[2BNTV]

I was just thinking it might be fun for people to post their experiences that were skeptical or had no intention of buying in TV and had changed their minds after a LSV. Or bought much sooner than expected.

What changed your mind so quickly? Was there one thing you can honestly say convinced you?

I thought it might be good to have this in one thread.

[graciegirl]

We had vacationed in Florida many times. And there were favorite places we went including Disney World but I never EVER wanted to live there. I don't LIKE Florida and I still don't.

Florida and getting old meant couples dressing alike and men wearing white loafers and a LOT of geezer hair cuts and fifties hairstyles for the women and eternally the same small social group and playing Mahjong and dances at the Elks Club and having cocktail parties........... and leaving lovely, LOVELY Ohio which is where all the nice people I knew lived, including the smartest and sweetest and cutest grandchildren in the world.

Until the lifestyle visit.

I just loved the people and their quick wit and the varied experiences and the friendliness and the opportunity to finally study art and play golf without competition and I adored the immaculate streets and PERFECT landscaping and all of the things you could do and an opportunity to meet 80,000 new people who were all old enough to know what I was talking about and didn't look right through me.

I loved the golf carts and the fact I didn't have to worry about my figure and that the gray hairs were quite common, even the ones that are misplaced.

I loved the belly laughs and the fun. The knowledge that those decades also spoke of some heartbreak and sadness and disappointment...you just can't get old enough to live here without some of that.

I liked that some people thought just as I did and plenty did not. It was new and different and pretty and interesting and fun.

And...our grandchildren were going away too...to college. That made it easier.

[pooh]

LOL....we had our lifestyle visit after we closed on our house...

I had no intentions of buying, I was just looking around to keep Mike happy and....I was curious. Well, after that first visit, I knew we would buy...and a few days later, when we came back for one more look see before heading back to California, we told our agent what to look for. Bought our house while still in CA...isn't the internet wonderful!!!

The place was absolutely beautiful and the people we saw driving and walking around looked so happy and busy. Actually the first people we talked to, in Johnny Rocket's, were from a community not too far from ours in CA. They loved it here....and so do we.

[kittylecroix]

We were looking for a place to rent for a month in the winter and my sister had shown me the video of The Villages. It looked like a fun place so we rented in March of 08. We thought it was a great place. We rented again that November and decided to move here. I was impressed when people we met at the golf course or at the square would tell me how they had no intention of moving here when they came to visit, but then they went home and put their house up for sale and moved. None of them regretted it. We were already 50 miles from most of our family when we were in upstate NY and the property taxes were terrible. We decided to "vote with our feet"and leave NY and what better place to move than The Villages. We love it here!

[Bill-n-Brillo]

Someone fed us "the beverage".

Bill

[tainsley]

Everything said above was our experience too. Gosh we just love this place!

[natickdan]

We drank the kool-aid....

[2BNTV]

Since I started this thread, here goes.

I was never skeptical as I had never heard of TV. I was invited to visit with an old friend. What I saw and experienced blew me away. I thought TV was built with a person like me in mind because it fit me to a "T". I was walking around the squares in a stupor as I was thinking, "I can't believe this place is sooooooooooo beautiful".

If I had my checkbook with me, I would have bought instantly.

Still a wannabee.

2BNTV

[eweissenbach]

I started researching TV on the internet 3 years ago, ordered the DVD, and registered with TOTV in December of '09. Being the curious type (and a former educator) I like to research fairly thoroughly anything that I am interested in, and TV interested me. By early '10 I had seen enough to be convinced that The Villages could be for me and wanted to take the lifestyle preview. My wife had not sought out information, though I encouraged her to do so, and was highly skeptical. I finally got her to agree to an LSP in April 2010 by promising I would take a day to visit her old friend in Sarasota. We came on the LSP and went to the squares every night - she loves to dance - and took in the beauty of the place, and by the third day she was ready to buy! We are trying to sell our home now in order to buy a home in TV, and will be spending Feb. and March in Hemingway. We will continue to maintain a home in Missouri near our three kids and six grandkids, but plan to spend six months per year, or more, in TV. There is clearly no place like the Villages where you can live the lifestyle available to virtually no one else, no matter how wealthy, anywhere else in the world. It is almost impossible to explain to anyone who is not aware of TV what it is like there, you have to experience it to believe it.

[2BNTV]

Originally Posted by eweissenbach

I started researching TV on the internet 3 years ago, ordered the DVD, and registered with TOTV in December of '09. Being the curious type (and a former educator) I like to research fairly thoroughly anything that I am interested in, and TV interested me. By early '10 I had seen enough to be convinced that The Villages could be for me and wanted to take the lifestyle preview. My wife had not sought out information, though I encouraged her to do so, and was highly skeptical. I finally got her to agree to an LSP in April 2010 by promising I would take a day to visit her old friend in Sarasota. We came on the LSP and went to the squares every night - she loves to dance - and took in the beauty of the place, and by the third day she was ready to buy! We are trying to sell our home now in order to buy a home in TV, and will be spending Feb. and March in Hemingway. We will continue to maintain a home in Missouri near our three kids and six grandkids, but plan to spend six months per year, or more, in TV. There is clearly no place like the Villages where you can live the lifestyle available to virtually no one else, no matter how wealthy, anywhere else in the world. It is almost impossible to explain to anyone who is not aware of TV what it is like there, you have to experience it to believe it.

Ed:

I totally agree as this statement is sooooooooooo true.

BTW - Your pictures show that you have a beautiful home in Missouri.

[swrinfla]

Last week, my traveling companion gal pal, whom I met on an Alaskan cruise in 2007 and with whom I've traveled frequently since, came to visit for most of the week.

We went to several open houses, both new and pre-owned. She knows now that she shouldn't have any trouble finding something that will fit her budget once she sells her house in a Nashville, TN, suburb.

I've bent her ear over the lifestyle enough that she knows what happens here. She visited now, because she is finding the winter more and more "problematic" in Tennessee, and wanted to see how she might be attracted to Florida. This week she's visiting other friends in Port St. Lucie, and will move on to Bonita Springs.

I think she will choose The Villages!

Maybe I'm a good salesman. Maybe not.

SWR

[eweissenbach]

Originally Posted by swrinfla

Last week, my traveling companion gal pal, whom I met on an Alaskan cruise in 2007 and with whom I've traveled frequently since, came to visit for most of the week.

I think she will choose The Villages!

Maybe I'm a good salesman. Maybe not.

SWR

A ring might close the sale ----- just sayin' Steve

[collie1228]

I'm with Gracie - Florida is not a pretty place. I've enjoyed coming to Florida in the winter over the years for the tourist traps, but never wanted to live here. Then we drove into The Villages in 2008, and it was all over. The place is just wonderful, and that's not a word I normally use. I love Gracie's description of driving into TV - It's like when the color came on in The Wizard of Oz. Other than Disney, I've never seen a prettier place. Doesn't look like Florida.

[Someday Came]

We looked for 3 years on and off in TV and many other places. We could not find anything like TV and at first I did not want to look in TV I had something in my head ( old people) and TV turned out to be the best of all the places we looked. Six weeks ago we closed on our home in Hemingway, we will only be there part time for the next 18 months than NO MORE WORK and will be there full time.
Kathie
From, Long Island and Weston Fl.

[skyguy79]

It happened so fast my head is still spinning, spinning so fast that I've been invited to be in the cast of the next remake of the exorcist!

Actually, it started on our planning on a place to go on a winter vacation after attending a convention in Orlando and spending some time with our son at Disney World in 2010. I started to consider where we would like to go and started with the Myrtle Beach then we moved on down to Florida. I searched both coast lines and couldn't find a place we really wanted to go then figured on staying 2 weeks in Orlando then another two in Daytona.

After all reservations were arranged and confirmed, we started hearing The Villages advertisements on television and so I looked at their website and requested their video. We eventually started to change our plans a number of times until we... well a little complex to fully explain. We wound up with two weeks in a lifestyle then proceed to Daytona, which we eventually also canceled after our closing.

To make a long story short, we started to look to see what was available and before we knew it we found, with the help of friends down here, our place in Hadley. We went through all the paperwork from NYS and arranged our closing based on when our Amtrak reservations were already set months in advance.

On the day before closing we arrived in TV and checked into the lifestyle which in the end we only stayed for the first 6 days that we reserved for. It wasn't the villa they advertised, but a Gardenia, the same as we were purchasing. Made for a few confusing days. I wasn't sure which house we were in a few times.. TV had made us an offer we couldn't refuse, to move out after only 6 days and into our new home early with only having to pay half price for the actual days instead of the two weeks we had reserved. That included refunding the other 8 days we already paid for.

I just mentioned that we arrived one day before the closing. Well today is the first anniversary of that day and tomorrow will mark the first anniversary of being home owners here in TV.
So that's my story and I'm sticking to it!