Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Arizona > Phoenix area
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 01-03-2016, 11:24 PM
 
Location: Out there somewhere...a traveling man.
44,593 posts, read 61,412,482 times
Reputation: 125676

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by MotleyCrew View Post
I just came back from a tour of the new KH homes and the models are stunning to say the least.
But are they senior citizen compatible. We visited with friends and they along with us thought the high doors, super high windows, high cabinets all needed a ladder to get to. Stocking them would be a real hassle using a small step ladder to get items from. Cleaning the high windows would be a super chore, not for older residents. The showers were all had huge glass doors making cleaning a chore also. The quality of the cabinets were of el cheapo particle board probably from Home Depot.
We all felt the older floor plans were more convenient and larger in the SC & SCW newer areas.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 01-04-2016, 09:01 AM
 
Location: Raleigh, NC
19,399 posts, read 27,703,839 times
Reputation: 36051
Quote:
Originally Posted by GeneR View Post
Thank you. This KH is part of the massive Sun City Recreation system with 9 rec centers (a couple have just under gone multi-million dollar renovations, all done with cash) and 8 golf courses. Cost for this system is $462 per household (2 people) per year. Sun City has millions in cash reserves also. There is NO better recreation buy in the country in my opinion.
Okay - but I'd find it hard to give a dime to a company that pulled this kind of **** on those homeowners. And trust that they didn't take shortcuts when buikding my nice, new house? I think not.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 01-04-2016, 10:34 AM
 
Location: Oxygen Ln. AZ
9,319 posts, read 18,716,205 times
Reputation: 5764
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jkgourmet View Post
Okay - but I'd find it hard to give a dime to a company that pulled this kind of **** on those homeowners. And trust that they didn't take shortcuts when buikding my nice, new house? I think not.
All the homebuilders, even the high end retirement home builders cut corners everywhere they can. My daughter worked in the field, building the homes up in the foothill retirement community and we decided we would not shell out that kind of money for crap...to be painfully honest. Just the way it goes.
We like our older Sun City home mostly because we took it all the way to the bones and did some very nice things to it. A builder would have robbed us to do what we did ourselves.

I agree with Wit nit...we appreciate these older homes and I thought of how hard cleaning that shower with hard water would be lol.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 01-04-2016, 10:36 AM
 
Location: Oxygen Ln. AZ
9,319 posts, read 18,716,205 times
Reputation: 5764
...however, I am sure the large luxury shower came at a premium and you would get a standard shower in its place. They show the models with all the upgrades and bling to hook you into paying more. All the builders do this. All the builders will bail on a development when the market crashes and it makes economic sense to run..ruthless they are.. Risky to be the first in line like we were in Vistancia. We just waited it out and sold at a profit this last year.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 01-04-2016, 05:58 PM
 
106 posts, read 250,516 times
Reputation: 133
Is the KH community in Sun City for 55+? The web site isn't clear about that. Thanks.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 01-05-2016, 03:24 AM
 
Location: Buckeye
604 posts, read 931,679 times
Reputation: 1395
Quote:
Originally Posted by cmw0829 View Post
Is the KH community in Sun City for 55+? The web site isn't clear about that. Thanks.
Yes, Sun City is a 55+ community. KH is a part of this community. They are not creating a new community only a neighborhood within.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 01-06-2016, 10:57 AM
 
40 posts, read 44,818 times
Reputation: 29
GeneR (and others),
Love this thread. Very helpful, especially for those of us that understand the devil is in the details. Wife and I are going to visit Phoenix for a couple of days late next week. Now 60, ideally we retire in 2-4 years . . . wondering:
1. the best way to find a GOOD realtor to show us around several of these 55+communities?
2. did you develop a list of questions to ask the realtor and residents about each community?
Thank you in advance, Scott
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 01-07-2016, 06:09 PM
 
Location: Buckeye
604 posts, read 931,679 times
Reputation: 1395
Okay boys and girls, the deal is done, the trigger is pulled, a decision was made and it's over. Finally! We landed in Phoenix from the Twin Cities last Tuesday. We hit the ground running. We met with our husband/wife team of realtors at their office in Sun City West. After a brief exchange of ideas we were off to look at houses. Into Sun City West, then to Sun City Grand. We looked about about 8 homes in 5 hours. Tomorrow is another day.

We checked into our villa at Sun City Festival. It's our third stay here. We like the VIP program some of the newer communities offer. Here at Festival it costs about $79 bucks a night for a 2 bedroom villa with a golf cart and passes to all the facilities. No sales pressure at all. Couple of years ago we stayed at Robson's Saddlebrooke Ranch and it too was nice but, as I've written on these pages, it was not a good fit for us.

Wednesday morning we decided to cruise Festival (again!). We're actually getting to know our way around here. This place is gorgeous. Use google earth and take a sky shot at other communities and then drop over Festival. The difference is very noticeable. Festival seems packed with landscape trees and shrubs. It looks so 'green' compared to other communities. But, no time to dawdle, there are houses to see.

We drove to our realtor's home in Sun City and drove from there to the knew K. Hovnanian development. Models are great looking, Met with their sales rep who was most helpful. We liked what we saw and were told we could probably get in their prospect line and get a home built by mid to late summer. A major attraction here is the extremely low taxes of Sun City. Property owners there pay 50 to 75% less than similar property owners in other communities (most of Sun City West also features very low property taxes). K. Hovnanian is only releasing a few lots at a time because of the industry's human resource shortage. That's a fancy way of saying during the housing downturn starting in 2007-8 many skilled builders had to flee the industry and find paying jobs. Now housing is having a rebound and there's not sufficient craftsmen to fill the need. It's happening nationwide. Enough on labor economics, we've got houses and communities to tour.

Our next stop was to visit several properties in Festival where we're staying. Lord I love the scenery coming out of Surprise toward Festival. It's about an eleven mile drive. Our realtors, and many others, say it's "way out there". Huh? Having lived in cities (real cities, multi-milllion people type cities) a 15 minute drive through scenic desert with cactus and mountains is okay with me, anytime. Will there be times when I'd rather not have such a drive? Heck, there's times when I don't want to get out of bed. These past few days it's been a very nice, relaxing, quiet drive.

In Festival we actually found ourselves feeling very much at home. We love the community, the beauty, and the people seem exceedingly friendly. We found 4 houses we really liked. We decided on one and our realtors went to work drawing up an offer. It would be presented the following day (today). We also wanted to meet with Festival's sales rep. She's been very friendly and helpful since we first began coming here for short visits (this is our third). By the way, this is our first visit during the winter months. Usually we're here in the summer. Last June our stay was during a real hot spell with health warnings being broadcast by all the local media. This visit it's been cool (cold for Arizonans) and rainy. Nice change from temps of 110+. We started talking about a spec home they're building and offering us discounts. Next thing I knew we were signing the papers and after 3 years of research and visits we have made a commitment. Festival will be our home, a new house, to be completed around May first will be ours. There's one other thing I think is worth mentioning. Our house is on Cat Balue Drive. Okay, so it's spelled a little differently than the famous movie but I LOVE that address.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 01-07-2016, 07:10 PM
 
Location: Texas
2,847 posts, read 2,504,172 times
Reputation: 1775
Congrats, glad after all your searching and homework you found the fight fit for you, enjoy.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 01-07-2016, 07:21 PM
 
Location: prescott az
6,954 posts, read 12,023,860 times
Reputation: 14219
Gene : That is GREAT news. I really understand how wonderful it feels to have made your choice. And a brand new home too. I should go look at those, since I still don't know where I will live. So happy for you. Now time to relax and take it easy ! Barb
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Settings
X
Data:
Loading data...
Based on 2000-2020 data
Loading data...

123
Hide US histogram

Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Arizona > Phoenix area
Similar Threads

All times are GMT -6. The time now is 10:49 PM.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top