Calling All Tanya Tucker Fans (You Know Who You Are)

Nice Digs for a “Redneck Woman”

Like many other golf course communities that suffered during the real estate meltdown, Mystic Ridge in Tennessee had its own share of problems.  The developers, Eagle Ridge, LLC, broke ground in 2008, but nothing much happened to the area until their bank foreclosed on the 742 acre parcel of land near Arrington Vineyards about 25 minutes south of Nashville.  Activity recently resumed with the developers filing for re-approval from the county’s Planning Commission.  ”Better Late Than Never”!

Originally the development was to be called Stillwater at Mystic Ridge with homes starting at $599,000.  With the change in the market, it’s to be determined if homes will start at that price.  Included in the Mystic Ridge property is the 500 acre ranch and former home of country singer Tanya Tucker.  Her 22,000 square foot Georgian colonial was to house the community’s club house, pro shop, restaurant, pool, pool house, and multi-sport court.  A great place to dance until the “Delta Dawn”.  If you’re a “Redneck Woman” fan, you can pretend like you’re hobnobbing with “The Pride of Franklin County” while dining, swimming, and shopping in her former home.  What are you waiting for – “Come On Home”!

Why Realtors Should Write Community Reviews on Across the Fence

I was at a conference about a year ago and spoke with a realtor about the concept behind Across the Fence asked if she would write a review about a community that she was well versed about.  Her reaction was, “Why should I do this?’  I explained that if she sold homes in a particular community, people looking for information online about that community would find it helpful to know a few things about the place that might not be readily available through a standard listing.  The more information about a community there is, the more interest there will be, all leading to more possible sales for you.

Most people know that the power of online reviews cannot be disputed.  Depending on which research report you read, anywhere between 60-90% of people consult online reviews before making purchasing decisions.

If you have a listing in a gated, active adult, equestrian, or other type of private community and want prospective customers to seriously consider it for their next property purchase, write a review on Across the Fence and tell them why.   When filling out the review form, you have an opportunity to identify yourself as a realtor so readers know the viewpoint you bring.  Use your real name or website address as your screen name if you like.  For each new review submitted, Across the Fence sends the reviewer a $5 Starbucks eGift card to the email address used during registration.   Your input is valuable and welcome on Across the Fence!

Survivalist Group Accepting Applications to Live in Idaho Gated Community

Map of The Citadel in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho

A survivalist group organized by doomsday prepper Sam Kerodin is accepting applications for people interested in living in a gated community in Benewah County, Idaho.  The new development is to be called The Citadel and is expected to house up to 7000 families.  The group claims to currently have about 200 committed families interested in the community.  Before you get too excited, as with many exclusive communities, they won’t just let anyone in.  There is a fairly extensive list of requirements that applicants must meet before you can build a home within or outside of their gates.  Here are a few just to give you a taste of what you can expect as a Citadel resident:

1.  Each family must have at least one year’s worth of food stockpiled.

2.  You must pass a test demonstrating proficiency using a rifle.

3.  Children aged 13 or older must own an assault rile or similar type of weapon with 1000 rounds of ammunition.

4.  People are encouraged to raise livestock.

Still interested but concerned about how you’ll make a living in Benewah County, Idaho?  The founders of The Citadel have thought of everything.  In keeping with their focus on second amendment rights, they have already purchased land to start their own gun factory where they will be offering employment opportunities.  The group also plans to have their own currency system produced and run by their own bank.  Ambitious!

If this sounds like your idea of paradise, you can apply online.  There is a $208 application fee, but if your application is denied they’ll refund all but $33 of it.  (Administrative fees, you know.)

To find out more about The Citadel gated community, visit the links below:

http://iiicitadel.com/

http://kerodin.com/

Another Religious Community Currently Under Construction

Rendering of the Our Lady of Grace Church in the Planned Development in Maricopa, AZ

The Our Lady of Grace Parish in Macricopa, AZ received unanimous approval from from the town council earlier last year to break ground on a planned community in Maricopa.    The planned community will be built around a new Catholic church that could seat up to 1500 people.  Retail spaces, apartments, condos, and single family homes will be part of the housing makeup in the planned community.

For more information Our Lady of Grace Parish and their planned community, please visit the following links:

http://maricopacatholic.org/ourladygracechurch.org/newchurch/default.html

Catholic parish’s proposal for planned community on city council agenda | InMaricopa.com.

Kings Point: A Documentary About the Less Than Happy Side of Living In an Active Adult Community

An image from Kings Point

There is a new movie that’s come out generating a lot of buzz about what it’s really like to live in an active adult community.  It’s a documentary that was filmed by the granddaughter of a resident of Kings Point, an active adult community in Delray Beach, Florida.  The documentary has been getting rave reviews and winning awards at various film festivals around the country.

The movie interviews several residents of Kings Point and asks them what it’s like to live there, revealing a difficult side of living in an active adult community.  For example, the health of residents seems to have an impact on their social life, along with the lopsided numbers of women in the communities competing for the company of the smaller numbers of eligible men.  While the seniors who gravitate to active adult communities expected to have a vibrant social life with their contemporaries, some of the residents have said that they did not consider their neighbors to be more than acquaintances because their real friends were the ones they left behind before moving to Kings Point.

Regardless of how people feel about active adult communities, it’s probably worth watching just to get a view of what it might be like to live in an active adult community for a very long time.  Here’s a link to the movie’s website:   http://www.kingspointmovie.com/

Religious Communities on Across the Fence

It took a lot of pizza to build Ave Maria!!

The newest category of private community to be added to Across the Fence are religious communities.  We’ve been able to identify a handful of communities that were created with the idea of giving people the opportunity to live in an area that highlight the values and beliefs of specific religious.

Ave Maria is one such community that was created by the founder of Domino’s Pizza, Tom Monaghan.  The town is centered around Ave Maria University, which was the first Catholic university to be built in 40 years.  While the town is open to people of all faiths, one of the centerpieces of Ave Maria is an architecturally significant Catholic church.  Originally, Monaghan intended Ave Maria to be place devoid of contraceptives and pornography.  The laws of the land have since dictated what can actually be banned from Ave Maria.  Like many private and gated communities, Ave Maria has not been without its hard times and public stumbles.  However, it has managed to create a desirable community in what was once swampland in Southwest Florida.

For more religious communities, check out Across the Fence and select Religious in the Target Demographic box.

Clothing Optional Communities on Across the Fence

Probably not a big selling point in clothing optional communities

In our continuing quest to be the most comprehensive guide to private communities in the United States, we’ve added a new category of communities to the Across the Fence database:  clothing optional communities.  ”You mean nudist colonies? ”  Well, not exactly.  Clothing optional means that residents have the option to remain clothed, but it’s not required.  There are a handful of clothing optional communities in the U.S. with the bulk of them located, for obvious reasons, in sunny Florida.  The market for homes in these communities is surprisingly robust with less than average turnover due to the limited supply.  If you’ve had it with bulky sweaters, puffy coats, and thick boots, check out the clothing optional communities on Across the Fence!

What I Wish I Would Have Known Before Moving To A Master Planned Community

This post was contributed by guest blogger College Football Fan:

One word says it all....

After spending multiple years in a planned community our experiences and observations have made us better able to judge the wisdom or folly in having purchased a home in the community.  To be fair, the planned community we live in is very pretty, safe and there are many friendly property owners.  A later blog will describe some of the more positive attributes of our property ownership in the planned community.  The current blog will attempt to provide some first –hand, original information we wish we would have known or paid attention to before purchasing property in our current planned community.  The items are not listed in order of importance.  In hindsight, would the additional knowledge made a difference in purchasing or not purchasing in our current location?  The answer is probably yes.

1. I wish we would have had the foresight to see the astronomical increase in home insurance costs for homes on or near the east coast of the United States.    A home does not have to be on the coast to be considered a coastal county – just near the coast.  A family will have to pay three-to-five times the insurance premium as compared to what they would pay for a similar home in a non-coastal county.  Furthermore, depending on the insurance company, there may be a “hurricane deductible” in the event there is a hurricane.  The “hurricane deductible” more than likely will mean that the homeowner will be paying more out of his/her pocket than the regular deductible found in home policies.  Also, if the planned community is not within six miles of a fire station one will be in the worst protection category and consequently the premium will be extremely high.  Do not buy property in the community if the property is more than six miles from a fire station unless you are willing to pay a very high home insurance premium.
2. I wish we would have paid more attention to the lack of stores and businesses near our planned community.  The lack of shopping, health care facilities, cultural locations, etc. is an inconvenience.  One has to have a round trip of anywhere from sixty miles to 160 miles to complete various visitations.  Many of the community residents do not mind such travel.
3. I wish we would have paid more attention to the poor quality of the “fitness center” and the “library” on the planned community.  The pitiful fitness center has equipment rusting, few machines, no scheduled maintenance, cobwebs are present, and a general noticeable lack of care provided to the center.  If four people use the fitness center at the same time it is crowded.  The “library” is merely a collection of fiction paperback and hardcover books stored on some bookshelves.  There are no chairs, computers, magazine subscriptions or anything one might recognize in a “library.”  It is a “library” in name only.
4.  I wish we would have had the foresight to know that the planned community was going to set aside time for some property owners to rent the swimming pool for private use at the exclusion of other property owners who use the pool.  The excluded property owners continue to pay the full fee for the use of the pool.
5. I wish we would have known that the planned community management would close the hot tub four months every year to save money. The warmth of the hot tub in the winter months feels wonderful.  Now it is closed.  Even though the hot tub is closed the planned community still assesses the property owner as though the hot tub were not closed.
6. I wish we would have had the foresight to know that the planned community management would be unresponsive to questions and concerns.  Homeowners have commented that legitimate inquiries have been ignored by responsible planned community personnel.
7. I wish we would have had the foresight and skepticism regarding “promises” or “future plans” for future buildings and services in property literature or voiced by development salesperson.  Unless facilities or services are already established, they probably will not be provided without more money out of the property owner’s pocket in the form of an additional assessment.  After the planned community has been established for a period of time and new buildings or services are needed, there will be such a diversity of opinion on the need and costs that it may be next to impossible form a consensus to expand and improve the community.  At least, that has been the experience in our current planned community.

All above explanations are this writer’s experiences, observations and impressions.  Others who live in the planned community would take exception to the descriptions while others would say that I was correct and would probably suggest other items to add to the list.  Again, there are many worthwhile attributes to our planned community and they will be described later.

Gated Communities in New York City Seek to Let In Storm Aid

Hurricane-related devastation in Sea Gate not typically seen in New York City

Gated communities are not prevalent in the New York City area as they are in other parts of the country.  In the strictest sense, you could call all of the condos and co-ops throughout the boroughs private communities.  One community that we recently added to the database of communities on Across the Fence was Sea Gate in Brooklyn.  This community is the oldest gated community in New York City and actually has a gate and blocked street access limiting public traffic to the neighborhood.  In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, Sea Gate and other gated communities in New York are now seeking aid to replace infrastructure and other damaged areas within the communities as part of the re-building effort.  In Breezy Point, 111 homes burned to the ground as a result of Sandy.  This, of course, is raising some anger and resentment within the surrounding areas because these communities have long sought to distance themselves from the neighboring areas and exclude people who live outside of the gates.

The New York Times ran an article describing some of the contentious feelings that are now coming to light as these communities seek state and local aid to replace very costly structures such as sea walls that are vital to the ongoing existence of the gated communities.  The argument that residents of these gated communities are making is that they pay the taxes that support the building of mission critical infrastructure so they should be allowed to request aid, even if the streets are closed to the public.  Economic, social, and racial differences have all played into the sometimes delicate debate that is happening concerning how much support, if any, do the gated community residents deserve to get from the public who it keeps at bay with their gates.  The New York-area communities specifically mentioned in this article are:

• Sea Gate in Brooklyn
• Breezy Point in Queens
• Forest Hills Gardens in Queens
• Edgewater Park in the Bronx
• Tides in Staten Island
• Fieldston in the Bronx

As of now, the focus is simply on cleanup and getting back to normal.  It remains to be seen how further reconstruction is handled once people start paying attention to the legal obligations and limitations associated with these gated/private communities.

Read the full article here:

New York City Enclaves, Long Gated, Seek to Let In Storm Aid – NYTimes.com.

Read This Before Reading Another Best Places to Retire List

Boise? Really???

Every week someone is publishing another “Best Places to Retire” list giving advice on where boomers might consider for retirement.  However, these lists usually use different sets of criteria when compiling their lists, and these criteria may not be the ones that are most important to you.  A recent article in the Dallas Morning News talks about some of the things to keep in mind when perusing these lists:

1.  Keep in mind the factors that are most relevant to you and the criteria used to create the list.  Remember the earlier blog psot about retirees choosing cold weather locations over typical warm weather destinations?  What’s most important to you when considering a retirement destination – walkability? access to cultural sights?  proximity to family?

2.  Affordability.  Look at all of the costs associated with the retirement destination, not just income tax.  Consider property tax and sales tax rates and also look at whether or not you can afford the location should a spouse die.

3.  Access to services.  This was covered in a previous blog post on Across the Fence.  Are you OK with driving 20 minutes for a gallon of milk?

4.  Proximity to family.  Is being close to loved ones high on your list?  Then maybe the golf course communities several states away might lose their appeal when you wind up traveling every holiday season.

Read the full article here:

How to choose the best location for retirement | Dallas-Fort Worth Personal Finance News – Business News for Dallas, Texas – The Dallas Morning News.