Welcome to The Villages Presented by Jim Forbes
The Villages, Florida
Welcome to The Villages
The Villages could be considered the 8th wonder of the world. The Villages is the largest and fastest-growing retirement community in the world. It is located forty-five minutes south of Ocala and one and a half hours above Orlando. Currently, there are roughly 151,000 people that live here. It takes 35 minutes by car to go from the Northernmost point to the Southernmost point. You will enter Lake, Sumter, and Marion counties on that drive.
The Villages has just built a bridge over the Florida Turnpike at their cost. It will allow cars and golf carts to go into the future areas of development, which will be South of the turnpike. They develop the infrastructure two years ahead of their home development. The Villages already own roughly 12 square miles south of the turnpike. When The Villages are fully developed, the population will be around 450,000.
One of the main comments you will hear is that someone does not want to live in a large development. However, due to the infrastructure of The Villages, it is more like living in a small town with big-town amenities.
First, you have four Town Squares with free entertainment nightly on their outdoor stages. Around the town square are restaurants, shops, and businesses. The Town Squares are Spanish Springs Town Square, Lake Sumpter Landing Market Square, Brownwood Paddock Square, and The Sawgrass Market Square. There are 90 restaurants in those Squares, not counting what is outside The Villages.
Then you have Regional Recreation Centers (RRC). These are larger venues for meetings and club events. The next level down is the Village Recreation Centers (VRC), which have smaller buildings. The RRCs and VRCs have community pools, tennis and pickleball courts, and other activities. Each RRC and VRC services other Villages (NRA) that have limited recreation facilities. All the Villages are small communities of homes with a small-town feel where you get to know your neighbors.
Generally, one person must be over 55 (and no permanent resident under 19) to own property in the Villages, which includes access to the amenities. There are communities of The Villages that are not allowed access to the amenities. Any residents not in The Villages proper in the counties of Marion, Sumter, and Lake are not allowed to have guest privileges to the amenities of the Villages unless they are designated open to the public. Primarily, that is the four Town Squares only.
Real Estate at The Villages
Buying a home in the Villages is far more complicated than buying a home in any local community. The worst thing you can do is start looking at homes For Sale before you learn about The Villages and which villages are suited to your Lifestyle. There are over one hundred villages to choose from. There are two hundred homes currently For Sale by Realtors just on the Multiple Listing Services (MLS). These are just two-thirds of the homes For Sale. You also have homes For Sale by real estate agents that the developer controls and homes For Sale by individual homeowners.
The most important decision you will make is who is going to help you navigate through all of the details to find the Right Villages that match your Lifestyle before you start looking for that Right House. It would be best to have a Realtor or Real Estate Agent that you trust and can educate you on the Lifestyle and amenities of The Villages before you start looking at homes.
Your objectives in buying a home in The Villages are to find a home that has or can be updated:
- With a floor plan that fits your needs.
- With a view that you like.
- With a home that is appealing to your tastes.
- With a home that is close to the amenities and features that fit your Lifestyle and passions.
Without the proper help, buyers can move into a home only to find that some of the amenities they want are not close to the home they bought. Jim Forbes and JimForbes Real Estate, LLC specialize in finding you the right home for you with all or most of the amenities that you want the first time. To that end:
- We spent an enormous amount of time documenting what each Village has in amenities.
- We developed specialized search engines that show what Villages would match your desired amenities and Lifestyle.
We go through a form (that we designed) together to determine your priorities in a home and the amenities you want. Golf, tennis, pickleball, and pools are common in every community. It is those secondary amenities and passions that make certain villages more desirable. We enter that information into our search engines to find the best Villages that meet your criteria. Then, we set up several searches with different criteria on those communities that will notify you of homes For Sale in those communities. This eliminates you from having to look at a multitude of homes, which takes up your time and creates confusion because so many homes are similar in design but not in location. All of this takes a lot of time on our part. For us to do this work for you, we request that you sign a three-month Exclusive Broker Agreement with our firm. If after the first month, you feel that we are not providing you with the services we promised, we will cancel the engagement agreement. In either case, please keep the documents that we sent to you.Please do not share them with other agents. I liked it when you could work with a handshake, and the word of both parties without all of this legalize, but with so many agents and homes out there, it has become an unfortunate necessity.
Currently, there are:
- 3,500+ lifestyle clubs in The Villages.
- You name a club you are interested in and probably one or more available clubs.
- The Parrot Head Club here is the largest in the world, with over 500 members.
- 747 Total Number of Holes of Golf. More than any other community in the world.
- 13 Country Clubs with dining facilities and Championship golf courses. If you are an avid golfer, you will want to purchase an Enhancement package. These packages provide you with greater access and lower costs to play any of the Championship courses. You can buy Enhancement packages monthly, semi-annually, or annually. These packages are acceptable at any of the Championship courses. If you find a club you really like, you may want to focus on homes around that club.
- 41 Executive courses. The green fees are included in your dues. You only pay a trail fee when using a golf cart. $4.00/per person.
- 114 Recreation Facilities with meeting rooms, activities like table tennis, pool, and cards.
- 111 Pools
- 247 Pickleball courts
- 180 Tennis courts
- 15 Softball Fields in 5 complexes
- 3 Croquet & Lawn Bowling Courts
- 1 Polo Field
- 4 Town Squares with free entertainment every night from 5 pm to 9 pm
- 90 Restaurants in the town squares. This does not consider restaurants outside of The Villages.
- Golf carts have over 100 miles of cart paths throughout the community. Most residents own a golf cart. Some of specialty golf carts sell for $30,000+/-
- You can go anywhere in the Villages by golf cart. Two apps give you directions for cars or golf carts.
- A rough guess is that it would take you two-plus hours to go from the northern end to the southern end by golf cart.
- The average number of homes sold in the Villages is 200+/- per month.
- The most popular homes are 1,800 sq ft to 2,500 sq ft with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and two car garages. These homes sell in the range of $400,000 to $600,000.
- Homes are grouped into Villages, and multiple Villages have their own Recreation Centers.
- Recreation fees are mandatory and range from $120 to $250 per month. Those fees cover the cost of a lot of the activities.
What is nice about living here is that most people are of the same age and very active, so you feel young again. You get involved in activities that you never would elsewhere. Those activities are what keep you young in spirit.
It would be my honor to help you navigate through the process of buying a home in The Villages.
– Jim Forbes
Buying a Home at The Villages
On most real estate listing sites, you first see a search engine to search for homes. Looking for a home in The Villages is one of the worst things you can do. Buying a home in The Villages is a complicated process because of the number of homes For Sale, the geographical area it includes, and the amenities provided in those communities.
The resources are extensive, so you can go on the web and research the information that you need to educate yourself on what, where, and how to buy a home in The Villages. You can do that if you have several weeks to work on it. My firm has gathered a lot of that vital information and will be adding more in the near future. It is a never-ending process in The Villages.
Some of this information is on my website for you to use. However, the real detailed information is set up in several formats for us to search for the best Villages for you to search based on your criteria in buying a home. We will send you a survey form that takes about 10 minutes to fill out per person. This information gives us the basis to extract the right Villages for you to search. Instead of looking at over 100 different Villages we will narrow that down to around fifteen Villages that will match up to your lifestyle. For us to do this work for you, we request that you sign a three-month Exclusive Broker Agreement with our firm. If after the first month, you feel that we are not providing you with the services we promised, we will cancel the engagement agreement. In either case, please keep the documents that we sent to you. Please do not share them with other agents.
Why do we go to the process of determining the right Village for you? It is not unusual for a prospective buyer to buy a home in The Villages, then a year or so later, after they learn more about The Villages, they sell the first home and buy the home they should have bought the first time. Our goal is to educate you so that the home you buy is the correct home for you the first time.
Finding a Rental at The Villages
There are several sites where you can search for rentals. Each site is different, and you need to monitor those sites for new rentals that come on the market. If you are looking to rent in season, start your search early. March or April is a good time to start. We need to get together and develop criteria for what you want in a rental. It should be very close to what you want if you buy a house here.
The first thing to understand is that summer rental prices are generally one-half of the in-season rental rates. The in-season rental rates start going up in November, with the peak season being January through April, and they start trending down in May. The summer months, July through September, are the lowest rental rate period with more availability. However, be aware it is hot during these months. The length of your rental period also becomes a factor. Except for rare cases, the rental period will start on the first of the month and end on the last day of the month.
The second thing to watch for is whether the rental comes with a golf cart and how many people it can carry. A typical rental golf cart holding two people costs roughly $ 500 monthly. This needs to be factored in when comparing different rentals.
Set up multiple searches using small areas or different criteria of what you want in a rental. Understand that you may get a lot of emails on these searches, so use an email address with minimal emails. Definitely try not to use your business email address.
There is not just one place to find rentals because the owners or their agents want to control their listings so they have a better chance of selling you a home.
In working with you on your rental, I will be in an excellent position to guide you through the process of buying a home. As soon as you determine that you want to buy a home, contact me, and I will send you additional information to guide you through the process. When the time is right, we will start setting up searches to receive listings from the MLS and Zillow.
Golf at The Villages
Embrace a golfer’s paradise in the lively community of The Villages in Florida, where there are different golf courses to play every day and different entertainment venues to visit every night if you so desire. Then, you also have to find time to play tennis or pickleball, take a swim, or get involved in some of the 3500 community clubs and activities. Below are the current Championship courses. There are also 41 Executive courses in The Villages.
Nancy Lopez Legacy Country Club
North of CR 466 – 4 miles
Holes: 27
Yardage: 3,747 to 6,946 on six sets of tees
Location: 17145 Buena Vista Blvd.
Phone: 352-753-1450
Facilities: Aqua-driving range, putting green, pro shop, restaurant, pool, tennis courts.
Orange Blossom Hills
North of CR 466 – 3.5 miles & East of US 27
Holes: 18
Yardage: 3,857 to 6,198 on five sets of tees
Location: 1548 Water Tower Circle
Phone: 352-753-5200
Facilities: Putting and chipping greens, pro shop, restaurant, pool, hot tub.
Glenview Champions Country Club
North of CR 466 – 2 miles
Holes: 27
Yardage: 3,772 to 7,145 on six sets of tees
Location: 3190 Glenview Road
Phone: (352) 753-3345
Facilities: Driving range, putting and chipping green, pro shop, restaurant, pool, tennis courts.
Hacienda Hills Country Club
North of CR 466 – 2 miles
Holes: 27
Yardage: 3,800 to 6,446 on five sets of tees
Location: 1195 Morse Blvd.
Phone: 352-753-5155
Facilities: Putting and chipping green, pro shop, restaurant, pool, tiki bar, tennis courts.
Tierra Del Sol Country Club
North of CR 466 – 1.5 miles
Holes: 27
Yardage: 3,842 to 6,832 on five sets of tees
Location: 806 San Marino Drive
Phone: 352-750-4600
Facilities: Putting green, pro shop, hitting nets, restaurant, tennis courts
Palmer Legends Country Club
South of CR 466 – 1.5 miles
Holes: 27
Yardage: 3,670 to 7,180 on six sets of tees
Location: 1645 Palmer Way
Phone: 352-753-5300
Facilities: Driving range, putting and chipping greens, pro shop, restaurant.
Cane Garden Country Club
North of CR 466A – 5 miles
Holes: 27
Yardage: 3,864 to 7,189 on six sets of tees
Location: 1728 Bailey Trail
Phone: 352-751-7029
Facilities: Putting and chipping greens, pro shop, restaurant, pool.
Mallory Hill Country Club
North of CR 466A – 2.5 miles
Holes: 27
Yardage: 3,553 to 7,130 on six sets of tees
Location: 1675 Odell Circle
Phone: 352-753-3730
Facilities: Pool, clubhouse, restaurant, pro shop.
Havana Country Club
North of CR 466A – 1 mile
Holes: 27
Yardage: 3,797 to 7,070 on six sets of tees
Location: 2488 Odell Circle
Phone: 352-750-8085
Facilities: Pro shop, putting and chipping green, hitting the net, restaurant.
Evans Prairie Country Club
South of CR 466A – 1 mile
Holes: 27
Yardage: 3,801 to 7,052 on six sets of tees
Location: 1824 Evans Prairie Road
Phone: 352-205-8910
Facilities: Pro shops, putting greens, hitting nets, restaurant, pool.
Belle Glade Country Club
South of CR 466A – 2 miles
Holes: 27
Yardage: 3,651 to 6,992 on six sets of tees
Location: 434 Moyer Loop
Phone: 353-674-2700
Facilities: Putting green, pro shop, hitting nets, restaurant.
Bonifay Country Club
South of CR 466A – 2 miles
Holes: 27
Yardage: 3,893 to 7,103 on six sets of tees
Location: 1033 Pinellas Place
Phone: 352-753-1776
Facilities: Pro shop, putting greens, hitting nets, restaurant.
Dining at The Villages
Indulge your palate in a culinary adventure at The Villages, where each neighborhood boasts an abundance of dining options.
Brownwood Paddock Square
- Bluefin Grill & Bar – $$$
- 2738 Brownwood Blvd, The Villages, FL 32163
- City Fire American Oven & Bar – $$
- 2716 Brownwood Blvd, The Villages, FL 32163
- Cody’s Original Roadhouse – Brownwood – $$
- 3731 Meggison Rd, The Villages, FL 32163
- Scooples Ice cream Parlor and Restaurant – $$
- 2718 Brownwood Blvd, The Villages, FL 32163
- Fiesta Grande Brownwood – $$
- 3647 Kiessel Rd, The Villages, FL 32163
- Gator’s Dockside Brownwood – $$
- 3698 Meggison Rd, The Villages, FL 32163
- Wolfgang Puck Kitchen + Bar – $$$
- 3003 Brownwood Blvd, The Villages, FL 32163
- Island Fin Poké Company – $$
- 2752 Brownwood Blvd, The Villages, FL 32163
- TooJay’s Deli – $$
- 2835 Brownwood Blvd, The Villages, FL 32163
- Five Guys – $$$
- 3642 Kiessel Rd, The Villages, FL 32163
- Harvest Restaurant & Bar
- 3676 Meggison Rd, The Villages, FL 32163
- World of Beer – $$
- 2751 W Torch Lake Dr, The Villages, FL 32163
- Pardon My Cheesesteak – $$
- 2835 Brownwood Blvd, The Villages, FL 32163
- Prima Italian Steakhouse – $$$
- 3660 Kiessel Rd, The Villages, FL 32163
- Dunkin’ Donuts – $
- 2736 Brownwood Blvd, The Villages, FL 32163
Lake Sumter Landing
- Bravo Pizza – $
- 1080 Lake Sumter Landing, The Villages, FL
- Panera Bread – $$
- 1010 Lake Sumter Landing, The Villages, FL
- RJ Gator’s Florida Sea Grill & Bar – $$
- 1015 Lake Shore Dr #1693, The Villages, FL
- Cody’s Original Roadhouse – $$
- 1041 Lake Shore Dr, The Villages, FL 32162
- Chop House at Lake Sumter – $$$
- 1045 Old Camp Rd, The Villages, FL 32162
- Lighthouse Point Bar and Grille – $$
- 925 Lake Shore Dr, The Villages, FL 32162
- Lazy Mac’s Taco Shack – $$
- 1000 Old Mill Run, The Villages, FL 32162
- Thai Ruby At Lake Sumter – $$
- 1064 Canal St, Lady Lake, FL 32162
- The Angler’s Club – $$$$
- 1020 Canal St, The Villages, FL 32162
- VKI Japanese Steakhouse – $$
- 1004 Old Mill Run, The Villages, FL 32162
- City Fire – $$
- 1018 Canal St, The Villages, FL 32162
- Flying Biscuit Cafe – The Villages – $$
- 1101 Canal St, The Villages, FL 32162
- Redsauce American – Italian Restaurant – $$
- 1000 Canal St, The Villages, FL 32162
- TooJay’s Deli – $$
- 1129 Canal St, The Villages, FL 32162
Spanish Springs Town Center
- McCall’s Tavern & Bowling Alley Fried Chicken 5.0) – $$
- 997 Alverez Ave, Lady Lake, FL 32159
- World of Beer (Monday Hamburger $7) – $$
- 994 Alverez Ave, Lady Lake, FL 32159
- Amerikanos Grille – $$
- 998 Del Mar Dr #108, Lady Lake, FL 32159 (Gyro)
- Margarita Republic Shut Down – $$
- 1102 Main St, Lady Lake, FL 32159
- Gator’s Dockside The Villages – $$
- 1004 Main St, Lady Lake, FL 32159
- Coastal Del Mar – Seafood Grill – $$$
- 990 Del Mar Dr, Lady Lake, FL 32159
- Bella Vita – Italian – $$$
- 1101 Main St., Lady Lake, FL, 32159
- Flippers Pizzeria – $$
- 988 Alverez Ave #7718, Lady Lake, FL 32159
- Ay Jalisco 4 (Mexican) – $
- 1154 Main St, Lady Lake, FL 32159
- Ruby Tuesday – $$
- 1168 Main St, Lady Lake, FL 32159
- Chili’s Grill & Bar – $$
- 1206 Avenida Central, Lady Lake, FL 32159
- Sakura Restaurant – $$
- 1104 Bichara Blvd, Lady Lake, FL 32159
- Panera Bread – $$
- 1181 Main St, Lady Lake, FL 32159
- Chicken Salad Chick – $$
- 996 Bichara Blvd, Lady Lake, FL 32159
- Darrell’s Diner – $
- 996 Bichara Blvd, Lady Lake, FL 32159
Sawgrass
- McCall’s Tavern & Bowling Alley – $$
- 997 Alverez Ave, Lady Lake, FL 32159
Contact Jim Forbes To Learn More!
Jim Forbes
Phone: (772) 370-2466
Email: JimForbesRE@gmail.com
About Jim
Jim Forbes has experience living in two golf homes and country club styles. From 2013 to 2023, he lived in a community on the SE central coast of Florida, an exclusive Yacht & Country Club with 270 homes and 32 condos with equity fees of $75,000. The facility had an 18-hole golf course, a huge practice range, five Har-Tru tennis courts, two pickleball courts, a twenty-nine-slip marina, and a 30,000 sf clubhouse. Dues and expenses ran $26,000 annually. Now, he resides in one of the most active golfing communities in the world. There are 13 Championship courses and 41 executive courses with other amenities too numerous to mention here. No one can be an expert in this community, but Jim is highly qualified to help you find the right home in the right golfing community.