If you buy or lease in a new 55 plus, you will get a fresh crop
of active retirees to mine friends from. Age diverse communities with busy families provide a smaller potential partier pool.
One trick is move in early in construction phase and milk builder subsidy, move or sell before handover.
Rinse and repeat in same area collecting new social contacts in each hood, getting in early, leaving before reality
of fees kick in post handover.
Our Florida place is age diverse with a resort orientation. I find the the crazy stuff to be entertaining, so far. Last week someone vandalized the refurbed basketball courts, but kids parents came forward to pay for repairs.
What do you mean by “handover?”
Different strokes for different folks. I know people who are very happy in their 55+ communities, and others who'd never live in one - we're in the latter group. We looked very seriously at several 55+ communities in several cities/states for years because they had the homes/layouts we wanted, but fortunately for us we never bought. We kinda liked the smaller Epcon communities, you couldn't pay me to live in either of the monster Del Webb communities we considered - beyond depressing to us.I would never move into a 55 plus community. I like the mixture of young and old . Too many old grouches in these places. I am 59 and would never move into a 55 and above pre-nursing home community.
I think he's referring to when these properties are first built the builder chairs the HOA but after enough units are sold they handover to the elected HOA board.
Interesting, sounds like a bit of a negative for the Del Web communities IMHO if they let anyone in to eat, sort of defeats the objective. I am not sure whether that is all Del Web properties or just hers.
I think he's referring to when these properties are first built the builder chairs the HOA but after enough units are sold they handover to the elected HOA board.
I would never move into a 55 plus community. I like the mixture of young and old . Too many old grouches in these places. I am 59 and would never move into a 55 and above pre-nursing home community.
BRIEFLY and not complete:So what is wrong with the Del Webb communities?
I wouldn't care to move into one either. Not enough diversity and I think I would feel guilt if I didn't use the facilities that they offer.
What really is the benefit of a 55 community living, from living somewhere else?
My parents are looking to move to a 55+ in florida.
They are very active and healthy mid-70's, and they do love their current home. But, as folks move out of their SFH neighborhood, younger ones (with small kids) move in. That has resulted in some very noisy afternoons of kids playing and shouting in the houses they back on to. Normal stuff, but not the peace and quiet they want now. And this is Florida, so you don't even get quiet snowed-in days.
They also want a view, and the inclusion of all maintenance. A newer 55+ (and there are plenty) means they'll probably never have to re-do another roof or worry about normal wear and tear for a while. A nice community pool vs. their own. Walk-able well-maintained neighborhood. They'd rather have cookie cutter and strict HOA, than worry about the neighbor next door who has late night parties every other weekend.
Like most things, some are better than others, and nothing is for everyone. Personally I can't see myself doing it either, but the house and community they like are pretty nice so we'll see what happens.
That may be true (I have no idea) but every 55+ community we looked at had MUCH higher HOA fees than nearby mixed neighborhoods. FWIWI believe some of them have property taxes calculated at a lower rate because they are not sending children to the public schools. And it can be hard to find smaller one-story new construction, which many seem to want going into their last house.
BRIEFLY and not complete:
- The houses all look too much alike.
- Their home sales practices are despicable IMO. They avoid giving specific pricing info beyond "starts at." And they even hide much of what's standard and not, until you've already signed a starts at contract - buying a house is a two step process, but you're stuck after the first step without knowing what step two will cost IF you let them. It took about 2 weeks to get pricing without signing a contract but when the $250K house we priced hit $425K without all the bells and whistles, we pulled the plug. What's standard was a joke, no one would buy such a house.
- A small 55+ community like Epcon with a small clubhouse/community might be OK, since there's life outside. The Del Webb communities we visited were 1000-1200 homes, with a huge clubhouse - just an overwhelming number of blue hairs everywhere we went. We looked online at some of the 55+ communities that are 30-50 years old, they looked awful! Might start out as a nice, vibrant community but we don't want to end up in a community where the median age is 80+ even if we're 80+. Some might like that, no problem.
- Lots of activities, many of them really lame IMO.
- One had a golf course, included in HOA - I play golf but I don't want to be forced to pay ongoing for a home course, I like to play a variety of courses.
- I could go on and on, but enough.
That may be true (I have no idea) but every 55+ community we looked at had MUCH higher HOA fees than nearby mixed neighborhoods. FWIW
I was looking at the ones around Florida too, especially the 'Latitude Margaritaville' in Daytona Beach. I'm a little hesitant about moving into a retirees' neighborhood since they seemed like mostly couples and I'm single, with no kids or grandkids to discuss, and have lived outside the U.S. half my life so tend to be a little different... lol.
We’re attempting to find a forever home so we wouldn’t hope to move when we’re 80+, but we realize it might happen that way. There are definitely some older 55+ communities where the median age is closer to 80 than 60 so it does happen.Thanks for the list.
In terms of 80+, do you really expect to live in such a community for more than 15-20 years? Once we reach early 80s we plan to move to more of a CCRC independent living type situation. Even more blue-haireds there but we’ll be blue-haired too if we make it that long!
we don't want to end up in a community where the median age is 80+ even if we're 80+.
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Have a wide range of friends and co-workers and business associates. Maybe it's a coincidence but the only ones who moved and stayed in a 55+ community are all overweight and spend more time in front of TV than using any of the community's facilities.
Depends on the course and the player(s), but you walk about three times as far walking as riding in a cart. Using a cart still involved about 2 miles walking, better than nothing. And elevation changes factor in too, e.g. the front nine on my regular course is pretty flat but the back nine has lots of steep hills - some you have to traverse.Golf with carts isn't much exercise at all.
We just walked a local course here....it is built into a mountainside..an engineering feat with great water views! We also walk in FL but the courses there are mostly flat. Here we are required to use caddies....I tend to use them as private language coaches while we walk.
I am NOT suggesting there’s a right answer for everyone. Obviously there are lots of 55+ communities with happy residents. But that doesn’t mean it’s for everyone, or that those of us who prefer mixed generation neighborhoods are wrong and shouldn’t share a different POV.