Twice in the past 15 years, I had coworkers tell me about their plans to move to an over-55 community once their kids went to college. One talked endlessly about how much he loved “The Villages” in Florida, where he visited his in-laws each year. The other mentioned Sun City and another over 55 community in his home state of NJ.
I remember both times saying that I preferred living in a community full of people of all ages. I liked the diversity, the energy of kids and a less homogenous community. I had no interest in moving to a community where everyone was old and spent their time narcing out their neighbors for HOA code violations.
Of course, at these times I was married, had a young adult stepson, a full time job and was under 50.
For the past 6 years, every winter I fantasize about moving somewhere warm. Florida is out due to hurricanes and the state’s the disastrous home insurance crisis. I did love the winters in Florida though.
California is out due to wildfires, the home insurance crisis and the astronomical real estate prices.
That doesn’t leave many other US options for warm, mild winters. What I’ve got here in Raleigh is pretty good except for a few miserable weeks in January and February each year.
Nonetheless, when I hear of people retiring somewhere for the weather, I’ll often check out th homes there on Zillow.
Which brings me to over 55 communities.
This year I checked out a bunch online:
- The Villages in Central Florida
- On Top Of The World in Central Florida
- Sun City AZ
- Sun City SC
- Sun City TX
Aside from the weather and potential for natural disasters, which varies by location, one thing they all have in common are well designed houses. They all offer single story, 2 BR/2BA homes with2 car garages on small lots. The smaller homes are around 1200 Sq.ft which seems just about perfect to me.
The bigger communities have multiple swimming pools, which is important to me as a daily lap swimmer. They all offer clubs, classes, crafts, and social groups which on paper are interesting, but in practice I’d likely never attend.
They all promote themselves as being a “young, active over 55 community”. Reading through user groups and forums and carefully studying photos give me a different perspective. These people are OLD. They may be active in golf, doing chair yoga, water aerobics and canasta but they ain’t 55. I’d say more like 75-95.
Some of forum posts were from vendors who serviced these communities and adult children of parent who lived there.
They wrote about good things:
- Quiet
- Low traffic
- Low crime
- Services catering to seniors
- Community Engagement and Activity
They wrote about annoying things:
- Neighbors with nothing better to do that watch for HOA violations
- Ambulances arriving often (because people died)
- HOA restrictions
- Restrictions on visitors and kids
- Early closing hours for most stores and restaurants
- Lots of drunk driving of cars and golf carts
Many of the posters who lived in these committees talked about how much they liked living there. They enjoyed to social activities, being able to drive everywhere in golf carts and the absence of annoying kids.
Overall, I could live with the house, weather, pools and restrictions on children.
I’m not sure I’d enjoy paying bigger HOA fees or living in a community of people 20-40 years older than me.
It was worth exploring a bit to satisfy my curiosity.
As of yet, I’ve seen nothing that offers me anything better than my current home and location.