Category: Active adult communities
June 20 - Finding the active adult community or retirement town of your dreams can be fun, but it does take some effort to do it well. Lately we have received some interesting questions about how to use Topretirements for that purpose. We'll use this post to give you some ideas - and ask for your help as well.
Question 1: You've got so many communities listed at Topretirements. How can i narrow the list down to a manageable number, short of clicking on every community in your State Directories of Active Adult and 55+ Communities?
A: We think we have some good suggestions to help...
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Published on June 20, 2011
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Category: Active adult communities
June 10, 2011 -- Note: This is Part I of a multi-part series from Sandy. Don't miss "Part II: How Anyone Can Afford a Warm Winter Retirement".
Sandy and Roger from Michigan have been living what a whole lot of retirees dream of doing. On and off for the past 8 years they've been out exploring dozens of active communities. Along the way they've honed their vision of the perfect community, and they are closer than ever to finding their ideal match from the ones they have visited. This article will share the icing of what they've learned ...
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Published on June 10, 2011
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Category: Active adult communities
May 27, 2011 -- Millions of baby boomers, the oldest of whom turn 65 this year, have had their retirement plans turned upside down. They are waiting longer to retire, don't have as much money to live on as they thought, and are turning to different living options. This turmoil has had a profound effect on active adult communities, whose target audience are these baby boomers. To help you understand the top 2011 trends in active adult communities we asked Topretirements advertisers and members to answer several questions about this market. Their responses were amazingly insightful - we hope you agree!
Questions we asked
These were the questions we posed to our advertisers and members:
1. Home sizes and prices. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) reported recently that active adults are buying...
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Published on May 27, 2011
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Category: Active adult communities
May 6, 2011 -- What would you do if you were in this situation: Your community's golf course is in terrible shape, even though you and every one else in the community is paying homeowner association fees to maintain it. The developer of the community that owns the golf course is either in foreclosure, or about to be foreclosed on. Would you vote to buy the course?
That particular situation or variations similar to it are unfolding in...
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Published on May 6, 2011
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Category: Active adult communities
What shape do you think the market for active adult communities is in -- is it slowly returning to a healthy state, or is it dead in the water? Topretirements.com is compiling some basic research about the state of the active adult communities market (including 55+ communities), and we would love to know what you think.
Please use the comments section below to answer these questions. If you are a potential buyer, we'd love...
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Published on May 6, 2011
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Category: Active adult communities
April 22, 2011 -- Be prepared for the unexpected at Fearrington Village, a unique community just outside of Chapel Hill, NC. So if you are looking for the standard active adult community, you will not find it here. Instead you will see grazing cows, a bookstore, 5 star resort, walking trails, parks, and a wide range of beautiful homes. It's a refreshing development that reflects the eclectic passions and common sense wisdom of its founder, R. B. Fitch.
Full disclosure department: My wife and I were overnight guests at Fearrington Village (which is also a Showcase Advertiser at Topretirements) in mid-April. No one asked us to write this review; we thought you would want to know about this interesting community.
Fearrington Village (pronounced Fairington Village) was founded by R.B. Fitch and his late wife Jenny in 1974. Influenced by their trips to small English villages, they soon purchased the adjacent 640 acre Fearrington Dairy Farm and began developing the property for people of all ages. It still has no age restriction, although the majority...
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Published on April 22, 2011
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Category: Active adult communities
March 31, 2010 -- Assuming you are not a one-size fits all kind of person, why would you want a retirement that anyone could be happy with? The happy answer is that increasingly, there are more and more specialized kinds of retirement communities. This article will cover some of the ones that we know about; members are encouraged to comment about others. Where we know about a sample community for that niche we have provided a link.
Active adult communities. These come in a variety of stripes, such as very large communities like The Villages that have an amazing array of amenities, clubs, and amenities. Or the smallest that might have the barest of amenities, perhaps a small fitness room and an outdoor pool. The common factor is that these are communities for people who want to be active and live around people closer...
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Published on April 1, 2011
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Category: Active adult communities
Note: This is an updated version of a 2008 article from our Tips and Picks section.
In our experience most baby boomers have an opinion about active adult or 55+ communities - they are either for 'em or agin 'em - but less frequently neutral. We recommend that you suspend your opinions for a few moments, then form them again after reading this. Just maybe, you might change your mind one way or another. To try to be realistic and objective, we have used actual people’s words from various Retirement community Discussion Forums (See links to other Forums at end of article)....
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Published on March 18, 2011
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Category: Active adult communities
Note: Since this article was written we have added "Part 2: On the Lake, Where Living (in Retirement) Is Easy", with 10 more great lake towns for retirement.
February 25, 2011 -- Who wouldn't want to retire beside a lake? Just thinking about the sound of lapping waves or a distant motor boat, or of a cool breeze carrying the scent of the water, is enough to make our mind jump to pleasant scenes from "On Golden Pond". Combine that peaceful idyll with the idea of a low-maintenance community with non-stop activities, and we're ready to go!
Not every lake has active communities near or on it. But there are many that do. This article will give a brief sample of lake towns that have active communities on or near them. We'll also give details on how to find more. There are 65 towns in the Topretirements database that are identified as...
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Published on February 25, 2011
Comments 17
Category: Active adult communities
Updated December 21, 2017, originally published February 11, 2011
This is Part 1 of a 2 Part series. Part 1 covers competitors in the West, while Part 2 discusses alternatives to The Villages in the East.
We frequently get a question just like this one - "We have visited The Villages (TV) and we love it - it is our first choice for retirement. But before we commit, are there any other age-restricted communities that are remotely the same size or offer a similar range of amenities"?
The good news is that, although no other community comes close to the mega-size of The Villages, there are least 16 other active communities with over 10,000 residents. That represents a size sufficiently large to provide a comparable range of amenities and clubs to those enjoyed by the over 100,000 residents of The Villages. In addition, there is another large group of communities with more than 5,000 homes which also have
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Published on February 11, 2011
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