You have saved and planned and are looking forward to retirement.  Choosing the right community is key.

Once you decide that Florida is the place you want to spend your retirement years, one of the next steps is to begin visiting different communities to explore which one might be the best option for your new home. 

You will want to find the perfect combination of location, people, and housing for your needs, and there are more than a few options to pick from. 

That means that you are going to have to do some serious research in order to determine exactly which community is the best fit for you and your family. 

With so many different criteria to evaluate and so many different options available, it is important to make every minute count on your visits to Florida during the community shopping phase. 

With that in mind, here are six simple tips to help you focus your search during your time in Florida. 

Take Your Time with Each Community

You will likely have a fairly limited amount of time to explore your options here in the Sunshine State. It is understandable that you will want to get the most out of every minute you spend in each community you visit, but rushing through your trip is not going to get you the results you are looking for.

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It is a far better idea to visit fewer communities and take your time exploring each one than it is to try to get through a large number of communities. In order to truly assess whether a particular community is right for you, you need to really dig in and get to know the details of that community. 

Know Your Budget

You also won’t be doing yourself any favors by wasting time looking at houses that are priced well above your realistic price range. Yes, there are some amazing houses in many of the communities you will be exploring, but your focus should be on the houses, condos, or villas you might actually consider buying. 

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Avoid Tourist Attractions

Theme parks and beaches might be among the reasons you’ve decided to move to Florida, but those are not going to necessarily be a part of your day-to-day life once you live here full-time. 

Your community shopping trip should be focused exclusively on testing out and preparing for what your daily life will be when you become a permanent resident, so leave the attractions for another time. 

Talk to Residents

One of your biggest sources of information about a community’s lifestyle will be the residents you encounter during your time there. Starting conversations with total strangers about their lifestyles might not be something you are comfortable with, but if you force yourself to do so you will find a wealth of information that is available for free.  

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Live Realistically

Once you become a permanent resident of a community, you probably won’t be going out for expensive dinners nearly as often as you will be opting for less expensive alternatives. So when you are community shopping, you should focus more of your time on reasonably priced restaurants and activities so that you can better replicate what everyday life will be like in each community. 

When you are shopping for the perfect community with a limited amount of time, everything you can do to make the most of that time is going to be absolutely critical. That is why it is so important that you maintain your focus throughout your visit. 

At the core of each of these tips is the idea that you want to do as much as possible to replicate what day-to-day life will be like in any community you eventually choose. 

And if you decide that the Villages of Citrus Hills is the community for you, then that day-to-day life will be pretty fantastic!