How important were the community amenities when you bought your home? (Plano: transplants, HOA)

[mom2gurls]

Did you find that having community amenities such as golf course,pools, workout center help you meet people in the community or it didn't make a difference? Spoken to transplants who have said it was hard to break in the community regardless of amenities. What was your experience? If I do a search on just house there is plenty to choose from in Plano west and west allen---twin creeks and Waterford parks... And it would SAVE us money by going with a pre existing home but it's hard to tell how active the communities are and if paying for amenities like the 1200 bucks in richwoods is worth it. The advantage of a newer community is that everyone is in the same boat... Looking to hear from other experiences since we have...err shall I say dh has expanded the search for us. Lol

[bencronin04]

From your username, I assume you have children. On that assumption, if your children are active you will have plenty of interaction with others in the community(imo). My wife and I have memberships through my family at different country clubs, social clubs, tennis clubs, etc. that we never use, like once a few times a year if that use, because we're homebodies. Even though our kids are very young, we get plenty of interaction just through events for them.

[loves2read]

have never bought home in community based on "amenities" even when we had children

[veuvegirl]

We haven't met anyone at the community pool or any of the amenities

[MurphyPl1]

We don't have a community amenity in our neighborhood, but it was a new neighborhood and we have lots of transplants. One of the first things that happened was a group formed a Social Committee within the neighborhood HOA and it's been really great for meeting neighbors. At the time there were a lot of younger kids (pre-school) and once they all hit kindergarten (seriously it seemed like everyone had a kindergartener) the PTA also became a source of getting to know others.

My DD is out of the house, but we're such a tight nit community that I, and some other empty-nesters, have volunteered up at the school at Field Day and know several of the teachers and the crossing guards.