posting more when I was up north.
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On one of my LSV, I was sitting outside at Redsauce watching the Yankees-Rays baseball game having a refreshing drink and a gentle breeze was blowing.
It was a beautiful night to be outside. I was thinking, wow, this is great. Can life can any better than this? And then the Rays won. :( |
So many people I know have "heard" of The Villages, but when they come to visit they are amazed! They ALL say: "I had no idea that it's so beautiful". I think our English friends expected an English village everywhere.....with a pub and a shop and stuff like that.
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By mentioning how wonderful outside eating area is at the Lighthouse, I've probably extended my waiting time to over one hour during lunch time. My table is the corner table as one turns the L shaped outside dining area. I also like the outside at R.J. Gators but during lunch hours the area is shaded. We still like the tables outside and watch the comorants steering the boats as we do the happy hour drinks.:icon_wink:
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I am a high school band director in Indiana. Last April, I took 100 high school band members on a 22 hour bus ride to perform in Disney World. On the way down, our bus driver mentioned that we were near where he had his retirement home. Five days later we were on our way home with the same bus driver. I asked him about his retirement home and he went on and on about this wonderful place called The Villages.
When I got back home, I went on line to check it out. My wife and I were going on a cruise out of Tampa, so I signed up for a 4 day lifestyle preview before the cruise. Before we left home, my wife insisted that we leave our checkbooks at home. She insisted that "We are not going to buy anything!" After 2 days of drinking the kool-aid we were hooked! Our wonderful realtor, Sarah Godleski, found us the perfect CYV in Tamarind Grove. We put the initial deposit down on the spot with our credit card. We agreed to wire the remainder of the deposit by the following Friday. Unfortunately, we boarded the cruise ship on January 2nd. We had no access to our bank accounts! I called our local bank from the cruise ship and they were understandably very skeptical about wiring a large sum of money to a bank in Florida from a cruise ship! When I explained our predicament to the Royal Cribbean crew, they gave us full access to the fax machine and all business services on the ship. I don't know how we did it, but we wound up buying our CYV from a cruise ship in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico! We are closing by mail on Monday, January 30th, and we are flying down to take possession on February 10th. We can't wait! We plan to spend all my school vacations in TV until I retire in 2 years. It is better than a cruise! Unfortunately, I can't remember the name of the bus driver. He drives for Lamers Bus lines and also owns his own airplane. If anyone knows who this is, please send me a private message so I can thank him! Tom Budzinski |
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Love this thread! Here's my story. Hubby and I were increasingly bit*****ing about the winter in NEPA (northeast PA) and neighbor would join in whenever she visited. Moving to FL was always mentioned. So one day the neighbor, hereafter known as Sandy, came over and we all started in except this time Sandy mentions this place called The Villages, that she heard about from a customer. I googled it and it seemed pretty nice, so on our next Disney vacation, hubby, daughter and I drove up to take a look. Wow! Took the trolley ride and had a sales person show us model homes. Very, impressed. Now, on the same trip, we also decided to go to Sarasota, another area of interest. Wow! Loved Sarasota too! Now we are somewhat undecided until hubby starts talking to a guy on the beach who lived in the Villages. He went on and on about the lifestyle, the cost of living, going on vacations and coming home to a vacation every day. So it's decided and the waiting begins. We do a LSV and love the place even more. Daughter graduates from college and decides to look for a job near the community where mom and dad are going to end up. She gets a great job, finds an apartment in Lady Lake and starts living the FL lifestyle. We visit but the waiting keeps getting harder. On the last visit we buy a beautiful lot. We expect to wait a year before being able to build but I'm offered an early retirement incentive! The house up north sells and The Villages offers a 4% incentive. Long story short, we signed the final paperwork on Friday, construction starts Feb 7 and closing is April 12. Thanks to that 4% we are able to build our dream home with all the upgrades we had hoped for! Living in Lady Lake now but can't wait for April 12 to become official Villagers!
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Good for you, Lynnelf! Don't ya just love it when a plan comes together??!!
Bill :) |
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Gary |
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Oh, by the way, my company name is Appraisals in Paradise, Inc. and I think it will be very appropriate for my new location in The Villages. I plan on being active on a limited basis so that I do not upset the folks regarding my social security benefit that I should be receiving. |
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Friends bought a patio villa here and became snowbirds. The Villages was all they talked about (we're from Chicago area). They kept bugging us to come down and see what it's like. We finally DID, just to get them to stop bugging us! I didn't expect much and my husband was downright NEGATIVE. Told me to sit up front w/our real estate guy, he was gonna sit in back and take a nap. We began our tour. 5 minutes in, I looked back and he had one eye open, looking around. Another 5 minutes and both eyes are open. Next his arms are on the back of the front seats and he's REALLY looking now! Next thing out of his mouth is, "Show me the homes I can afford!" LOL! This was March 2007. We purchased in July 2007 and moved in March 2008. We still can't thank our friends enough for bugging us until we finally came to see for ourselves. Nobody "gets it" until they see it in person. It's as much an attitude as it is a lifestyle/place. What convinced us? What didn't!!?? The beauty, the cleanliness, the safety, the amenities, everyone we saw was friendly/happy. It seemed too good to be true. I must say, this is the one and only time in my life where something that seemed too good to be real, turns out to be pretty much as wonderful as it seems. Compared to any other place on earth, there is VERY LITTLE to complain about living in our community. NO place is PERFECT, but The Villages is about as close as you'll ever come to perfection in a place to live! WE LOVE IT!:a040: |
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I am the band director in Mishawaka, Indiana. This is my 35th year there. Two more years until I retire. My wife and I will be coming down for the first week of April during spring break. Our Villa is in Tamarind Grove, so we are neighbors! Hope to meet you soon! Tom |
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Thank you so much for the kind comments! |
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Gary gacrisp47@gmail.com |
I just wanted to thank "Keithwand" for inspiring this thread. :)
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I was just reading his comments on another thread and thinking of this post! We were all reading his threads leading up the the "WOW" factor and waiting for it!!! *laughing* It's always fun to watch and read when someone gets to see what the big "fuss" is about! :) |
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You are a smart lady. :) I hope you get done moving in so you can fully enjoy frogdom. |
Our friends told us about The Villages and I started to do all the research myself. I fell in love with all the information they provided to us. Glen kept telling us living in The Villages was like living an adult Disney World so that got our attention right away. Last December we came out with them as they were having their closing. We saw many models and our real estate agent, Wesley took us around. At that point, I knew in my mind we were going to purchase a lot. We bumped into other folks who kept telling us don't wait until there is nothing left to buy. The right thing to do was to sell our house first, then go back to Fl and buy a lot. Of course, we didn't do it that way. We bought a lot on our first trip to TV. We hope to put our house up for sale in about 2 weeks and pray it sells fast so we can begin building on our land.
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Of course you didn't do it that way... None of us do!!! :a040::MOJE_whot::a040: |
How the Villages found us
Boy, I have been reading these comments and laughing, sniffing, and thinking yep, yep!
Several years ago friends told us about the villages. "Disney for adults" they said. We thought nothing can be that good, it had to be a one time shot. Finally in February 2011 I had to go to Miami for work, talked my husband (who was already retired) into coming with me and driving down from Smyrna, GA. First we went to Tampa to visit friends and check out retirement communities near the water, didnt like anything. Next went to Miami, I worked we talked about the negatives of Florida; noseeums, hurricanes, heat, etc. decided for the heck of it to go home up 75 and as we saw signs thought, Eddy loved it maybe we should just stop by. We spent one afternoon with our agent, Ron Delk, and spent the evening on the square. LOVED IT! A few months later we booked a LSV for September, meanwhile we kept looking. We went to Hilton Head and left there telling our friends, we will be neighbors when I finally retired. I ALMOST ASKED MY HUSBAND TO CANCEL THE LSV. Decided heck, it would be a nice mini vacation. You all know the rest. We wanted a lake lot so we would have to wait for it. We got the call on 11/30 while we were in the hospital room with our newest granddaughter being born. Explained to our daughter we had to get home to make decisions. It was too hard, with too many concessions, even Ron said when it is this hard it is not right. We were miserable. January 5th we got another call, we took the lot, listed our home January 10th, got a contract on 2/5, close on march 30 and move into a rental in Duvall on April 1 while our house is being built. We can't believe how easy it went this time. Ron was right, everything just fell into place. See y'all on April 1. |
No one was more negative to 55+ communities in general more than my wife and I based on our experiences of my parents being in Sun City. Not for us we thought.
We could not believe it when our friends said they were renting for a month in January 2012 and asked us to visit. What were they thinking by renting in TV? We visited for 2 nights and 3 days; met friends of theirs for brunch; visited the clubs and rec centers and were BLOWN AWAY. We came back in Feb. on the LSV and purchased a lot to build on. March 2012 (last week) picked out everything for our house and the closing date is 6/26/2012. Up and until our visit 3 months ago we had no idea we would be moving to TV. Hows that for visitng and drinking the "koolaid" everyonr talks about? |
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:pepper2: Bill :wave: |
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