[createquilts]

our sequence of events

in 2006 we had a son living in Florida and when we were visiting noticed the Villages water tower and stopped in for a trolly tour. We were hooked.
In 2012 we retired and came for a lifestyle visit to be sure. Stayed in two other communities and decided our first impression was correct, it would be TV for us

Came back and listed our house for sale and within 7 days sold our house with no contingencies. accepted.

signed the contract today

called TV and MLS realtors today and are heading down next week.

not sure if we will build or buy, we need a two car garage plus golf cart garage, extended would be really good. We liked a number of the floor plans and locations. We are willing to build but will look at standing homes first, who knows what is out there until you look.

so the whirlwind begins. I am incredibly thankful that we cleaned the house out before we put it on the market. We sold, donated and gave away over 50% of our belongings and I know we'll find more stuff.

Wild ride.

[Bill-n-Brillo]

Congrats on your good fortune!! Let the fun begin!

Bill

[missypie]

Amazing beginning. Much luck to you!

[Schaumburger]

Wow, sold in 7 days -- congrats to you as you start your new life as frogs! Keep us posted on which village you decide to move to.

[WVMtnBoy]

Congrats on your quick sale! There are quite a few spec homes that are for sale as well as pre-owned plus quite a lot of building going on. Our is being built as we speak. You'll love it here!

[asianthree]

yep you always find more stuff

[2BNTV]

Congrtas on your quick sale. It sounds like you have your act together.

Best wishes as you start living the dream.

[createquilts]

thanks everyone. Our first house sold in a few days, and we priced this, our second house, so it was attractive once we made our decision. We had three interested parties, but two have houses to sell.
We are going through the house again today - we have a friend with five kids who are in various stages of college and starting out and two nieces in college so we have had no shortage of people that will gladly take stuff- they even pick it up. We sold the valuable stuff and also donated truckloads. We are bringing four sparse rooms of furniture, our kitchen stuff and clothes. It has been very freeing to get rid of everything, we are not shoppers so I am not sure how we accumulated so much. I also feel like we did our kids a huge favor, they do not have a houseful of junk to clean out if anything happens to us. I see many of our friends literally throwing years of accumulation in dumpsters, and we did find homes for most of our stuff so it did not end up in landfills.
We have been to TV twice and the last time spent a week lifestyle visit so have a good idea of the layout, talked to realtors in TV and MLS yesterday and once we have firm dates they will line up showings for us.
We may build, but it is hard for us to look at a line of sand lots and envision a completed village. I admire those of you who can do that and end up with a house you are really happy with.

[LittleDog]

In my own opinion I would recommend that you purchase a pre-owned home for various reasons. If I had to do it over again that's what I would do. The reasons being that you can pick a location that is more central than where the new homes are being built, probably you won't have a bond to pay off, and the home probably has improvements already built in (hopefully you would like them).

There have been other discussions along these lines where people are saying that when you move into an established neighborhood friendships have already been made. However, from my experience most of our friends are members of various groups we participate in and do not live in our neighborhood. Yes, we do know the people on our block (a cul de sac) but we normally don't socialize with them except for a monthly luncheon that my wife attends.

Personally I wouldn't want to live in the north end of the Villages nor in the south end. Central is better.

These are just my opinions so just wanted to throw them out.

John