Our Retirement Community Visit, Phoenix-Phase III (Sun City, Surprise: home builders, neighborhood, buy)

[wit-nit]

Originally Posted by Riggo44

What is the HOA fee and PIF at Ventana Lakes?

PIF= 0

HOA = $88 monthly

Assessments

[BestintheWest]

update


Province residents win HOA battle - Maricopa Monitor: Local News

[Dewey59]

Some interesting perspectives in this topic. About a year ago, I started looking for a place myself. I started out comparing SC, SCW, and SCG. I quickly eliminated SCG, mostly because of the home prices. They were outside my range. At the time, I had only casually looked at the club offerings, because I mistakenly thought it would not be a big factor. Even though I knew that too many people underestimate the free time they will have after retirement and the sense of no purpose when they no longer have a job to go to.

So I looked at several homes in both SC and SCW, with no particular preference between the two cities. Quite by accident, the home I found was in SCW and I have now been living here for about 2 months. As fate would have it, I got lucky. Seeing all of the offerings for activities in SCW, the lack of traffic within the walls of SCW, and just the quality of living here, it is absolutely the best place for me.

I would highly encourage anyone thinking about a 55+ community to fully investigate the club and activity offerings of the communities you are considering. I have found this to be an enormous asset! Specifically, in my case, I am a car guy. SCW has a very large and active car club and they are in the process of building their own building for us to work on our cars! (Which I only found out about AFTER I bought my house - hence, why I say I got lucky!) There are over 100 clubs in SCW - most of which have outstanding facilities. My suggestion is to look into the offerings of the communities you are looking at.

[smoochaz]

Another great place to retire is McCormick Ranch if interested in Scottsdale. The Villages and Scottsdale Ranch have great condos and reasonably priced with great amenities such as pools, spas, tennis, parks. This area is not just for 55+ so there are a mix of families, young and old, however, the area provides such a great lifestyle that it attracts seniors. It's so green and full of lakes that you forget you live in a desert. The senior rec centers are part of Scottsdale town and there is 1 that is very close to these two complexes I mention. Price point for a really beautiful 2 bed/2bath good sized unit in the Villages is $212,900. There are lower/higher price just giving you an example of one that just came on market.

Maha

[wizfourfam]

Originally Posted by Dewey59

Some interesting perspectives in this topic. About a year ago, I started looking for a place myself. I started out comparing SC, SCW, and SCG. I quickly eliminated SCG, mostly because of the home prices. They were outside my range. At the time, I had only casually looked at the club offerings, because I mistakenly thought it would not be a big factor. Even though I knew that too many people underestimate the free time they will have after retirement and the sense of no purpose when they no longer have a job to go to.

So I looked at several homes in both SC and SCW, with no particular preference between the two cities. Quite by accident, the home I found was in SCW and I have now been living here for about 2 months. As fate would have it, I got lucky. Seeing all of the offerings for activities in SCW, the lack of traffic within the walls of SCW, and just the quality of living here, it is absolutely the best place for me.

I would highly encourage anyone thinking about a 55+ community to fully investigate the club and activity offerings of the communities you are considering. I have found this to be an enormous asset! Specifically, in my case, I am a car guy. SCW has a very large and active car club and they are in the process of building their own building for us to work on our cars! (Which I only found out about AFTER I bought my house - hence, why I say I got lucky!) There are over 100 clubs in SCW - most of which have outstanding facilities. My suggestion is to look into the offerings of the communities you are looking at.

I agree! IMO more rec centers make for different places to check out and variety. You are not stuck with the same building. Clubs in SCW are scattered among the many rec centers or have stand alone buildings (Men's Club, metalworking club, and soon Car Club). With single clubhouse communities, you find many clubs meeting at residents homes. Visit the welcome center at the communities you are interested in. Websites are informative too! Talk with residents.

SCW also has sections where homes do not pay school taxes. Can save you $$ but would not be a deal breaker for me.

Also, they say a SCW resident moves at least twice within the community, you re-evaluate your needs as you age!

[GeneR]

Is this (finally!) the end? Perhaps.

We're flying back to Phoenix Tuesday to meet with our realtors and visit a very short list of homes. Those who have followed this seemingly never ending adventure of ours might recall our final community choice. On our last visit to the area in June we decided that Sun City Grand would be our future home. Now, we're not so sure.

We've been drilling down on floor plans and what works best for us. Our short list of homes is comprised of a couple properties in Sun City West and a few in Sun City Festival. I know our realtors want to show us the K.H. homes in Sun City also.

After all the bragging I've done about our thorough and thoughtful search of communities we're ending up in one we thought would not make the cut: Festival. A trusted contributor on this thread warned of her rising property taxes (the result of rising home values) and we took that warning very seriously. However, in the end we find the floor plans in Festival to work best for us. We also are discovering it's the older floor plans that are more livable for us than the new construction.I won't make any predictions on where we'll end up and given my track record it would probably turn out to be false anyway. I will update as the story line develops in the coming week.

I want to say that this thread has been a very valuable resource for us as we make our final choice. Thank you so much for your contributions!

[Jkgourmet]

Gene, be extra careful with that KH community. Here in Durham, they planned a 55+ community of 545 homes. They completed and closed on 12, then pulled out entirely in 2011 or 2012. No clubhouse, no landscaping of the public areas, no pool, nothing. KH left partially built homes behind to rot. They screwed those poor peoole terribly. Tragic.

Last year, The acreage finally sold to a developer who is building more homes for 55+, but townhouses and SFR's that have prices less than half of what those 18 KH homes cost.

[GeneR]

Originally Posted by Jkgourmet

Gene, be extra careful with that KH community. Here in Durham, they planned a 55+ community of 545 homes. They completed and closed on 12, then pulled out entirely in 2011 or 2012. No clubhouse, no landscaping of the public areas, no pool, nothing. KH left partially built homes behind to rot. They screwed those poor peoole terribly. Tragic.

Last year, The acreage finally sold to a developer who is building more homes for 55+, but townhouses and SFR's that have prices less than half of what those 18 KH homes cost.

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.

[MotleyCrew]

I just came back from a tour of the new KH homes and the models are stunning to say the least.

[Dewey59]

I am not familiar with what KH is, but be careful about any promises of using the rec centers of a town you are not living in. I have heard several horror stories of people who bought homes in developments surrounding SCW because their realtor told them they would have access to SCW rec centers and clubs, only to find out after they moved in that was not true. Get any such promises in writing!