House to Apartment Financial aspect

[misshathaway]

Not to drag this off topic but this sounds interesting. Just what kind of air mattress do you have? I am interested in losing all my "heavy stuff" before I get too old to move it myself. Especially the heavy stuff that's also BIG and mattresses / box springs are BIG. It's one thing I have not found a way to live without or find a lighter version of.

This one on Amazon:

Sable Mattress, Inflatable Air Bed with Internal Pump Eco-Friendly PVC and Top Flocking with Storage Bag, Height 19", Full

They have come a long way since the last time I slept on one. At first I was refilling it up too much and making it too firm so that my feet would not even make a dent in it when sleeping prone. I haven't topped it off in a couple of months and it's quite comfortable.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

Just make sure that when your air mattress first arrives, you fill it up and put something heavy (NO SHARP CORNERS) on it for at least a day, or lie on it for a while if you can. It's a pain to find out that it has a slow leak if you don't use it for months after you've purchased it. You (or your guest) don't want to wake up with your butt on the floor!

 

[misshathaway]

Explain the gotchas in the over 50 communities....would like to know before we jump...

The biggest one for me was that I was interested in one in the Ocala vicinity because they would let you have a lap pool in your back yard. So I had a daily search set up and there were just slews of houses in this one community for sale compared to the other ones. So I wondered why and did some internet research and the developer was taking many residents to court for fees in arrears, and there were meeting minutes from the community newsletter about maintenance that was not happening. The newsletter has since come down after I posted about it on CityData which has several area realtors on it. After that I was not confident that I could discover something like that with certainty from afar in every situation. I am purposely not saying which one it was because now I have little to back up what I just said.

Then there are social issues you can't really know until you are there. Like are you really going to use the "activities"? How many people your age are there and will you have things in common with them? How crowded do the amenities get in snowbird season? I stayed at The Villages in Feb and the gym was full with a waiting line at 9am. Do the amenities work? I visited one place with an indoor pool with a sign that said "Temporarily closed for repairs". Resident told me it had been closed for months. Will you be able to use the amenities? I went to one where the weekday posted lap swimming time was 30 minutes - the rest of the time it was for water aerobics.

Even here in my rental the pools were somewhat misrepresented. There is one "heated" pool within walking distance but they have not turned the heat on yet. I ended up getting a membership to LA Fitness to swim. I'm glad I didn't buy a house based on that info. Miffed that I paid more for rent for what I thought was the ideal pool situation, but my lease is up in May so ...

Obviously I am obsessed with pools, but everybody has things that they require for happy living. You really have to do your research and at least take some trips to the area, if not rent for awhile.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

The biggest one for me was that I was interested in one in the Ocala vicinity because they would let you have a lap pool in your back yard. So I had a daily search set up and there were just slews of houses in this one community for sale compared to the other ones. So I wondered why and did some internet research and the developer was taking many residents to court for fees in arrears, and there were meeting minutes from the community newsletter about maintenance that was not happening. The newsletter has since come down after I posted about it on CityData which has several area realtors on it. After that I was not confident that I could discover something like that with certainty from afar in every situation. I am purposely not saying which one it was because now I have little to back up what I just said.

In case this helps, a lot of things on the Internet live on forever, even if they're taken down, at The Wayback Machine. (Use the Wayback Machine search form, NOT the Internet Archive one.) I've used them so much in my research that they're one of my regular annual donations!

 

[razztazz]

This one on Amazon:
Sable Mattress, Inflatable Air Bed with Internal Pump Eco-Friendly PVC and Top Flocking with Storage Bag, Height 19", Full
They have come a long way since the last time I slept on one. At first I was refilling it up too much and making it too firm so that my feet would not even make a dent in it when sleeping prone. I haven't topped it off in a couple of months and it's quite comfortable.

And this is a permanent, full-time regular bed? While researching last night I noticed most of them all seemed to make note of them being for guest rooms or talking them camping.

I have a firm (hard!) spring mattress with a 4" memory foam+gel topper. I thought that would solve all my problems but I still get "hot spots" that wake me up. The conformity...or responsiveness of an air mattress might be just what I need. But I don't want to have a buy a new one every 6-12 months if they are not meant for full-time sleeping.

Thanks for the input ... and inadvertently mentioning air mattresses