[pattymcg]

Hi,

I'm a novice. I've been searching online for a home in The Villages, but have no clue what the bond refers to. Help!

Thanks

[jeffy]

The bond is for the all the things the developer needs to install to make your new home habitable. Such as your neighborhood roads , water and sewage, electricity, gas hook up to your house, building permits, etc.

The bond is usually based on the size of the lots. Example: If you have a regular home, it might be $20k, if you have a villa it might be $11k. You can either make a once a year payment on the bond with your tax bill, or they offer you once a year the option of paying it all off.

My home in Winifred had a 10k bond to start off with 3 years ago. The yearly payment is about $850.

The newer neighborhoods in the last couple of years have about 20k or 11k bonds that I mentioned above. The older neighborhoods (4years and more started with lower bonds such as I have).

[English Ivy]

Here's a link to a specific page on the districtgov.org web site which explains the what the bond is for, how the cost is determined, how you pay it, etc. Hopefully it will answer some of your questions. By the way, you'll notice it's for district 7 which is where I live and most of the new building is happening.

http://www.districtgov.org/slcdd/you...asp?district=7

Check out other areas of this web site as well. It has a lot of valuable information regarding TV and how it is run.

[pattymcg]

Thanks..it sounds something like a maintainence fee..

[chuckster]

Not a maintenance fee, but a payback of the infrastructure costs of the developer or financing agency to convert raw land to building lots with services. In my opinion, he collects his investment via the bond.

[Reefer]

We have been looking at resale homes and every once in awhile you can find one that says "Bond Has Been Paid", so we assume that is a little bit of a bonus. However, there are very limited homes available like that. Great topic though for newbies...

[Bill-n-Brillo]

There IS also an annual maintenance fee (generally a few hundred dollars a year) as well as a monthly amenity fee (most are $135, give or take a couple of bucks).

Here's a link that I found gives a pretty good description of "all the pieces of the puzzle":

http://activerain.com/blogsview/1484...ult-community-

Hope that helps!

Bill

[Tbugs]

As I have said many times, look at buying a re-sale house - from an outside realtor. The prices are more negotiable than with a Villages realtor (new houses are not negotiable) and the bond is much, much less than on a new house.

My bond on the re-sale I bought is only $2,300 as compared to friends who bought new at the same time with a $20,000 bond. My annual payment this year was $435 as compared to their $1,700. By the way, my house is much larger than theirs, too, and on a premium lot.

There is an annual "maintenance fee" that is added on separately to your bond payment and everyone pays that - even if your bond is completely paid off. It is a couple of hundred dollars. Also, everyone pays an "ammenity fee" of around $135 per month for all the ammenities of The Villages. Well worth it.

[Pturner]

The best way to consider the bond is to add it to the sales price of the house. So if a home sells for $250,000 and it has a $20,000 bond, your purchase price is $270,000. If you plan any add-ons, add that to your total purchase price.

When we purchased about a year ago, we found resales generally to be a better buy when all of these costs were considered.