[baustgen]

Also moved from Ill. Paid $9000 to move and store furniture for 3 months. If I had to do it again I would have a couple of large storage cubes dropped in my driveway in Illinois and hire a local moving company to pack furniture. Then ship the cubes to Fl and put in storage in Florida in the cubes. Rent furnished during the summer until you finalize on what and where you want to end up. Summer rentals are half of busy season. Then have the cubes dropped at the new location and hire local movers to unload. If you put your furniture in storage you pay to load and just unload the trailer twice. Throw away half your stuff. You will be surprised how much you really do not need once you get here.

[JSR22]

Originally Posted by baustgen

Also moved from Ill. Paid $9000 to move and store furniture for 3 months. If I had to do it again I would have a couple of large storage cubes dropped in my driveway in Illinois and hire a local moving company to pack furniture. Then ship the cubes to Fl and put in storage in Florida in the cubes. Rent furnished during the summer until you finalize on what and where you want to end up. Summer rentals are half of busy season. Then have the cubes dropped at the new location and hire local movers to unload. If you put your furniture in storage you pay to load and just unload the trailer twice. Throw away half your stuff. You will be surprised how much you really do not need once you get here.

I agree do not bring a lot of stuff. There is no place to store it and you probably will not need it. Half of the few piece of furniture I sent never made it through the front door. One of the movers had just moved into his 1st apt and was delighted to take everything I decided that we should not have shipped.

[vintageogauge]

We purchased a home while renting and made our decision in just 3 days although we had been viewing and analyzing homes for several months before coming down and had also spent several winters down here. We chose not to bring our furniture down with a few exceptions. The biggest problem we have is what to do with everything we accumulated over the last 48 years, we are not really hoarders but have one heck of a lot of stuff. We started going through it and either selling, donating, giving away, or trashing lots of stuff. Knowing that we had a lot we ended up buying a 4 bedroom house so that one of the bedrooms will replace at least part of our basement, it is now called the basement room instead of bedroom. Im glad we did this before we got too much older as it is a lot harder getting this stuff out than it was getting it in. Good luck with whatever decisions you make..

[Fraugoofy]

...

[Suzanne0812]

We are from Illinois too and renting in the summer for five months in a furnished home. It is cheap to rent in the summer. Happy to discuss with you.
Suzanne0812@aol.com

[jricciuto]

Originally Posted by Scooter777

We are relocating to TV from Illinois (yippee!) early next year and are thinking about selling our home then renting something small in TV until we find the house we really love and can pay for it outright. Would do unfurnished rental, movers bring all our stuff then once we find a home we can gradually move some stuff ourselves then furniture with local mover. May be a bit more pricey but less stress? Fear is selling current home and flying down to TV for a week and having to pick something just because we have to and not loving it! Has anyone done this before with the renting before buying? Would love ALL opinions, thanks! 😊

Absolutely rent for at least a month, get a feel for the Villages lifestyle.

Once you decide that this is the right choice for you, start looking for a house. Things can move pretty quick. We actually closed on our house within less than 3 weeks of putting in the purchase offer.

We have a house that is fully furnished and available for long term rent from May 2018-Dec 2018. Please contact me if you are interested in more information

Jean
585 694 3279
or e-mail jricciuto@rochester.rr.com

[daverobertson2000]

we rented 6 different times over 2 years looking around each time. finally we found the house we just had to have. we knew it was the right house as soon as we saw it

[EPutnam1863]

We always advise our friends thinking of relocating to Florida to rent for a whole year, no matter where in Florida, s to get a taste of the climate. We gave up three times trying to live in Florida because we could not even step outside during the hottest months.

[Lottoguy]

We too moved here from Illinois two years ago. We sold or gave away most things that were in our house. I see no reason to move old furniture and so forth down here. Movers are expensive. Plus that heavy wood furniture doesn't look right in Florida. The money we saved on was spent on brand new furniture. We then rented for three months in July thru September. During that time we saw about 5 or 6 houses a day for about a month. During that time we got to know the area much better as well as the type of home we wanted. We ended up buying a designer home in the Village of Piedmont. The home is on a cul-de-sac and has many upgrades already added to the home. When people buy a brand new home the additional upgrades are going to cost lots of money. The northern part of The Villages is now turning over with new home owners moving in. I think it's also the most beautiful area in The Villages. Our street has just 14 homes on it. With six new owners in just the last two years. Renting is an excellent idea. Check out this video for more tips:

12 Buying Tips For THE VILLAGES in FLORIDA - YouTube

[MichaelCynthia]

We are doing the same thing, recently sold our home and are coming to TV in late August to buy, but will also find a place to rent if we do not find a home we love. Our plan is to move by January.

[Madelaine Amee]

I think renting here would be a good idea, especially now that TV is so big. When we came here it was small, much smaller and in those days the homes were selling as soon as they were shown. We knew exactly what we wanted and the location we wanted and when we were shown our home we were given just three hours for them to hold it for us before putting it back into the pool. We had to make an instant decision, it is a decision we have never regretted.

Now, with the size of TV and the numerous villages available I would definitely recommend renting - maybe for as long as six months to find what you really want and where you want to be.

[karostay]

We rented 5 homes some north of 466 and some south
Then made our decision

[Lottoguy]

The smartest to thing to do is RENT FIRST for a few months. With the minimum of three months. Spend that first month looking everywhere you might be interested. Take notes of the kind of house you want. Think of the location of the house and how easy or hard it will be to sell later down the road. The Villages is getting bigger so there will be more new homes for sale. For myself and others I have talked to, think twice about buying in that new area south of the Florida Turnpike. Do you want to put up with all of that construction and dirt and dust for the next 3 to 5 years? Just my thoughts....

[Madelaine Amee]

This is a follow up to my post above. We knew this was to be our forever home, so when we planned on what we wanted in a home and home site we knew we wanted to be within easy shopping by both car and golf cart, and to be able to get to doctors and restaurants etc., also we wanted to be closer to Sumter Landing for evening entertainment and we purchased accordingly.

[Schaumburger]

Originally Posted by Lottoguy

We too moved here from Illinois two years ago. We sold or gave away most things that were in our house. I see no reason to move old furniture and so forth down here. Movers are expensive. Plus that heavy wood furniture doesn't look right in Florida. The money we saved on was spent on brand new furniture. We then rented for three months in July thru September. During that time we saw about 5 or 6 houses a day for about a month. During that time we got to know the area much better as well as the type of home we wanted. We ended up buying a designer home in the Village of Piedmont. The home is on a cul-de-sac and has many upgrades already added to the home. When people buy a brand new home the additional upgrades are going to cost lots of money. The northern part of The Villages is now turning over with new home owners moving in. I think it's also the most beautiful area in The Villages. Our street has just 14 homes on it. With six new owners in just the last two years. Renting is an excellent idea. Check out this video for more tips:

12 Buying Tips For THE VILLAGES in FLORIDA - YouTube

Hi lottoguy, Thank you for posting the link to the YouTube video -- excellent tips for prospective buyers in The Villages. I'm sure you are glad you are out of Illinois...the state is still broke, and we still don't have a state budget, and my property taxes (I am in northwest suburban Cook County) on my townhouse went up 29% this year. As of this past week, no Megamillions or Powerball tickets can be sold in Illinois until the state gets a budget.