Category: Active adult communities
Note: This is the latest in our series of adventurous retiree profiles Our goal is to portray a variety of active baby boomer retirement lifestyles for our members. If you know a boomer retirement we should know about tell us via the Contact Us link.
Len and Ann are the kind of people that don’t like to stand still. And that's a trait which perfectly qualifies them to be residents of The Villages, that giant, non-stop fun active community of 100,000 people near Ocala, Florida. Here is their story - we hope you find it useful to learn more about how they came about deciding to living here, and what it is really like to live in The Villages.
What They Did Before Retirement
Len had a long career as an IT guy at SNET, the former
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Published on January 17, 2012
Comments 90
Category: Active adult communities
Note: Don't miss the related articles in this series: "When Good Communities Go Bad", and "When Bad Things Happen to Good Communities - Fairfield Harbor"
December 9, 2011 -- Perhaps the biggest concern of someone making a retirement decision is, what happens if my new community goes bankrupt? Just last week that became a real-life concern for residents of The Village of Penn State, a well known Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) community located in State College, PA. The Village is one of a growing number of university-affiliated communities; in fact it is frequently consulted by other universities who are considering their own retirement communities. According to published reports, the Village has apparently been struggling with its debt load for
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Published on December 9, 2011
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Category: Active adult communities
November 4, 2011 -- College towns can be very stimulating places to retire. Having young people around is invigorating. There are sporting events to attend, as well as very nice facilities such as gyms or pools that you might be able to use. You can take classes. The towns tend to be fun.
University Affiliated Communities
Several colleges and universities have set up university related retirement communities, usually Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRC) as
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Published on November 4, 2011
Comments 7
Category: Active adult communities
October 14, 2011 -- Last week we received a request from a member that might strike a chord with you. Horseartist wrote and asked: "In vain I search for the uniqueness I'm seeking in finding that place that will be my retirement nest. I'm NOT into gardeners and condos, golf carts and patio homes. Suggestion: Could you open a forum for the likes of me? I don't even know what you'd call it, except perhaps "Out of the Mainstream: Ideas for People looking for Something OTHER than the gated community lifestyle".
We've met and talked with a lot of folks who have similar feelings. A golf, tennis, or boating community just isn't for them. Neither is a cookie-cutter approach with a gated community consisting of identical townhomes spread around a clubhouse, usually with a swimming pool and exercise facility thrown in. What they want is something a little more interesting, more in keeping with communities in the real world. There is undoubtedly a range for what makes a community interesting - with one person's idea of retirement community nirvana being vastly
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Published on October 14, 2011
Comments 75
Category: Active adult communities
September 30, 2011 -- Once you start looking at active adult and 55+ communities the enormity of the choices hits you. There are so many styles of communities, and so many choices within styles, not to mention possible locations. It is almost enough to freeze a person. The good news is this, however: there is definitely a community out there that will hit your sweet spot.
In this article we will highlight some of the more common choices in types of communities, give a brief summary of the pluses and minuses for each, and provide links to a sample or two. It should be useful in informing you about your choices. You can always search Topretirements for keywords to help you find what you are looking for. Or, you can use our Advanced Search (from the Search link in our top navigation).
Major types of retirement communities
Age Restricted. There are thousands of age-restricted communities. Most tend to be 55+ because
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Published on September 30, 2011
Comments 20
Category: Active adult communities
August 19, 2011 -- You are in the active adult community's sales office, pen in hand and ready to sign. You've toured multiple active communities and you just know this is the one. The unit you've fallen for is just being framed now; there is still time to put some custom touches in, like built-ins for the room you would rather have as an office than bedroom. All the amenities are right, and so is the price. This could just the moment when panic might set in - "why am I buying a new unit in this new community when right down the road I could pick up a comparable unit (albeit with a few miles on it) in a community that's been around for 10 years or so." A similar, but less complex conundrum is whether to buy new or used in the same community.
This article will explore the former question- are you better off buying a home in a new development or
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Published on August 20, 2011
Comments 12
Category: Active adult communities
August 16, 2011 -- As a followup to last week's article on the "10 Worst Retirement Mistakes", our faithful member OldNassau just brought an incredibly interesting article to our attention. "Toby is Moving to Tidelands Condominiums: Anatomy of a Real Estate Decision" outlines the detailed reasons why Toby, a realtor in the Palm Coast (FL) area, recently downsized and purchased a short-sale condominium in Tidelands there. We think you will find it useful, particularly
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Published on August 16, 2011
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Category: Active adult communities
August 2, 2011 -- Note: We updated this list in 2012 and 2013. See "Surprises Galore: Our 2013 List of Most Popular Active Adult Communities". The Sun Belt and Delaware are where it's at when it comes to popular active adult communities. That's what we found in our new list of the most popular active adult communities for 2011. The only places outside of the sun belt to have communities on the list were Delaware which had 12 communities on the top 100 this year (up from 5 in 2010); The Village at Penn State in State College, PA.; and Sage Village in Boulder, CO. In an attempt to open it up and introduce more variety this year, we increased the list from 50 to 100. As in the past, the Sun Belt achieved near total domination over its colder brethren.
Florida, the runaway favorite, topped the 2011 list with an astonishing 40 communities. Arizona followed Delaware with 11 communities, and then North Carolina, which had with 10. South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia also had good representation.
We take several conclusions away from these results:
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Published on August 1, 2011
Comments 17
Category: Active adult communities
Note: This is Part 1 of a 3 part series. Here is the link to Part 2, "Jay Michaels' Search for the Perfect Active Adult Community", and Part 3: 5 Years Later
July 26, 2011 -- Our friend Jay Michaels was kind enough to send us his notes about his recent trip to the Williamsburg, Virginia area and the 55+ communities located there. He and his wife are considering retirement there. We hope you enjoy his impressions as much as we did. BTW - have you been out visiting regions or communities - we'd like to hear from you too!
We visited Williamsburg a few weeks ago and liked it - it is an attractive area. Williamsburg is about 45 miles east of Richmond and closer than that to Newport News. The area is appealing to us because it keeps us reasonably close to our children but is also a bit warmer than the area of Pennsylvania where we currently live.
The people are open and friendly and seem to be very happy with living in Williamsburg. Just about everybody we met was
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Published on July 26, 2011
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Category: Active adult communities
July 19, 2011 -- The Huffington Post is the world's master of controversial publishing. Recently they really stirred things up in their "expose´" of Home Owners Associations (HOAs), "Home Owners Associations Cause Trouble in Retirement Communities". Their one-sided broadside apparently hit a nerve too, generating 634, mostly angry, comments at last count.
The thrust of their mostly one-sided article was this: bad guy HOAs unreasonably foreclose on innocent homeowners, causing catastrophic damage. In particular, the authors cite the Inlet House Condo complex in Fort Pierce, Florida. The community has fallen on hard times, with units that sold a few years ago for $76,000 now going for as little as $3,000. Rats had infested vacant units and sewage was seeping into lower level units. Huff Post took issue with the HOA's assessments and subsequent foreclosure of condo owners who failed to pay those assessments or other fees. Hundreds of angry people apparently agree, as they vented with Comments laden with examples of diabolical HOAs, vowing never to conform to these power grabbing boards
We respectfully disagree with both the major thrust of the Huffington Post piece and their angry
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Published on July 19, 2011
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