For those of you who have retired to any of the retirement communities in Florida, can you please share your thoughts? Thank you.

I bought in the Villages I’m only here part time. Not retired yet. But we love it. Tons of YouTube videos. What are you interested to know? This place is huge with multiple town squares, over 100 pools, 3000 clubs, Shooters World, and lots more. Live music in the squares nightly.

For "continuing care retirement community" in Florida, there is none better than Shell Point in Fort Myers.

Just be aware that there are these type of communities of just about every size and flavor.
On one end you have the Villages and the Del Webb type of communities. On the other end you have "parks" like the one my parents started coming to close to 30 years ago. That one is a "Condominium Association" that is actually double wides on resident owned lots. The elected board controls how the park is run. Residents thus control what activities there are in the park.
We bought a place in my parents park 4 years ago in order to spend some quality time with them in their declining years.
Frankly none of these are my "cup of tea". I'm a bit too independent to be locked into the group think associated with these type communities.
Again, just pointing out that there is a wide range of these type of communities, especially in Florida.

Depending on what you are looking for, I would check out the rate of STD's in some of them. I've just heard some amazing stories...

Still trying to figure out why anyone would want to move down there.... sorry, I'm much like Powers77 above....

Define retirement community. My whole county could be considered a retirement community as 34% of the population is 65+.

My grandfather moved into Dowling Park, a small retirement area, homes, condos, different levels of care if needed. Very small, in North Florida.

Im trying to get OUT of SW Florida to retire. Ft Myers is terrible unless you Play Golf, Have a Boat or do not want to do anything and money to do those things,
Plus traffic traffic and they will not stop building.
And Hurricanes

Beyond the happy faces on the commercials promoting retirement splendor lies a bunch of old biddies running around with clipboards recording your every infraction of the rules. If you run afoul of the minute regulations you won't be invited to the smiley face parties.

Avoid organized retirement communities, home owner's associations, mobile home communities, and condominium gulags. Your retirement will be more peaceful. Oh, and stay away from Mickey Mouse town, and South Florida. Too much traffic, forced diversity, and language barriers. Instead, find a small town inland away from the beaches. Enjoy.

yep Lake Placid FL not NY is getting popular Sebring area, Bowling Green.

Florida...God's waiting room!
OR
Florida...Where people go to die.

quote:

Originally posted by 1967Goat:
Florida...God's waiting room!
OR
Florida...Where people go to die.

Home of the newly wed and nearly dead.

quote:

Originally posted by cyberphobia:
Plus traffic traffic and they will not stop building.
And Hurricanes

Central Florida south west of Disney is worse. The last time they did any thing to I4 near me was back in early 2004? yet our county has almost doubled in population since.
For my wife and I, we have property in north east Tennessee we are hoping to some day build a house on and retire to.

For anyone looking to move to Florida, look at the area you want to live in, then look a any on line map program to see what the traffic looks like during the day.

It is not uncommon while driving on the highway to see traffic signs that say "10 miles to ? 40 minutes".

I love central Florida, but the traffic is getting insane if you are anywhere near a commute to a major city. If I were looking to retire here, I would probably look north of Leesburg and east of Route 75. The 75 corridor is getting almost as bad as the I-4 corridor.

I have a house in a gated community 20 miles directly south of Orlando.

When I bought it was mostly rural.

They just keep building and building in the area. I would now call it build-up suburbia.

I never travel during rush hour and stay off I-4 as much as possible.

Inside the community is fine.

They just added a toll road to alleviate some of the traffic and they are expanding it already.

quote:

Originally posted by nosticks:
Beyond the happy faces on the commercials promoting retirement splendor lies a bunch of old biddies running around with clipboards recording your every infraction of the rules. If you run afoul of the minute regulations you won't be invited to the smiley face parties.

Avoid organized retirement communities, home owner's associations, mobile home communities, and condominium gulags. Your retirement will be more peaceful. Oh, and stay away from Mickey Mouse town, and South Florida. Too much traffic, forced diversity, and language barriers. Instead, find a small town inland away from the beaches. Enjoy.

Totally agree.

There are so many people flooding into my area (TX) and Florida, personally I wouldn’t bother with either unless you love traffic, a shit ton of people, high costs, etc. Florida homeowners insurance is fucking crazy. I know because TX is going that way and I’m already sick of it. My insurance broker and I met last month and he went over the why etc. Basically said pricing is going to be like Florida or the carriers will pull out of Texas altogether. This place used to be pretty good cost of living. That’s all gone now. A nice % of that is due to all the relocations. Millions of them flooding in. They can fucking have it. Florida is much the same.

I did what you described. I bought 6 acres in the mountains. Small town/county. They don’t like or want fast food joints, chain stores, and no subdivisions. Strongly opposed to all. I wanted some space, peace, nature, and old school America. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

My parents started in The Villages but felt it was too much like high school. Incredibly cliquey and witnessed shockingly petty and public disagreements between adults in a fairly regular basis.

They ended up going to a Trailer Park about 15 minutes south and absolutely loved it. After my dad passed, my step-mom has stayed there and been incredibly happy.

Sounds like the tennis club we joined so our kids could get professional instruction. To me it would be like living at the tennis club with upper middle class folks. The best example would be the almost old people on Balance of Nature commercials.

We drove up to St Augustine on a friend's advice lovely place he said lots of history STAY AWAY FROM St Augustine!!
It's like going to Disney!!!! but the beaches are empty and spectacular.... well for Florida.

Earlier this thread I posted about Shell Point.

It is an amazing community. It was devastated by Ian. And, they took care of everyone. For months. Military grade leadership and action. My mother would not have survived physically or financially without Shell Point's devotion to the family.

Like most posts about Florida, here, this thread, I couldn't agree more. I would hate to live in Fort Myers. No hills. No trees. No curves. No sense of purpose.

I also would live in fear of any life disruption, from the weather. I'm looking for a place like home, or to return to my home, in a few years.