Any Tugger live in Del Webb's Sun City in Huntley or ??

[breezylawn]

Hi Tuggers,

My wife and I are considering a Del Webb Sun City here in Huntley, Il as our next home purchase.

If anyone is familiar with Sun City or have any suggestions, advice, etc....we would appreciate it!

Thanks,
Bill

 

[rapmarks]

two friends of ours live in Sun city in Huntley, they seem real happy with it. I could give you their emails if you wish. My in laws lived in Sun city in Arizona for over 20 years and loved it.

both of these people were originally from McHenry county also, Crystal Lake and Algonquin.

 

[Fern Modena]

It looks like you cross posted, so I'll repeat my answer here:

I live in Sun City Anthem, in Henderson, NV. And there are several people who live in Sun City Hilton Head...Jeanette is one, Dave M. now lives there, and there are a few others. We have a couple live in various Sun City developments in Arizona, too.

So, is there anything I can help you with? Feel free to ask here, or email me (there is a link in my signature).

Fern, who never knew retirement could be this good...

 

[PStreet1]

We live in Sun City West, which is northwest of Phoenix (that is, we live there when we aren't living in Mexico). I'd be happy to answer questions.

 

[breezylawn]

Sun City Lovers...replies

Thanks all...a few questions to those of you who have made the decision to move to a Sun city community....
Are you happy?
Do you feel to young to be living there?
Do you miss a basement?
What price range is best to be in for resale..if need be? $250k-400k ??
Are the activities a big cost?
What do you enjoy the most about living in Sun City?
Thanks, Bill

 

[Phill12]

Hi Tuggers,

My wife and I are considering a Del Webb Sun City here in Huntley, Il as our next home purchase.

If anyone is familiar with Sun City or have any suggestions, advice, etc....we would appreciate it!

Thanks,
Bill

The only thing I know about Sun City is the people we bought our house from here in Tracy Ca in 2003 moved there and had a home built.

They hated it and came back in 2007 and wanted to buy our house back but we were not selling! They bought couple miles from here.

We have been up to check out Del Web in Reno and no way we would want to live there.

I will say we are still thinking of the one in Broomfield Colorado though. Liked it very much and I keep up on it.



PHIL

 

[PStreet1]

Are you happy? Yes and no. We like the people and we like our house; we hate Phoenix climate. We were warned before getting there that it would be strange not having any young people anywhere, in the grocery store for example, and that lines would be slow anywhere there was one because of the very aged checking out and fumbling with their things. That has proved to be true. I realize in a few years that will probably be me, but the daily reminder isn't something I enjoy.
Do you feel to young to be living there? Yes, see above. I think if you bought in a brand new community that would be lessened because the buyers would probably be at the younger end of the spectrum. As the community ages, of course, older people begin to dominate. That results in an "old fogy" approach to many things. Being older does not always bring wisdom; sometimes it brings an inability to look at change with an impartial viewpoint.
Do you miss a basement? Horribly! We have some stuff in the attic, but one must beware of attic storage because things melt in Phoenix.
What price range is best to be in for resale..if need be? $250k-400k ?? In the Phoenix Sun Cities (Sun City, Sun City West, Sun City Grand, Sun City Festival, and one more whose name escapes me--senior moment?) that price range works.
Are the activities a big cost? No, the activity fee is about $200.00 a year per person, and that includes almost everything except golf.
What do you enjoy the most about living in Sun City? The easy access to activities, the people, the welcoming nature of the community (after all, no one was born there, so everyone is looking for new friends).

 

[Fern Modena]

Every day when we wake up we reflect upon how blessed we feel to be able to live where we do.

We're very happy that we moved to a Sun City community. We've been here over four years now. When we moved here the community was still building out, so younger people were moving in. I was still the youngest person I knew here the first two years (when I moved in I was 54). I'm still pretty much the youngest in my circle. Most of my friends are 62-70, with some even older. The number really doesn't matter to me, its the joy of life, how compatible you are.

If you move into a community which has been built out for years, the people living there will be older. We have four Sun City communities here, and two of them have residents who are much older than ours, because their communities were built out over ten years ago. That means that most of the original residents would be older than 65, many of them considerably older. That's not a bad thing, per se, but the older people get the less they tend to use the amenities. And the less they use the amenities, the less they want to pay for their upkeep. Stable dues are a good thing, but not at the expense of letting things get run down.

I don't miss a basement, because we scaled way back and got rid of many things before we moved. We also have two beds with storage under them, and those suspended garage shelves that hang above the cars. We had a shed at our previous house, but we can't have one here. That's ok, cause some of it was gardening tools, and we have desert landscaping now.

I can't advise you on price range. Make sure you find a place you want to stay in.

Most activities and clubs are very low cost. Our clubs generally have dues of $5-20. a year. Our computer club, for example, costs $15. a year. That gives you free use of the computers in the lab, free classes, and two hours of in home troubleshooting or individual lessons for $20. Mah Jong, Bunco and most card games are $5. or less a week. The fitness center is free if you are using the aparatus, walking track, or swimming. Lessons of any type are $3. (there are punch cards that make this even less). We have shows from both the outside and by our Performing Arts groups. Outside shows cost $10-25. max, and Performing Arts ones are generally $5-10. We also have bus trips to Theater at St. George or Spring Mountain and other activities. And a free casino shuttle bus comes just about every day for a six hour jaunt to various casinos (all of which also have movie theaters, and you get buffet coupons, too).

We love living here. We are very active and involved, and have many friends. Where I lived before everybody else was young and had families, and I didn't have much in common with them. Here its different. Everybody is from somewhere else, so you always have a conversation starter. I've met and made friends through volunteer work I did (as a Welcome Lady and in our Community Service Club), at the Computer Lab, and through the local access television station Jerry works at.

Will you like it? Only you know. If the people where you live are friendly and kindly, I think you'll find the people at Sun City to be the same. If they are a bunch of mean, unfriendly people, then you may find that your new neighbors are the same.

If you move to Sun City, your best bet is to get involved immediately. We went to our first club meeting before we were here a week! I urge all the new women I meet to join things. If they are married, I tell them that it is important to join things "for themselves," not just partner things. As you age, you may come to a point in your life where you'll need to be surrounded by a circle of friends.

Hope this helps you, and wasn't just a ramble...

Fern

Thanks all...a few questions to those of you who have made the decision to move to a Sun city community....
Are you happy?
Do you feel to young to be living there?
Do you miss a basement?
What price range is best to be in for resale..if need be? $250k-400k ??
Are the activities a big cost?
What do you enjoy the most about living in Sun City?
Thanks, Bill

 

[Mimi]

Fern, thanks for your input. I would love to move to a retirement village, but DH is perfectly happy remaining in our home. I am 63 and he is will be 65 in February. How much do the monthly fees average in Sun City developments?

 

[PStreet1]

In our case, the $200.00 per person per year is the total that is manditory. After that, anything else is optional. Our fees are pretty much like those Fern quoted: $20.00 a year for computer club, etc. Golf is inexpensive compared to other places one might play, and the $200.00 a year per person does not include golf.

Of course, if you choose a duplex rather than a stand alone home, there will be monthly dues for upkeep. In our area, there are separate areas that do have monthly bills for outside maintenance ($30-$35 a month), but most stand alone homes do not have a standard maintenance bill. You either do it yourself or hire it done.

 

[Fern Modena]

Mimi,
Next time you plan to be in our area, if you'll have a car, let me know and we will show you and your dh around our area.

Our maintenence fees are $275. per quarter. They've been stable the past five years. We live in a gated area (not all of Sun City is gated, just our 219 house area), so we pay an extra $90. a quarter for that. This is because we must pay for gate repair, but also street lighting, common grounds maintenence (landscaping), street cleaning and paving, among other things. We consider it to be a good value since we have two large community centers (one, at 77,000 square feet is the largest private community center in Nevada). Among our amenities are indoor and outdoor pools, a fitness center, tennis and bocce courts, arts and crafts rooms (including a fully equipped ceramics and porcelain room), computer labs, a state of the art woodworking shop, a live entertainment theatre, over a half dozen multi-purpose rooms, etc.

Fern, thanks for your input. I would love to move to a retirement village, but DH is perfectly happy remaining in our home. I am 63 and he is will be 65 in February. How much do the monthly fees average in Sun City developments?

Fern

 

[PStreet1]

I think if you google the various Sun City communities, you'll get lots of information, pictures, etc. This link goes to the hospital that is within Sun City West http://www.sunhealth.org/delwebb/

I imagine you'll find more information than you want. In addition, I'd make our www.flickr.com page with pictures of everything from rec. centers (7 of them and 7 golf courses) to churches and houses available if you want. The amazing, and wonderful, thing to us was that no matter the age of the community we looked at--and we looked from Florida and North Carolina across the U.S.--everything was beautifully maintained. Pride of Ownership is truly apparent.

 

[SunSand]

Very informative thread, for those of us within the 10-year retirement window. Trust me, when your in the thick of a career, dreaming about retirement can be fun. Your insider talk gives people like me, a viewpoint that I'll never hear from a retirement community salesperson. Glad I stumbled on the thread.

JT

 

[taffy19]

Mimi,
Next time you plan to be in our area, if you'll have a car, let me know and we will show you and your dh around our area.

Our maintenence fees are $275. per quarter. They've been stable the past five years. We live in a gated area (not all of Sun City is gated, just our 219 house area), so we pay an extra $90. a quarter for that. This is because we must pay for gate repair, but also street lighting, common grounds maintenence (landscaping), street cleaning and paving, among other things. We consider it to be a good value since we have two large community centers (one, at 77,000 square feet is the largest private community center in Nevada). Among our amenities are indoor and outdoor pools, a fitness center, tennis and bocce courts, arts and crafts rooms (including a fully equipped ceramics and porcelain room), computer labs, a state of the art woodworking shop, a live entertainment theatre, over a half dozen multi-purpose rooms, etc.



Fern

Fern, you showed us your home and casita and also the club house and area looking down on Las Vegas with all the lights but far away from the crowds. I really liked it and certainly the nice community and clubs and lifestyle you can lead in a place like that. I had never thought that people will age when the community gets older but that is true and if that bothers you, you better not buy there.

It wouldn't bother me because I would be older too but it is hard to face for younger newcomers. I wished these communities were near the ocean but I don't know of any on the west coast. We have an old "Leisure World" community next to us in Seal Beach but the units are dark and old and very outdated and you can't do anything unless you ask permission first and may not get it because it is a coop.

I would rather live in a regular condo now but not my DH. He still likes his house, garage and yard and we have no basements here. I am so ready to move as I cannot take care of the house nor can my husband after the stroke and we had our plans in building in Oregon on our beautiful lot and live in our condo in Mexico in the winter. Now we are stuck with both and not moving and it is hard to sell real estate in this cycle we are in right now.

Making plans so far in advance is not always wise as life can change all of the sudden and your dreams will no longer materialize. You may want to think of that too.

 

[Fern Modena]

Emmy brought up one very important thing I had not thought about. All Sun City Communities (and virtually any other retirement community or master planned area) has in place CC & R's, which are Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions, or "The Rules Here." The CC&R's state what color you may paint your house, if or how you can add to it, what your landscaping must look like, how you must maintain the outside of it, etc.

It sounds onerous, and it can be if you let it. But know that there are no autos on the streets overnight, nobody changes their oil on their lawn, there are no weed-strewn lawns, no decrepit houses. In our area the CC & R's state what sort of minimum landscaping we should have, and you have to file a plan (and get it approved). For most lots the front must have 2-24" box trees (no olive or oleander), a 15 gallon tree, 5-5 gallon shrubs, and other smaller ones every X-many feet. You also have to put a 5-gallon minimum shrub in front of your air conditioner so it can't be seen from the street. Since they don't say what sort of plants and trees they must be, there is a lot of variety.

That's just some of it. We wanted to put an awning over the BBQ, which is on one side of our house. The overhang was 2 feet into the buffer area (in my area that is 9 feet on each side). Rather than require a variance, however, the committee approved it on the basis that it would not be down all the time. They approve more than 95% of all plans the first go-round.

Jerry was worried in the beginning that he wouldn't like "all that regulation," but now that we are here and he sees how nice it makes things he loves it.

Fern

 

[taffy19]

Fern, it is not a problem when the community is still very new and up to date. It is a good rule because it keeps the neighborhood look nice and homogeneous but once a community gets very old, they won't let you make improvements with new windows or facing that are not in style with the rest or enclose a patio to make an extra room. My mother and partner moved away because they could not remodel the way they wanted at that time so they moved to Oregon and we fell in love with Florence, a little city on the ocean where they have seventeen lakes and the dunes as well as forests and waterfalls but lots of rain too.

 

[Fern Modena]

Depending on how your lot is situated, you can make additions to it. Our neighbor above us added a huge, 3 room Casita behind her house (she lives on a pie shaped lot in the key of a court). Another friend added a large, handicap accessible suite to the front of her house. The lady down the street added about 10' to the front of her casita. All the plans were approved, because they still had the minimum setbacks and were to be in the style of the original home.

It depends what you want to do to your house. If you can't conform to rules, it isn't the place for you.

Another thing I didn't think about...our community has a rule where nobody under 19 can live here for longer than 180 days a year. Our granddaughter came here to go to Culinary School, and she had to live elsewhere since she was only 18. It probably was better for her, anyway. But if there is any chance that you could become guardian to grandchildren, this wouldn't be the place for you. You'd have to leave. Harsh? Yes, it is, but lines have to be drawn somewhere. We raised our kids and now wish to live in a child free community.

Fern

 

[breezylawn]

Thank you all....now who wants to sell their golf car?

Thank you all, for the info on Sun City. We are putting our home on the market..say prayers everyone, and joining the many happy homeowners in Huntley. Sooner or later we will be one of the older people there so at 55 we will get a head start! SO, who is selling off their golf car?????? Email me!
Bill