Again, thanks to all for fantastic advice and several private messages. Now we have to decide if/when wife and I can take time off. Although I'm retired, she isn't. May have to do this alone and have her visit. Current plans are to keep our home here in beautiful Natchez and purchase a CV in TV.....Thanks again, all of you have been most helpful.

Speaking of rentals. Does anyone know if it easy to rent a Villa for a week at Christmas time? We had relatives this Christmas and our Designer was not large enough to accommodate everyone. They will have to rent next year. I know a Villa will be nicer than staying at a hotel. Thank you and Happy New Year.

Pili

We found our rental through a classified ad in the Villages Daily Sun newspaper; it was a private rental directly with the owner. Worked out fine. The classifieds are online at a link for the Sun that you can find, I think, at www.thevillages.net - or the newspaper may have its own website.

I would definitely recommend renting for a while before buying, to get to know the different areas, and a feel for what type of home you want.

A question
 

I see here that many people advise renting for awhile before buying. Are there homes that are furnished? Are any available for just a month as I think that would give me enough time to look around and decide where I would like to live.
Thanks for any help !

Nancy...yes, there are many furnished rentals available by the month. In the peak months of Jan-Feb-Mar, you'll be hard pressed to find one and they are very expensive. Availability increases and costs go way down during the other months of the year.

I agree that a month of serious looking should be sufficient to help you decide. We rented for the month of July 2006 and bought by July 7th.

For anyone considering a longer term rental (more than 6 months), see if you can insert some type of bailout clause....what if you find the perfect house in the 2nd month.....will you still be responsible for the rental for the remaining 4 months or 10 months of the lease?

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I have had this happen to our rental prop in both of the last two summers. The renters came down to see what the summers were like and ended up buying well before the lease was over. We will actively look for new renters for them and in both cases were able to find renters to replace them so they could go ahead and move with loosing very little.

jeffy

After having visited last OCT, I sent for The Villages Street Map ($5) which I obtained from Banner Mercantile store down there (352-753-4676. It's perfect for determining where you are in relationship to what you want to be near. When we visited our GPS system was totally inaccurate and totally confused (because so many places are newer than our GPS - so were unknown to its internal system). The map would have been perfect during our visit.