This is the 4th and possibly last lesson for interior decorating. If you’re new to this, you can reference some of our other interior decorating tips by following the links at the bottom of this page.

Anyhow, there was one last topic that I wanted to discuss, and it’s a big one, not just because it can have a big impact, but also because it’s usually the largest, heaviest part of decorating your home.

You guessed it, I’m talking about the furniture.

One of my biggest gripes that I often fought decorators on, was that their choice of furniture rarely lent itself to any degree of practicality.

Often, especially in a model home where the furniture will not actually get used for anything other than looks, you can get away with impractical furniture. But in a real house, being lived in by real people, you have to sometimes make compromises.

One thing to keep in mind though, as you plan your trip to your local furniture store, is the size of your furniture.

Scale Is Important

It’s not only about what will fit.

So you buy a new house, and the first thing you do is take out your tape measure and see how much room you have to fit that huge comfy plush sofa.

Before you run off with credit card in hand, stop and take one more measurement of your room. This one has nothing at all to do with a tape measure either.

When you’re looking at your room, regardless of whether your dream bed or couch fits, consider the overall scale of your room.

If the room is large, then by all means, grab that plush, butt absorbing monster of a sofa. But if your room is somewhat smaller, you might want to reconsider the style of sofa.

Small rooms often lend themselves better to small furniture. Now when I mean smaller furniture, they could have similar dimensions, but a 7 foot sofa can be so plush and puffy that it might look twice as big as another 7 foot long sofa that doesn’t have all the extra padding and pillows.

I remember one time, we had a model decorated with an elegant fluffy sofa. It fit very well in the space, but made the room look super tiny and claustrophobic.

In that same room, we replaced that sofa with one that didn’t look nearly as plush, but was still attractive, and all of a sudden, that tiny room became a large family room.

This same principle can work in reverse. Maybe you have a small space, but by filling it up entirely, you can make the area look bigger. This is often done in small narrow areas that you might not normally think to put something, but when decorated, can have a real impact.

One last thing:

You can decorate your home to your heart’s content, however, there is one last thing that really makes a good home pop, and that is you. No amount of designer furniture or useless trinkets will make your home amazing without you.

Without you, your house is worth little more than a photograph that is admired one minute and forgotten the next. You however won’t be forgotten, regardless of what your house looked like.

If you’re the sort of person who values friendships and loves people, then you are already leagues ahead of the crowd. If you’d also like to live around more like-mind folks who are genuine and amazing like you, then check out one of our communities. We only create lifestyle-oriented communities with you in mind. This could really be the neighborhood you’ve always dreamed about.

For previous articles on interior design, check out these previous posts:

https://www.leisurevillas.com/interior-decorating-101/

https://www.leisurevillas.com/interior-decorating-102/

https://www.leisurevillas.com/interior-decorating-103/

Who would’ve guessed that the whole world could’ve changed so quickly?

It seems like only a couple weeks ago, everything was normal and routine.

Well, where do we go from here? If you’re a senior and have been considering a move, you might be wondering if that’s the best idea anymore.

With the uncertainty in the economy, and the risks associated with this new virus, its hard to predict what comes next.

Whatever happens though, keep smiling. The next month is going to be very uncertain. But after that, we should start seeing some light at the end of this crazy tunnel.

Important Things To Remember

This isn’t the end of the world, unless it is…

We’re no stranger to shocks. We’ve experienced them before. In every case, we’ve come together as a country and pulled through them.

9/11 is a perfect example of when the whole country stopped in shock at what was then, an unprecedented attack on the United States.

If you look back, you’ll remember times when things looked pretty bleak for our country. Eventually, things got better.

This current upset will get better too. For those who are better able to whether this storm, we can look to the future as a bright spot. We can take comfort knowing that the world will still press forward. We can keep an eye out for those whom we can help, and we can make the best of a bad situation.

I have two such examples to relate:

As I was talking with our friendly sales staff this week, one of them mentioned how in their 55+ community, they had a couple of seniors who were at a higher risk for complications if they got sick. So they have isolated themselves in their homes.

Neighbors have rallied around them and dropped off groceries and other goods at their doorstep so that they don’t have to get out and be exposed to what might otherwise be a life-threatening disease for them.

This is what our communities are all about. Friendships and genuinely caring for each other.

Another example of kindness came from a story one of our employees related. Salt Lake City was shutting down in-house dining at their restaurants. This employee got together with a good friend to enjoyed one last meal out before the closures took effect.

When they finished with their meal, knowing that the waitress was going to lose her job that night, they made sure to leave an extra large trip, multiple times the cost of their meal.

There’s nothing we can individually do to stop the hardships that come from today’s circumstances, but there’s plenty we can do to make the best of a bad situation.

The Sun always comes up tomorrow, so we can all live the best that we can today, and be as positive as we can today. Because if for some reason the Sun didn’t show up tomorrow, no amount of pessimism today would make a lick of difference.

We’re doing our part.

If you’re a little shy about coming out and house hunting at this time, we completely understand your hesitancy. However, if you are still interested in moving forward, we want you to know that we are still in business.

Whatever happens in the economy, we’re going to do our best to keep as many of our people employed, and to keep you safe.

After every visitor stops by our sales office, our sales staff has been disinfecting all of the surfaces that the potential customer came in contact with, so you can feel comfortable coming into a clean sales environment.

We want to keep you safe, and keep you comfortable, whether you’re as healthy as a millennial, or whether you’re at a higher risk from this virus.

Good luck, and don’t forget to smile!

 

It’s Monday, March 16, 2020, and what a wild ride these last couple of weeks have been!

Any hope of containing the corona virus outbreak is seemingly futile. If you own stocks, you’re probably tearing your hair out right about now. If you’re in a high-risk category for complications due to the sickness, then you’ve probably got even more to be worried about.

On top of all that, the world’s economies are going to take a hit and fall into recession because of this microscopic pest.

With all this commotion, you may be wondering if it’s time to paint lambs blood over your front doors.

So what can seniors do?

Turns out, there are some bright spots for those willing to make the most of a scary situation.

Looking On The Bright Side

Mortgage rates

A couple of weeks ago, when this virus hit, the mortgage market became very attractive. 15 and 30 year mortgages on homes got as low as 2.5-2.8%. That’s barely enough to keep up with inflation!

These rates have since bounced back into the 3% ranges, and who knows what will happen this week with the Fed cutting its rates to 0. Its funny how we were expecting rates to start climbing over the last couple of years, now we expect them to remain down for some time.

Chances are that rates in the 2% range will remain rare, but if they hold within the 3% range, then this is an excellent time to buy a house.

In Utah, the housing market looks to remain strong. There is still plenty of pent-up demand and not enough homes being built to satisfy that demand. We may be starting into a recession, but overall, we’re in a much better position than we were back in 2007/2008. I would predict that this will be more mild even than the recession of 2001.

Considering that some homebuilders, especially us, are offering some deals on ready to move-in homes right now, this is definitely a buyers market.

Stocks

While it does seem like a nasty blow to the stock market right now, keep in mind that these are the times that make people a lot of money. If you’ve ridden this market all the way down, history shows that eventually the market will come back.

If you have money to invest, then there will be some really good deals to be had in the stock market. I defer to Warren Buffet when it comes to my own investments. If you find a company at a price you know is good, don’t try and time the market, just buy at that really good deal and hold long term. A deal is a deal, and this too will pass.

Its not all about the money

Though it is true, recessions and downs in the markets can provide some interesting opportunities for those who are able to take advantage of them, there are some real concerns that should be addressed.

Since we cater to the 55+ market, some of our customers might be in a high-risk category for complications due to this virus.

Since we highly encourage active and social lifestyles, we feel it important to urge extra caution at this time. It’s unlikely that our residents will escape this pandemic, even if they decide to be completely anti-social. It’s likely going to keep spreading and exposing a lot of people. From what we’ve heard, the goal now is to slow it down, so that the health care system doesn’t get overwhelmed all at once.

Because of this, we ask you to take a close look at yourself and your neighbors. Even if you think that you’re fine weathering the virus, keep your neighbors in mind. If you’ve been around people who’ve been sick, even if you’re not showing symptoms yet, please exercise a little more caution around those most vulnerable.

On our part, we’ve met with some residents and decided that our monthly potlucks should also be postponed until this is a little more under control.

We all know proper hygiene. Wash your hands with hot soap and water. This is much more effective than wet wipes and hand sanitizer (which have become scarce, anyway). Since Covid 19 is airborn, limit visits with at risk individuals, and if you are an at-risk individual, please be extra careful. It’s not possible or practical to completely quarantine ourselves till this passes, but please take necessary steps to remain safe.

Luckily, high-risk individuals have better options for staying safe at this time than ever before, especially in our 55+ communities. Since our communities are so friendly, and everyone has been around the block a few times with hardships and other things, we like to think that those living in our communities are fairly level-headed. With this wisdom, often comes compassion.

Among the most crowded places to visit right now are the grocery stores. If you are high risk, and need help with groceries or other needs, check with your neighbors. There are plenty of friendly people in our communities who are healthy and active, and of a lower risk, who would be thrilled to do you a service.

Luckily the hording is settling down too, so grocery stores will be able to catch up on their stock.

Other options are to use online delivery services. Places like Amazon and Walmart can make it so that you rarely have to even visit the grocery stores. Things like social media can also help provide social interaction, which, though it will never fill the need for actual personal interaction, it can make things easier.

With every big pharmacy chasing vaccines for this, it shouldn’t be long before this whole thing is behind us. We dealt with this before when we had Swine Flu, Bird Flu, Zika Virus, and West Nile. We’ll get through this also. Until then, be careful, and take care of yourselves.

Disclaimer: We are not financial or health experts. Please consult your financial advisor before taking any action in the stock market. Also, please defer to experts on public health. The comments expressed here are merely the opinions of the author and are not to be construed as definitive advice.

 

We’re there, part 3 of our beginners series on decorating.

So far, we’ve talked about trends, and colors, and finding the right style to suit your needs. Today, we’re going to discuss the little things.

What do I mean by little things?

Well, I’m talking all the finishing touches that separate most decent decorating jobs from the jaw-dropping amazing jobs, the kinds worthy of being displayed in a magazine.

Keep in mind, this part deals with small stuff, but it can be the hardest part of making your place look right.

It’s The Little Things That Matter

Fufu

No, I’m not talking about someone’s dog. I’m referring to the knickknacks that serve no purpose, other than aesthetics.

When you go into most homes, you’ll get a quick impression. We’ve all been there. There’s the crafty family who moved in and did something fun with the walls and made them look trendy. There’s the toy house, which represents any family with kids. And there’s the almost-hoarders, who haven’t thrown away a single thing in over five decades, and it’s all crammed into every conceivable nook or cranny of the home’s arrangement.

Whatever home it is, it usually doesn’t look like it should ever be featured in a magazine. But whether you want to sell your home and have some wow factor to it, or whether you’d just like your neighbors to be impressed, you might want to learn the art of fufu.

Adding fufu is all about making the room look complete without being cluttered. Last time we talked about color, and color still applies when using fufu. All those visible items that you put on dressers or shelves or counters, need to match your home’s color theme if you want maximum impact.

There’s a couple of hard things about this. First, is that most fufu is useless.

That’s why if you’re going to be living in it, you need to flex those creative muscles a bit and find pretty things that you still use every day. Like your salt and pepper shakers. Chances are, if you’ve been using the same shakers that look like spotted heirloom elephants for the last fifty years, they probably don’t really go well with anything.

Also, your work shoes aren’t generally considered fine décor, but something to organize them out of the way, and mostly out of sight could be a great piece of décor.

Another thing about fufu, is that you don’t want to fill up any shelf or space completely. There’s a fine balance between having enough stuff, and having too much. Personally, I’m a very practical person. If I can’t find a use for something, I don’t like keeping it around. So when it comes to the little things, be smart about it. Folders, reams of paper, mail, cutlery, kitchen appliances, none of these are good decorations, but in our homes, many of these things are necessities. If they absolutely must be visible, make them match your color and styles, and where possible, hide the rest. That’s what cabinets and pantries are for.

There are many creative and attractive ways to live in the messes we make, but they don’t often look good on their own. They take some effort. 

Lamps are often used to decorate, and here’s a dirty little secret, 50% of lamps that are used for decorating, don’t even work. That’s right, they’re not plugged into anything, and some of them don’t even have light bulbs. They’re just for looks. But light is often an overlooked aspect of decorating. This is a whole can of worms that we’ll discuss in another blog, on another day.

Don’t let it happen on its own

There is no right or wrong way to use fufu when decorating. It is a very personal thing, and it should reflect your values. From the art you put on your walls, to the knitted quilt you drape across your sofa, you make your space your own, but if you could employ one little rule, it would be this:

You decorate your space, not your stuff!

It won’t happen on its own. If you let the items you’ve collected over the years dictate how your house looks, it will look random and unattractive. That brings us to the second biggest challenge of decorating: keeping up with your changing environment.

Face it, we all evolve in our tastes and it really seems like a waste to throw out old stuff. Maybe it’s an inherited item form our great-great-great somebody, or maybe it’s a kinky gift our kids gave us. Some things are difficult to not use. There’s a place for a lot of those things, but it isn’t always visible.

So when you’re adding little things to a room, be purposeful about it. Often, it’s the little things that complete the mood of your home. 

Some people make a living from organizing homes and picking colors. Most of us, do not.

There are however a few tricks that even the most amateur do-it-yourselfer can do that will make your living space pop.

Today, we’re going to check out a few simple tips. This isn’t a definitive guide to all things decorating, but if you feel clueless about organizing your space visually, then this can only help.

We’ll break down a photo for you, and see if we can show you how to take “Blah” and turn into “Brilliant”

Decorating is in the details

Movies, they know color

This is why I’ll break down an image from a popular film. I do this, because online, we often see beautiful images of interior design, like this image here, or the one above. And like these pictures, it’s hard to imagine how you might actually live in a room decorated like this, despite how visually pleasing it is.

In movies, we can actually see people interacting with well crafted spaces that look livable.

Let’s look at the movie Matilda. 

Below, you can see a well-crafted scene of a living room. Keep in mind, I’m not suggesting that you

consider TV dinner trays part of your décor, those are props meant to show the lifestyle of this fictitious family. what I want you to look at, is the actual decorating.

1st Color:

As you may notice, the coloring here is very consistent. This scene follows a similar coloring scheme as every other part of the movie. They do this to make the whole thing visually pleasing. 

As you can see, there are several colors here that follow a fairly analogous style of mixing. Everything from the curtains to the painting on the wall, to the sofa, the carpet, and even the lamp have matching colors within this theme. They’ve taken this a step further and matched the costumes as well, mostly because the movie’s costume department and their decorating department were wanting to stay consistent.

But what are matching colors?

There is a very helpful tool online called Adobe color. I used this site to evaluate these colors. You can play around with it also. https://color.adobe.com/create

For any given color there are different ways to match that color. Like I mentioned above, this scene is very analogous. That may not be a term you’re used to hearing. Here are a few other ways to match this same color scheme:

As you can see, there is Analogous, Monochromatic, Triad, Complimentary, Compound, and Shades.

You can see how the relationships work on these color wheels.

Also keep in mind that you don’t always want an equal amount of every possible color that works well. When decorating, most decorators will have their primary color (think wall paint), then an accent color (think baseboards/casings), then a couple other colors used sparingly.

Notice in this picture, the cream is the primary color, the tan is the accent color, and the green and brown are other matching colors that blend in well but are used sparingly.

In the Matilda picture, the yellowy/mustard is the primary color as seen on the walls and some furniture. Pink is the accent color, and green and black are the supporting colors, used more sparingly.

So which colors are right for you?

In all the years that I’ve been building and selling homes, I’ve seen it all.

I’ve seen people who’ve painted their interiors to match something you might find in a colorful Caribbean town, to deep purples, to light and airy, and dark as leather can be stained.

This all depends on your personal character. If I were you, I’d pick my very favorite color, then go to Adobe’s color matching website and have fun experimenting for a while, using that as your primary or accent color. Don’t worry if your colors don’t match whatever you saw in your local home show. Find the color scheme that works well for you, and you’ll be half-way there.

Next time, we’ll talk about how to organize your space for maximum impact.

Building a house is what we do well. But there’s more to a good house than a winning floorplan.

I’ve seen some houses with horrible layouts sell extremely well, and all because of how the interior was decorated.

In fact, I employed this once when I owned a super cheap 700 sq ft apartment condo conversion. While everyone else was trying unsuccessfully to sell their condos for $40,000, I decorated mine to look as photogenic and targeted as possible.

The result was that while nobody could sell their ugly condos at $40k, I got immediate offers on mine for around $55,000.

The moral of this story, is that looks do matter, and today, I want to go over a few key principals that will help even the most clueless decorator get off on the right foot.

Decorating to Sell or Decorating to Move In

Know the basics

Maybe you want your home to show well for potential buyer, or maybe you want your next home to really feel like you. Either way, there are reasons for decorating well.

Over the years, I’ve learned that most people think they’re fine without hiring a decorator. In many cases they are. However, in several cases, they just have no idea that they don’t have a clue.

But not all of us want to spend money on someone who’ll design our living space for us, especially if they get it wrong.

So for the do-it-yourselfers, here’s a simple tip on making your space look better.

Trends come and go, but personality is consistent

What do I mean by this? Well, do you remember when everyone needed to have a fake porcelain chicken somewhere in their house? That was a trend.

Are you noticing how many houses lately have been painting their brick? Yes, another trend.

Trends change every few years, and it can be incredibly hard to keep up with them, considering the costs involved with house finishes and furniture updates. So rather than focus on what’s trendy, focus on your personality.

Personality guru’s often claim that there are about 4 main personality styles. There are the bold go-getters, the gentle peace-makers, the party nuts, and the extremely analyticals. Take a look around you sometime, and you’ll notice that many people tend to fall into some of these categories.

Each of these personality traits comes with a certain preference for color. Often the bold go-getters like the darker colors, like blacks and browns. Decorating for this sort will often include deep rich colors, like you might find in an old gentlemen’s club.

For the gentle peace-makers, light and airy would make them feel more comfortable. They look for harmony and bright happy feeling places.

For the party animals, get your color on. They’re happy with a lot of different colors and trends, and they’re more forgiving of clutter. Not that you should have a cluttered feel, but functionality isn’t as important as making their place feel cool.

For your analytical friends, they tend to prefer functionality over coolness. They still like their house to look good, but they’ll be more likely to tell you that your picture is crooked, than to tell you which picture to hang.

So which is right?

If you’re decorating to sell, consider this, the people who’re most likely to buy quickly are the bold go-getters and the party animals. They tend to make decisions quickly. So decorating with dark or fun colors, and showing the creative coolness of your space is important.

Gentle peace-makers and analytical sorts are a little slower at making snap decisions, with the analytical being just a bit quicker. The analytical people will want to understand everything, and the gentle peace-makers will want to try the house on for size, and know that if they sign a contract, they can back out if it doesn’t feel right.

If you’re decorating for yourself, then ignore the trends. White may be all the rage, but if you are a bold go-getter or a party animal, white might not be your thing, and you’ll probably feel more comfortable with a less trendy, albeit nice style. And vise versa. If the trends shift around, and suddenly people are decorating with chickens or maybe even ducks next, and you are the analytical sort, you can expect all your analytical friends to laugh at your decorating decisions.

Decorating is very personal, and trends are not. There is always a way to merge them together, but just because you’re seeing nothing but white painted brick, with white cabinets and white everything else, doesn’t mean that you should be changing your whole style to match these homes.

In another couple of years, black will be the new white, and who knows, maybe big metal stars on the outsides of homes will trend again. In the end, match your scheme to your personality, and you’ll enjoy your space much better.

 

The other day, I was talking with one of our friendly sales staff, and she was talking about our product and the market.

“OK,” says I. “What are you noticing?”

She’d been getting a few people in who were concerned about the cost of a new home, and they were having a hard time adjusting to the current level that most homes are being sold for.

During our discussion I asked what the visitors thought about our prices and the value that they were finding here, in one of our active adult communities.

This is what she had to say:

“Price Hurts, Value Makes Up For It.”

The Comparison

We don’t generally like to compare our business to that of our competitors. This is for a couple different reasons.

First, we want to be the leaders in our industry. If we’re constantly comparing, then we might fall into the trap of keeping up with the other guy’s innovations. For the last couple decades, we have had the best product on the market for retirees, and we want to keep it that way.

Second, we don’t exactly build the same sort of product that most other builders are bringing to market. While most of them are building standard attached and detached homes, we are building lifestyle oriented homes and communities.

Having said that, my sales lady shared a key difference between our product and those around us. When someone first comes to our community and steps into our sales office, one of the first questions they ask is: “What is the price?”

At first glance, they often have that, “Mmm-hmmm” moment, where they try to make sense of the price. They may be comparing us to another builder down the road, or they may be wondering what their current home is worth.

Over the past decade, home prices have gone up a lot.

Sometimes, they’ll wonder if our prices are higher than our neighbors, and they’ll show us those other quotes. At first glance, there might be a price benefit in the other guy’s offer, but then we show them the standard features of our homes, like standard stainless steel appliances, or the standard 2-tone paint that is in most of our communities, even standard quartz countertops.

Then when they get looking at the cost of additional upgrades, they’re really surprised, because we aren’t charging nearly what the other guys charge.

For a lot of builders, selling upgrades is a major part of their profit. For us, we understand that our buyers are looking for those same quality finishes, but we don’t want to gouge them for it either. Instead, we provide a lot of those things that other builders would charge you through the roof for. And if you do want something more, our prices on additional options are reasonably fair.

Once you compare finished closing prices, with all your options included, most buyers come to realize that our homes are actually the better value for their hard-earned money.

On top of that, we also provide something else that others just can’t compete with, and which is nearly impossible to assign a dollar value to, and that is the friendly lifestyle that makes our communities the havens most people dream of living in.

There is no comparison

Dollar for dollar, Leisure Villas offers the best value for your money. For peace of mind, you can’t beat the sort of neighbors you’ll be sharing your neighborhood with. And for fun, well, you can image what it’s like living around a bunch of folks who are at your same stage of life.

Make the smart move today to a Leisure Villas Community.

 

In 2019, Leisure Villas designed and built our first Stratford model home.

Traditionally, we build homes for active adults, and since we understand that stairs and yard maintenance might be difficult down the road, we design with things like that in mind.

But one thing we hadn’t tried yet, was to build a home that had two master suits. This should have been a no brainer. As we age, we understand that we can love our spouse enough to kindly sleep in different rooms.

Snoring, waking up when our partner has to pee several times a night, or other things can make a good nights rest difficult. So why wouldn’t we want to consider a home with two master bedrooms?

See What It Looks Like

Models open for viewing

Our first Stratford home sold before we could model it. Since then, we’ve built a few more, and finally we have two that are decorated and a third which is almost ready for showing.

The first, fully decorated model is in our North Ogden 55+ community, Cherry Springs Villas.

But what if you live in Salt Lake or Utah County?

We have some closer to you, also. In our Herriman 55+ community, Midas Creek Villas, we just finished moving furniture into our Stratford model. We still have a few foo-foo items to put in, like paintings, plants, etc. But for the most part, you can come and get a good feel for what that home could look like if you were to move in.

Also, in our Saratoga Springs 55+ community, The Villas At Legacy Farms, we are in the final stages of decorating that model. Within the next month or so, we should have a wonderful showpiece of our Stratford in Utah County.

Designing with Seniors in mind

The Stratford in the next in line of our age specific housing floorplans. We’re constantly honing our designs, making them fit the needs of our customers.

This plan came about from listening to feedback from our happy customers. Aside from adding another master suit to this floorplan, we also would occasionally find potential customers who had disabled children or spouses living with them.

Since all of our homes are already ADA adaptable, they were great for folks dealing with these sorts of issues, however, we thought we could make some improvements, specifically for those who struggled with wheelchair accessibility.

Thus, the Stratford’s second master bath, is also more accommodating to movement with wheelchairs. It is also the only floorplan we currently have, that we can easily modify to add ADA cabinets/countertops as an upfront option, if desired.

This floorplan is very unique, compared to what you might find out on the open market. All of our plans are uniquely designed for active adults, but this special house adds one more reason why Leisure Villas is the homebuilder of choice in Utah for folks 55 and older. So if you want more than just another house, more than just another regular neighborhood. We build houses that fit you with your current and future needs in mind, and in communities that fit your current and future lifestyle.

 

There’re a few times each year that we really ought to remember our significant other. Among those times, are Valentine’s Day.

Just because you and yours are likely to be grandparents now, it doesn’t mean that all the fun needs to grow old. In fact, seniors and near seniors probably have more freedom now than you ever did when all the kids still lived at home.

But even still, finding a worthwhile date idea that is new and exciting can be stressful.

So today, I felt like sharing a few ideas around Utah and Salt Lake County, that might make 2020’s Valentine’s Day all the more memorable.

Make This Valentines Special

Our top 3 Valentine ideas in Utah

First idea

Painting the Night at Scera. Have fun creating your own 9”x12” painting. Here, you’ll be able to follow along as an accomplished artist takes you through the steps of making your own art.
You’ll get to play with acrylics and take home something that hopefully you’ll be proud of. And if you’re not proud of it, at least you’ll have had fun making it, and maybe even go home with a prize on top of that.

To learn more, check out their link here: https://www.heraldextra.com/calendar/arts/paint-the-night-at-the-scera/event_1427087a-878b-11e7-9c58-f375a006bcc6.html

Second idea

The Illusionists are a Broadway spectacular. They will be coming to the Eccles Theater in Salt Lake. If you’re looking for something purely magical for your Valentines date, well, it don’t get much more magical than this.

Get your tickets in advance and prepare to be wowed by their amazing talent and showmanship.

You can read more about them here: https://www.saltlakecountyarts.org/events/the-illusionists/

Third idea

When is the last time you got all dressed up fancy for a date and went to the ball?

How about a masquerade ball?

If you’re feeling adventurous, then throw on your finest formals, and get your masks ready to go, because at the Provo City Academy Square Library, they are hosting a dance with dinner and live Jazz entertainment.

This is one unique opportunity, a throwback to a long-gone age, that you almost can’t afford not to attend.

Check out this events details here: https://www.utahvalley.com/event/valentines-masquerade-ball/27217/

Or throw your own party

If you live in one of our 55+ communities for active adults, and you’re not feeling cupid’s arrow exciting you about any of the above listed date ideas, then try putting together a Valentines party of your own at your community clubhouse.

Chances are good that you’ll find some fun couples who’d love to group together and make this year’s celebration one to remember.
After all, that’s one of the great benefits of living in a 55 and older community—you get to be around lots of folks your own age and have a huge family of friends to spend time with. If you put your heads together, you’re sure to find plenty to do.

Who knows, maybe you’ll even get talking, and get a small group to go out and enjoy a night out on the town. And if I happen to see you at the masquerade ball, I’ll be the one wearing a mask.
Happy Valentines Day.

A few years ago, I was talking with a relative. She was in her 80’s at the time. She put her hand on my shoulder and said, “You know, the last time I went to the movies was when they were showing Grumpy Old Men.”

What? That was in 1993!

She hadn’t been to a movie theater in about 20 years!

I know she has a bunch of girlfriends that she spends time with, and maybe movies just aren’t their thing, but when you look at the options on the big screen, do you really feel like paying good money for any of them?

So I thought, with your help, it would be fun to start a list of movies that you like.

We’ll try to keep these updated as best we can, and maybe on your own, or in your community movie nights, you can use the list we create to help you plan your next movie.

So please, participate!

Movies For The 55+ Crowd

Your Favorite Movies

Let’s get this list started.

It’s no secret that Hollywood today is churning out mega blockbuster after mega blockbuster. But they’re targeting a certain demographic, which is the 13-29 year olds.

Sure, they, or some independent producer will come out with the occasional film that really works for more than that crowd, but such gems aren’t always the easiest to find, especially if you’ve grown tired of fruitlessly checking the theater listings.

So let’s pool our collected experience together and make a list of movies that you actually enjoyed, so that we can share this with others in our communities.

The following is a brief survey. Please take a moment to answer these 4 simple questions. Notice, we’re not asking for or collecting any personal information. Let’s have some fun with this. If we get some good responses, we’ll post the results in a few weeks. So fill it out, and ask your friends to do the same.

Today’s problem with cinema

There’s a growing problem in movies today. Most of it started around the time that digital filmmaking became accessible to the masses. Suddenly, amateur filmmakers didn’t have to save up for a year, just to buy film stock and rent a cinema quality camera.

On top of that, digital platforms for releasing content has taken the world by storm, empowering anybody with a digital camera to challenge Hollywood for next to nothing.

While this might be great for some up and coming talent to learn the trade, it has also bypassed the gatekeepers that screen the scripts for quality, making it extremely difficult for the really great independent films to get noticed amidst the clutter.

To combat this tidal wave of low and microbudget films, the big production companies in Hollywood have shifted focus to producing films with budgets that no independent filmmaker could ever hope to achieve.

Where they once made plenty of movies with budgets in the $5 million to $25 million range, it seems like they keep pushing the bar higher, with budgets easily hitting the $1/2 billion range.

In order to make their money back, they have no choice but to target those who shell out the most cash in ticket sales and fan merchandise, which is the 13-29 year olds.

But just because the 55 and older crowd isn’t their main target audience, it doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy those ones, or that there are no other movies more to our tastes. They’re just not as easy to find.

So if you live in one of our awesome 55+ communities, you should check out your movie club. If you don’t have one, then start one. The theaters in our clubhouses are great places to meet.

After all, even a great movie is best when it is shared with friends.

January 15th

It’s been over a decade since we’ve posted an official online special, but today, we’ve got two.

At The Villas At Waters Edge, one of our newest 55+ communities in Vineyard, Utah, we have two great models that we need to sell asap.

They are to be sold, as is, with current colors and upgrades. There is nothing wrong with them either, but we need to move them in the next 30 days, so we’re willing to make a killer deal on them.

Discounted Home Sale

Home #1

In Building 4B, we have a beautiful Windsor Court with a bonus room above the garage.

The interior is finished with a durable wood laminate floor and brown cabinets.

Originally, this home, without any upgrades, would’ve started at $414,900. With the $8,000 up extra finishes we’ve put in, this one would normally go for $422,900

However, if you come in and buy within the next 30 days, we’ll sell this home to you for a killer deal of $399,900.

That’s a $23,000 savings! Woo-hoo!

Home #2

Here’s another Windsor Court with an upstairs loft.

This home has our most preferred and expensive cabinet upgrades, along with our popular laminate wood floors.

Normally priced at $427,863 with all it’s upgrades, we’re letting you steal this home for only $404,900, that’s another savings of almost $23,000 bucks!

This home has been under contract multiple times, but for various personal reasons, they were forced to stay in their previous homes. 

It can’t get better than this

These are both really great homes, but because we’ve held onto both of them for too long, we need to sell them quickly. We’re not in the business of paying interest on vacant homes, which means that this is a great opportunity for you.

Granted, the interior finishes have been decided for you, but if either of these homes looks like they hold 

the style you might normally pick anyway, then stop on by and see if they’ll work for you.

Deals like this don’t come along very often, at least, not with our product. So if you’ve been out there, wishing and hoping for a deal in this crazy market, then this is it! You’ve found it.

At these prices though, they won’t last long.

If however you’d like to pick out your own upgrades, and customize the home to your personal tastes, you are still more than welcome to come on by and purchase one of our award winning homes that hasn’t yet been finished. Of course, these amazing deals won’t apply to those. This is only a special that applies to these two inventory homes that we want to sell today.

Once they are sold, then the deals are gone. So if you’ve been wanting to live in an active adult community, complete with the amenities and lifestyle that you’ve always hoped for, but were limited because of the high real estate prices, then this is your lucky day.

Give Josh a call now, 801-438-6546 and let him know you’re on your way in. He’ll be happy to show you around, and your future neighbors will be excited to meet you also. In fact, as I was taking pictures of these homes the other day, in preparation for this article, one of the neighbors came in to welcome me, hoping that I was their new neighbor.

This is a truly social and fun community. Come on by and see what you’ve been missing.

 

No 55+ community is complete without a clubhouse. After all, one of the big draws for an active adult to move into our communities, is the enhanced lifestyle they’ll get to enjoy.

While having a clubhouse means little as far as how social a community gets, it still serves as a central hub for bringing people together.

Even for people who aren’t as involved or who don’t care so much about socializing with their neighbors, the clubhouse can provide some fun for individuals and couples.

For instance, if you have grandkids visiting, the swimming pool, billiards, or theater room are great to entertain with.

If you just want to keep fit, water aerobics, lap swimming, or working out in our top quality exercise room are excellent amenities that will keep you active and happy.

Villas At Legacy Farms Clubhouse Progress

Timing

Earlier this year, we submitted plans for our clubhouse to the city. It took several months of planning to get them submitted, and we have since made some improvements and modifications to the original submittal.

As of December 2019, we’ve resubmitted the clubhouse plans for review with the city. We expect to install a foundation sometime in February of 2020, which means that the clubhouse will most likely be finished before the end of 2020.

By that time, the community will be approximately two-thirds built out, which means there will be plenty of people ready and excited to start using it.

Generally, we like to have the clubhouse under construction already. In this community, that didn’t work out quite as fast as we’d hoped. However, it will be done before we finish building everything out.

What about the models?

If you’ve visited the Villas At Legacy Farms recently, you may have noticed that we have 4 model homes showing. These models are currently being decorated. We anticipate this to last for at least another month.

Visitors are welcome to visit any time before or after they are decorated. We keep them open from 10am to 5 pm Monday through Saturday.

As soon as they are decorated, this will be one of the first communities we’ve built to showcase a fully decorated version of our newest model, the Stratford.

Easier to find than before

For the last few weeks, there has been a lot of road construction along Saratoga Road. This has made it a little harder for folks to find us. However, within the last few days, the road has been opened to thru traffic again, and you should have no problem finding us.

While Saratoga Road is one of the more scenic drives to get to the Villas At Legacy Farms, you can also get here very easily via Redwood Road.

There’s a lot happening in Saratoga Springs right now. If you’re 55 years or older, and are considering a move that will place you with lots of great people your same age who share similar interests, you need to come over and see what this community has to offer you.

Welcome back from the Thanksgiving holiday, and welcome Winter. Living in a Leisure Villas Community is awesome when you’re over 55, but alas, we still live in Utah, which means: Snow and Ice.

The good news is, that your HOA hires out snow removal. This is great, but there are still a few things that you can do to ensure that this Winter doesn’t keep you slipping.

Among those things are heat tape and ice melt. We posted a helpful article on ice melt a few weeks ago. You can link to it here.

Today, I want to discuss heat tape.

Getting The Most Out Of Your Heat Tape

What is heat tape?

Some of you might be familiar with heat tape. For others, this may be the first time you’ve heard of it. Heat tape isn’t really tape at all. It’s a plastic-coated wire that warms up and melts the ice that touches it.

In our 55+ communities, we learned early on that heat tape was very valuable to our homeowners. Icicles and ice dams on the roof often cause a lot of concern for people.

Generally speaking, these icicles and ice dams aren’t the big problem. People often fear that they’ll cause damage to the homes. In most cases, this isn’t a big deal. Roofs are waterproofed in such a way that most minor ice dams will not get so far up under the shingles that it leaks into the house. Also, most icicles will not hurt the structure of your house.

The biggest problem with ice dams and icicles, are the lakes and rivers of ice that form below them. This is why we install heat tape on all of our homes in areas of concern. It’s not because we’re afraid of ice hurting the house, we’re afraid of people slipping on the ice that comes from the stuff that is dripping over the edge of your roof.

Heat tape can be used in a multiple of ways. Sometimes it is wrapped around pipes to keep them from freezing, sometimes it is zig-zagged across roof sections. For our homes, and our purposes, we’ve placed the heat tape inside the gutters, running them down through the downspouts.

This is generally effective, but it requires knowing how to manage the heat tape on your (the homeowner’s) end.

How to use your heat tape

The heat tape we install, since it lays down inside the gutters, is most effective if it is turned on before the snow falls. If the snow is already piling up on your roof, you should quickly ensure that it is on.

As piles of snow melt on top of your roof, that melted water drains to the gutters. The gutters, if cleared, will let the water escape down the downspout like it should. If the drains or gutters are blocked with ice, then the water freezes on top of the gutters, forming those large slabs of ice that overhang your roof.

We install heat tape as a preventative measure to keep the ice dams and icicles from forming in the first place, by keeping those gutters open. However, if you are too slow at getting your heat tape turned on, and the ice dams and icicles have already formed, well, you might be out of luck. At that point, the heat tape will only tunnel an ineffective hole through the middle of the dam, and fail to clear out the ice above it.

By having the heat tape turned on, the melted water will fall into the gutters and stay melted long enough for it to follow the heat tape through the downspout and away from your roof. Depending on where the downspouts land, there may occasionally be some ice runoff to deal with there, which can either be mitigated with some ice-melt, or with warmer temperatures of the surface as the sun hits it. This cannot be totally avoided, but for the most part, there are only a couple of weeks where the temperatures are so chilled, that it requires a little extra attention and caution.

What about higher energy costs?

Good question. Heat tape does require electricity to run. Since the wire is run to your personal meter, you are responsible for the energy it uses.

However, the heat tape is designed to only come on at and below freezing temperatures. If you look at the end of your heat tape, located at the bottom of your downspout, you’ll notice a little attachment. This is a thermostat. It measures the temperature and activates the heat tape accordingly.

So while heat tape will add some extra costs to your monthly energy bill, it should do a pretty good job at only running when the temperatures require it. This is why we recommend turning your heat tape on at the beginning of the season, then forgetting about it until the end of the season before turning it off. That way you don’t forget to turn it on when you really need it.

How do I turn my heat tape on?

If you’re not sure how to turn your heat tape on, the switch for it (assuming you bought into one of our communities) is either located behind your front door, and/or next to the door leading into your garage (on the garage side).

On many of our homes, we’ve installed switches in both places, mainly to run different sets of heat tape. In some of our newer homes, we may have abandoned the switch by the front door, and placed all of them in the garage.

Check out both places. If you find switches that don’t turn on any lights, then chances are good that these are the heat tape switches. The ones behind the front door usually control the heat tape over the front door. The switches in the garage usually control that heat tape over the garage and back patio, though we never actually install it over the patio.

Also, if you have a switch that doesn’t actually control any heat tape, since that area might have been deemed a low-risk area for ice accumulation, then that same switch can always be used to power a set of Christmas lights. All that you’ll need to do is have an electrician change out the blank plate where the heat tape would normally go, into a GFCI outlet, and you are good to celebrate the holidays with lights.

If you’re new to your home and you have any questions, feel free to ask one of our sales or construction representatives. And as always, we wish you a very safe, and merry Christmas season this Winter.

Every year, we get very busy in the Fall. We’ve been developing quality 55+ Communities for a long time now, and every season, when Winter starts knocking on our doorstep, we start building out ahead of ourselves to get ready.

In Utah, it goes without saying, that the seasons can change significantly. There are always challenges to working in each of them, but usually, Winter and Spring are the toughest.
However, even though we know that building will be harder, most homebuyers really hate delays. It’s our goal to reduce such frustrations, but sometimes, even with our decades of experience, Mother Nature can still play havoc with our plans.

Battling the Elements

Everything gets harder when it’s cold

During the warmer months of the year, we tend to get spoiled. But just because winter shows up, it doesn’t mean that we stop building. In most cases, we try to get all our foundations in the ground before December. Usually, we have great working conditions until about the second week of November, depending on the year.

After that, we can’t easily install more foundations until late February or April.

Everything outside also goes slower. Stucco, brick, and stone have to be tented and heated so that they don’t freeze before they harden.

Also, the dirt usually has some moisture in it. When this freezes, it causes the dirt to heave. That means that pouring concrete gets very difficult. You don’t want to pour concrete on frozen ground, or else when it warms up, the ground will settle under your concrete, and suddenly, your sidewalk will be an inch or two lower than it should be.

So how do we still pour concrete in the Winter? Its not easy. We have to either warm up the ground or dig out the frost.

Also, we must use blankets to cover the concrete once it’s poured. This keeps the concrete from freezing and losing its integrity before it’s cured. This however creates an unavoidable staining on the surface of the concrete. Unfortunately, the stain cannot be removed. It’s caused from trapped chemicals that are trying to vent off of the concrete, but have nowhere to go. Often, these stains will fade somewhat over the years, but they are often a necessity of working in the Winter.

Dealing with snow

Snow is also a problem, but not always for the reasons you might expect.

Snow can actually help insulate the ground. If there’s a large blanket of snow covering the ground, then the frost layer of dirt cannot get much below 32 degrees. This means that the frozen dirt will be very thin, and we won’t have as hard of a time prepping for the concrete.

Naturally of course, this causes a ticking clock to start as soon as we remove that covering of Winter fluff, but if we predict super cold temperatures, we almost always hope that it is preceded by about 12” of snow.

The biggest problem with snow, aside from not being able to work on landscaping, is what it does to us in the Spring.

Depending on the location and the soil types we’re dealing with, that snow will eventually melt and saturate the ground. Sandy soils are heavenly, but in Utah, we’re usually dealing with a lot of clay.

Clay does not release the water very quickly, which means that we are often stuck with very muddy conditions for a longer period of time.
If that snowy Winter is also followed up by a rainy Spring like we had this year (2019), well, expect major delays.
When it’s muddy, we can’t do a thing. Our machines get stuck, our concrete can’t be poured, and everything becomes a mess.

What is this year’s forecast

According to the long-range forecasts by the NOAA for 2019/2020, this Winter is expected to start off warmer than usual with average precipitation. They predict that El Nino has a 50/50 percent chance of ending, and sending us into a neutral weather pattern, which basically means, that everything is very uncertain.

Reading the tea leaves, I would suspect that we’ll have a fair amount of snow, but it won’t usually stick around too long. This might take away any insulating blanket we might want over our soils, allowing frost layers to go deep, especially on shaded areas.

Really, it’s impossible to know for certain what will or won’t happen. We can only do our best to mitigate possible delays. Most likely they’ll happen, but to what extent, we can’t say. The best way for a homebuyer to keep up to date, is to call every couple of weeks and check on the progress, especially as the time to close draws near.

Good luck. We’ll do our best this season also, and we wish you a wonderful and safe Winter this year.

If you are 55 or better, and have been contemplating moving to Vineyard, Utah, then you owe yourself a trip to The Villas At Waters Edge.

Over the last couple of years, we’ve been working hard to get this new age restricted community up and going. We’re excited to update you with our latest developments.

With all the construction happening around Vineyard, we might be hard to find, but come looking. You’ll be pleasantly surprised with this cute community tucked in, only one block away from the shoreline of Utah Lake.

What’s Happening as of 11/11/19

Clubhouse Update

For our residents and recent visitors, you may have noticed that the Clubhouse at the Villas At Waters Edge community is nearly completed. Last week, we paved the parking lot, and soon you should expect to see the back patio getting concrete.

Once that is in, weather pending, we’ll get the pool fence in and hopefully get occupancy soon after. Once that happens, the clubhouse will open for use, and we’ll be able to get parties and activities going.

Furniture, exercise equipment, and decorations have been ordered, and should hopefully arrive by the time we are ready to open the place up.

The swimming pool will not be opened this year. Sorry for anyone who was hoping to do some polar bear plunges, but it didn’t make any sense to maintain a pool that wouldn’t get used. It may even look like the pool isn’t finished.

While the equipment will all be fully installed and ready to run, the pool shell itself will remain un-plastered. This is because the plaster requires the pool to be filled, or else it will not set up properly. But as soon as the weather warrants it in the spring, we’ll get the pool plastered, filled, balanced, and opened so that our residents and their guests can enjoy it for the entire season.

Phase II

As we finish selling out the first phase of our Vineyard Community, we’ll begin building in the second phase. Already, you may have seen some work being done over there. If you are already living here, then thank you for your patience with any dust that we might have kicked up.

Over the next month, we plan on finishing this phase, and being ready to place foundations for our next set of homes on that half of the community.

As we build, we sometimes make minor changes to floorplans, or styles. Our floorplans are always evolving. Often, though not always, we might elect to make these modifications when we start a new community, or when we start a new phase of a community.

Rest assure, any changes we make are generally minor, and happen in response to changes in suppliers, of materials, processes, or other logistical or market variables. While we may or may not change anything in phase 2 of this community, it will still look and feel as though it belongs to this same development.

If you’re not sure if this is the right time to move to the Villas At Waters Edge, might I suggest that you come and talk with Josh, our friendly, no hassle representative here? He currently has an open house in our Grandview model, and will soon move that office into the Clubhouse upon its completion.

He’s there most days from Monday through Saturday at 10am to 5pm. While there, you can walk through our model homes, maybe even meet some of the neighbors in this social environment and see why so many adults are excited about a Leisure Villas home. We build them right, and help you achieve the lifestyle that you’ve been working for.

Do you remember the song: Signs, signs, everywhere a sign, blockin’ out the scenery breakin’ my mind…?

Well, sometimes, us developers are guilty of a few too many signs. The problem with signs, is that they work. Our statistics show that about 75% of homebuyers find a community by finding and following a sign.

Granted, in this day and age, the internet is an amazing tool. But for some reason, signs still play a dominant role in helping people find their next home.

So what happens when a city says, no more signs?

Cities are Getting Tough on Signs

Nobody likes signs

Signs invoke a lot of mixed feelings. Nobody wants their residential neighborhood to be cluttered by these advertisements. Sign pollution is a real thing in some neighborhoods.

On the flip side, many businesses make a living by doing business in residential neighborhoods, namely the builders who build residential communities. The problem we face, is that once a neighborhood gets going, the neighbors want to get rid of our signs.

Also, cities struggle to maintain landscaping in certain areas when builders plant signs in their way.

We certainly understand this. For the most part, we try very hard to be responsible about how and where we advertise. There should be some sort of balance between accommodating, and keeping the world beautiful, hence the need for reasonable regulations from the cities.

Sometimes though, the regulations imposed by a city can get out of hand. Sometimes, even the well thought out regulations can be too restrictive in certain locations. For instance, if we have a community that is tucked into a sweet little pocket of a city, we can’t always get signs where we need to help people find us.

How to find us

The internet is a great tool, but especially for new communities, online map services and gps don’t always lead people to the right locations. This is because, they are highly dependent on outdated information.

For example, when we start a new community, for at least one, sometimes up to three years, GoogleMaps still thinks that our new residential community is still an empty field. There are things we can do to help correct that, but often those changes still take a year or two to get updated in their system.

One of the best ways to find us, is by visiting our website, and finding a location on our Communities Page. There, you’ll be able to find a general location for one of our 55+ communities. We show our communities that are now selling in Blue, and our sold out communities in red.

So find one that is near where you’d like to live, then follow the link to see it’s actual location. We specifically pin the location of our communities on a GoogleMap, so that you can more easily get directions right to that place.

Granted, this won’t completely negate the need for signs. Part of the fun of house hunting, is driving around areas that you’d like to live in and seeing what’s out there. Just remember, next time you’re out looking for a 55+ community, pull off to the side of the road and check out our website. Almost always, if there is a community near you, you’ll find it here before the big search engines realize we’re there.

Communities that might be hard to find now (as of October 2019)

Vineyard, UT- The Villas at Waters Edge has just become a little harder to find. As of this week, we’ve had to take down several signs. While it may be harder to find us, we are still there, and will be selling for the next few years.

Saratoga Springs, UT- The Villas At Legacy Farms is another one that is not so easy to find unless you know where to look. Though, granted, there are a lot more newer homes being built there now, you might want to check us out and see if this is a community for you. We’ve just moved our sales office to one of our brand new model homes there, so come and check us out.

Herriman, UT- Midas Creek Villas isn’t as hard to find, but if you’re looking for a true age restricted community on the west side of Salt Lake County, this awesome location is hard to beat. We’ve just barely moved our sales office into the newly finished clubhouse there. Come check out the lifestyle that could be yours today.

North Logan, UT- Cherry Springs Villas is a new 55+ community that isn’t hard to find at all, but GoogleMaps is still struggling to associate this location with it’s address. That will get remedied in time, but for now, you can check out this link and get directions right to it.

About two months ago, I had a conversation with my plumber. It went something like this:

Me- “What do you get the most service calls on?”

Plumber- “Plugged up sewer pipes.”

Me- “Really, do people flush that many toys down the drain?

Plumber- “No, believe it or not, they are flushing wet wipes down the drain.”

Me- “Wet wipes? Seriously?”

Plumber- “The packaging on some of them says that they are flushable. That is totally bogus!”

So today, I want to get to the bottom of flushable wet wipes. (Sorry, pun intended.)

Flushable Wet Wipes Cause Clogs

Soft enough?

About two years ago, I took a trip down to Cozumel. Beautiful beaches, scuba diving, and a nice resort hotel. I couldn’t ask for more. Then I got the American briefing on toilets—no toilet paper allowed. At first, I thought they were joking, but no, we were not allowed to flush our toilet paper.

This was my first experience with binning toilet paper, rather than flushing it. In my mind, I was thinking, doesn’t toilet paper dissolve in water? So why can’t their sewage system handle it there? And seriously, this is too nice of a resort to make me do that!

Well, I don’t know all the answers. But what I now know, is that their sewer systems weren’t designed to flush the soft paper products like we’ve grown accustomed to in the U.S.

Likewise, our sewer systems here in the U.S. were not designed to handle wet wipes. While manufacturers claim that their products are now flushable, they don’t appear to dissolve nearly as well as regular toilet paper.

Unfortunately, there is a growing trend among Utahn’s of all ages and genders to switch from using common TP to using these wipes. On the whole, they may feel better, but believe me, they cause a lot of problems.

Problems with flushable wipes:

While in theory, flushable wipes make sense. They’re soft, moist, sometimes pleasantly scented, and supposedly break down like common toilet paper. If however, they did break down fast enough, then sewer districts would not be considering lawsuits against the companies that make these wipes. Yep, that’s right. Our government entities, responsible for cleaning up our crap, are throwing the towelette back at these companies.

Apparently, the large, and expensive grinders (think hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars) used to macerate our flushables, are getting damaged almost monthly because of wipes. A piece of machinery that would only need servicing every year or two, is now needing to be replaced every few months!

It’s not just them that struggle, but it’s our sewer pipes as well. If normal toilet paper or refuse gets stuck in a pipe, the water will usually break it up quickly and send it on its way. Since wipes take a lot longer to break down, any little hang up will create a sudden buildup, until eventually, the plumber needs to get involved.

By the time a clogged sewer is recognized, well, nobody is happy.

What to do?

The simple and most obvious remedy, is to avoid flushing wipes down the toilet. If you simply must have that moist towelette to clean yourself, take a lesson from our neighbors down south, and use a waste bin next to your toilet.

I know that if you’re not used to binning your dirty paper products, this can seem a bit disgusting, but surprisingly enough, this is practiced in many parts of the developed world.

Plumbers and sewage workers will thank you. Frankly, you’ll thank yourself also if it keeps your drains from backing up on you.

Its funny what a little bit of news can do to buyer sentiment.

In 2018, around this same time, we were having to raise our prices to keep up with the explosive real estate market. Today, the landscape is completely different.

Over the last several months, things have changed. We’re constantly being surrounded by talks of recessions and Federal Reserve interventions.

So what is the deal? How is this all affecting the Utah housing market?

Shift in Homebuyer Sentiment

The biggest change

The first and perhaps biggest relief to many homebuyers, is that housing prices have settled in 2019. At Leisure Villas, we’ve been able to keep our prices from climbing this year, despite ever-increasing labor and material costs.

This is definitely good news to anybody looking to buy a house. The problem is that prices aren’t likely to go down, even if all this talk of recession turns out to be true. The reason is, that demand is still so high, that all we’re likely to see are stagnant prices for the next year or so.

Buyers are more risk-averse

The second interesting change that has happened, is that people have become increasingly wary of a recession. This has led to fewer people buying houses months in advance. Instead, they are opting for homes that are already completed and move-in ready.

There may be multiple explanations for this behavior, but to us, it signals that they worry about being able to sell their home in the future. If they are worried about selling a home in the future, it makes them more likely to wait until their house is sold before they move.

This only makes sense, but there are a few challenges or compromises that must be made when buyers become so risk averse. One of which, is that they don’t get as many choices about the custom features that they can place in their new home.

Also, they are limited by the homes that a builder has completed and waiting in their inventory. This may mean compromises in floorplan choices.

Interestingly enough, most homes are still selling very well. Across the nation, and here in Utah, homebuilder sentiment is actually up. More building permits are being submitted than in years past, and demand for those homes is expected to rise.

This means that your home still has a good chance of selling after you list it. However, as mentioned before, prices have stopped ballooning like they were in the last couple of years. So you won’t likely sell your home for a lot of extra, above and beyond what you could’ve gotten last year.

How can we help?

Our shift during the last several months has gone from pre-sells to existing sells. This means, that as fears of a recession continue to mount, we’ll be building more homes and stocking them for people who are ready to move in quickly.

Granted, we still have many people buying in advance, but on average, we have between two and four homes that are move-in ready every month. In many of our 55+ communities.

If you have just sold your home, and need a place quick, check us out. In most cases, we can find you a home that is perfectly suited to your needs and tastes, and have you in, before you can say [to your children], “Do you have an extra room?”

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been surprised to see mortgage rates dropping, again!

For many of us, the years of double-digit mortgage rates are still fresh in our memories. To think that these rates we’ve seen over the last few years will continue, is almost unimaginable. How long can interest rates remain so low?

I don’t know the answer to this, however, I do know that the Fed lowered their rates again, a pre-emptive attempt to keep the economy humming along. What this means, is that from this time last year, mortgage rates are back near all time lows, a whole percent lower than last year.

Crazy, isn’t it? And that’s after interest rates rose from last year to December.

But what does this mean for you? Lets get into it.

Houses are more affordable now

Price hikes stopping

Over the last few years, we’ve gotten used to house prices climbing drastically. This last year, however, we’ve seen that trend slow, or nearly stop. While Utah County still saw price increases, albeit lower than before, Salt Lake in the last quarter, has actually seen home sales decrease.

Over the next year or so, we don’t expect to see the price of homes rising, even thought the costs to builders continue to go up.

The market is catching its breath, and that means that homebuyers finally have a great entry point.

Mortgage rates

How much savings are the new lower mortgage rates? On a $350k to $400k home, the savings are in the realm of $200 per month. Not bad, eh?

Given the higher cost of rental homes, a mortgage rate is back into competitive territory with rentals.

How long will these lower mortgage rates last? I have no idea. How long will the Fed deem the economy to be at risk? My guess, and this is only a guess, is that we have about 1 year left of lower interest rates before they start going back up again.

Will home prices go lower?

I doubt home prices will be going down. There might be a few more deals out there than before, but my guess, is that home prices will be steady for a year.

When you combine steady home prices with lower mortgage rates, we have a buyers market.

Why do I not believe home prices will go much lower than they are? Simply because there are still too many people trying to buy homes right now. There is an estimated pent up demand of over 50,000 buyers in the market who are unable to find a home right now.

With not enough homes available, competition for the homes that are out there is still likely to be strong. But with the pressures of affordability remaining strong, the prices won’t be able to fall like they do during slower periods in times past.

Homebuilding is still going strong, and with labor shortages continuing, and land increasingly difficult to get entitled for new construction, home shortages will continue, which will keep the pent up demand high.

Even if the economy slows down, I don’t see the housing industry slowing very much, if at all. Good luck homebuyers. And if you’ve been sitting on the fence, waiting for the perfect time to buy, it might be staring you in the face right now.

 

The end of the Summer is upon us. Temperatures are easing on us, and the days are getting shorter again. If you’ve been hiding in the shade these last couple of months, you’re in luck.

For a limited time, and while quantities last, we’ve decided to offer a few deals on select homes to help you get into the community you deserve.

So pucker those lips, take one last suck on that lemonade straw and tell the kid who sold it to you that you’ve got to go, before anyone else takes the deal from you.

Now is the time to snag your piece of heaven within one of Utah’s best 55+ communities.

Need a house quick? We’ve got a deal for you!

We want to get you in quick

A few weeks ago, we bought some new ground in South Jordan, and we have a few other deals that we’re looking at in the near future. We’re excited to bring these new senior communities to market, but that takes a lot of cold hard cash.

So, for a limited time, we’re willing to do what it takes to get you into a home, fast.

In two of our subdivisions, Midas Creek Villas (located in Herriman, Utah), and The Villas At Waters Edge (located in Vineyard, Utah), we have a few homes that are completed, and waiting for you to move in right away.

For the last month or two, we’ve been offering a $5000 quick close deal on these lots. That means, that if you buy it today, and can close on the deal within 30 days, we discount your home by $5000!

Not Bad, ey? But we’re not through!

While supply lasts, we’re willing to give you a little more incentives on these inventory homes, and as long as you close within 60 days of signing a contract, you’ll qualify to receive them. Depending on the upgrades that we’ve included, these deals will vary. Needless to say, you’ll want to stop on by and visit with our friendly and helpful sales staff to learn more about these awesome end of Summer deals.

Limited availability

These deals are not available in all of our communities. They only apply to The Villas At Waters Edge, and Midas Creek Villas. When the homes are sold, they are gone for good.

Maybe you’ve heard the saying before, but the home you’re thinking about buying today, will be sold today to the person who was thinking about it yesterday. These homes will sell out quickly. We’re excited to offer you these deals, but like any good business, we don’t anticipate offering them for long.

This is the time you’ve been waiting for

You’ve been waiting for a chance in this crazy market for prices to settle. Well, you found it, even if only temporarily. The big question is, will you be able to take advantage of it before it passes.

Demand for housing in Utah shows that we have a shortage of homes, by about 50,000+. That’s a lot of people looking to buy, but who’re unable to find a home. Those numbers are likely to grow. This means, that if you can find any deal now, then this is definitely the right time to buy.

Leisure Villas is proud to officially announce one of our newest 55+ Communities in South Jordan, Utah.

For several years now, we’ve been scouring this city, hoping to bring one of our luxurious communities to this place. We’ve finally found a fit and have bought the perfect property where we plan to build another quality neighborhood.

There is still some time before we’ll be able to begin construction, but if live in or around South Jordan, you are 55 years or older, and you are looking to move into a house that more readily fits your needs and lifestyle, never fear, you can still live near.

SoJo Seniors Have a Place to Live

Easy to find.

Where is this new 55+ Community located?

Well, chances are, if you drive Bangerter Highway, you’ve probably driven past it already, and just didn’t know it. Do you know where the Salt Lake Community College is? The one located on the boarder of West Jordan and South Jordan? We’re just south of that.

The approximate address is 9500 S. 3400 W.

The quickest way to find us, is to turn east, off of Bangerter at 9800 S. Go two blocks, then turn North at 3400 W. Follow that road North for a block or two, and you’ll have found us.

How long before we have anything for sale?

This community is not currently for sale yet. We still have a lot of work to do before we begin construction. There’s a couple month process involved in getting the development planned and approved through the city.

Then we’ll need several months to actually develop the land. This includes sewer, water, power—all that good stuff that goes in before a house is ever started.

If I was to offer a wild guess, I would imagine that we wouldn’t have anything ready to move into until the latter end of 2020.

That means that we probably won’t start preselling anything before January 1st 2020. As we get closer, if this changes, we’ll let you know. So check back here often.

If you’d like to move sooner than that, please consider our other community that is currently selling in Herriman, Midas Creek Villas. If you’d like, you could also let our sales team there, keep you up to date on South Jordan’s progress. They’ll likely be the same team that sells this new community, and they can reach out to you when they are ready to start actually selling homes there.

We’re excited, and hope you are too.

Leisure Villas is the gold standard of builders for folks 55 and better. Nobody in Utah has as much experience in catering to this select group of people.

Sure there’s an occasional community that springs up here and there, but most of them are short lived, and they don’t really care to focus on your needs and the lifestyles you value.

We’ve been doing this for nearly 20 years, focusing only on the 55 and older crowd. You wouldn’t buy a house to retire in from a builder who mostly does starter homes, would you?

No, you want a builder who’s focusing on you.

That is Leisure Villas. We’re excited to serve you, and we hope that you’ll be excited to see us coming to South Jordan also.

This isn’t one of the topics we often talk about here. Leisure Villas is in the business of selling quality homes to folks who are 55 and older. But with home prices in Utah continually climbing, we often get asked if we do any rentals.

Well, we don’t, but our sister company does. If you are in Utah County, and are looking for senior apartments, you owe it to yourself to stop by Pleasant Grove. Over there, you’ll find the cities biggest and best community for active adults who prefer to rent.

The place is called Grovecrest Villas.

Adding On To GroveCrest Villas

Where?

The community is easy enough to find. If you’re driving along center street in Pleasant Grove, around 500 West, you can’t miss it. Grovecrest Villas, finished over a year ago, and has been extremely popular since.

In fact, they tend to remain sold out most of the time. They’ve developed quite the livelihood there also. With lots of activities and new friendships being made every week, this is the place to be.

Because of its success, they are now adding another building to their fold. Just south of their parking lot, along Center Street, is Grovecrest Center. This three-story building will hold another 16 apartments on the top two floors, along with 20 office suites on the bottom floor.

When will these be available?

These new apartments and office suites will soon be available. Our goal, is to have them ready sometime in August of 2019, though there are still a number of little things that could delay that.

Regardless, if you have been wanting a fun place to call home, with people your same age, stop by the main office of Grovecrest Villas today, to get more information. Once these are available for lease, they will go quickly.

You can also call for more information, at 801-443-2700.

Do you have any apartments in Salt Lake County?

At this time, we do not have any in Salt Lake County, though we are always keeping an eye out for a location that is ideally suited for one of these 55+ apartment communities. We’ve chased quite a few leads on ground, but as you may already know, the price of land is prohibitive.

There’s a lot of builders out there, and there’s a lot of building happening, but margins on apartments can often be tight, and if/when we begin a new community, we want to ensure that it can be a sustainable community, one which adds value to its future residents and to its neighbors.

As Utah’s population grows, we have to continually grow to meet the housing needs of those who want to live here. Over the next few decades, experts expect Utah’s population to double in size. Currently, there are not enough homes being built to satisfy that sort of expansion.

So yes, while we prefer to build the great rambler styled communities that our homebuyers have come to love, we also foresee the need for more housing, especially in the 55 and older markets. Because of this, we will continue to grow and look for opportunities to provide housing, both rental and for purchase in the coming years.

Over the last few years, Saratoga Springs in Utah, has been seeing a lot of new growth.

Not too long ago, Lehi was the main city that bordered Utah and Salt Lake Counties. As Lehi gets bigger, a lot of that growth has been spilling into Saratoga.

When you visit Saratoga now, it reminds me a lot of what Lehi looked like 20 years ago. Not only that, but it’s pretty close to the rest of the world.

But the most incredible thing about Saratoga Springs, is that they now have a new 55+ Community being built by Leisure Villas! (I’m waiting for cheers and lots of thankyou emails)

55+ Community in Saratoga Springs, Utah

Progress

While schedules often change, we’re currently on track to finish our first building in Saratoga by the end of this September or the beginning of October. This first building will also have two models in it, so when you come to visit, you won’t feel as though you need to drive to another one of our senior communities to see what our floorplans look like in person.

If you do come to visit right now, though, you will be able to get a feel for the exteriors that we are putting on these buildings. The first building as you enter the community has a fresh new stone, which will go well with the matching brick of the building next to it.

Aside from doing both brick and stone buildings in this community, there will also be multiple colors on the non-mason surfaces. So far, these building are looking sharp. But even as good as they look right now, they’ll really pop once the landscaping is in.

We’re also about ready to re-submit our plans for the clubhouse. We’ve gotten redlines back from the city on it already, and have been working with our architect to get those requests finalized. We’re hoping to start construction on that within the next month or two.

Why Saratoga?

I’ve mentioned this in previous articles, but lets look again at all the great things that make this community so ideal. First, we have the amenities. Our clubhouse will come with our standard pool, billiards, library, exercise room, theater, and gathering room. Due to some requirements by the city, we may be turning our warming kitchen into a prep station without a stove and oven, but still plenty of room to fill the countertops with crockpots and food for serving for all of your potluck or other sorts of parties.

Nearby, like right across the street, are the new Saratoga baseball diamonds with a park, also there is inland park, and the trails through the wetlands there, the hot springs to relax in, and also the Legacy trail that goes up and beyond Thanksgiving Point.

Are you LDS? We’re within about a mile +/- of the new Saratoga temple that is soon to be built.

Not only do you have pristine views of Utah Lake, but you also have quick access to Redwood Road and Pioneer Crossing, letting you get anywhere you want to go, fast.

How to find us

This community is tucked inside the city a ways, where not many people can find it, unless they know where to look. It used to be that everyone traveling to Saratoga, would go along Saratoga road, by the lake. Now, that road is used much less frequently, as the bulk of the growth around Saratoga is happening closer to what used to be called the 4-corners area.

So to find this community, you can take that old Saratoga Road off of Pioneer crossing, and head towards the old swimming pool, and we’re just a few hundred yards north of the pool. You can also take redwood road to 400 S. and turn towards the lake, and you’ll find us.

Our sales office is open from 10-5 Monday through Saturday, and we will be happy to show you around.

 

As we age, a few things become priorities. We appreciate the time we spend with family and friends.

There are a few things that we don’t appreciate also, like the increased threats of heart attack, stroke, and other health risks.

Perhaps its these risks that make us appreciate all the good in our lives even more.

Often here, we talk about how moving into a 55+ community can be one of the best moves a retiree can do, but today, let’s shift gears a little and talk about our health.

Is it too late to change lifestyle?

Healthy habits vs genetics

There is some debate about whether genetics play a major role in our overall health, or if our lifestyles are the main culprit to healthy or unhealthy bodies.

Genetics argument

Say for instance that those family who went before you all died from a heart attack, possibly at an age that is seeming younger and younger the older you get. Also, your siblings now suffer from high blood pressure or high cholesterol also. What does that mean for you?

Many doctors agree that genetics predispose a person to having certain types of health problems, like heart disease. After all, some of these things tend to hit the whole family. Shouldn’t that be proof enough that genetics play a major role in our overall health?

Lifestyle argument

Let’s take a look at the flip side of the coin. What if genetics aren’t the main culprit in our overall health. We’ll use the same heart disease scenario as above, but look at it from a different perspective.

What if, everyone in your family, past and present, suffered from heart disease, because Great Great Grandpa loved to throw an extra lump of butter into everything and insisted on a sugary desert at least two or three times a week.

It wouldn’t be hard to see how eating like this could become addictive how kids would come to expect meals to follow a similar pattern.

So, which is it?

Probably, the answer is both. Genetics and lifestyle likely play a major role in our health. The danger comes when we rely too much on one argument. For instance, if we say it’s all genetics, and there’s nothing we can do about it, then we easily justify our unhealthy eating habits, or we neglect to work out.

If we say it’s all lifestyle related, then we ignore some of the risk factors that might come from genetic predisposition, and fail to adequately prepare for anything beyond our control.

If we are truly concerned about our health, then we need to keep both options on the table. This means that we need to make necessary changes to improve our life, along with the quality thereof.

Change is hard

If you or someone you know has gone through something life threatening, like a heart attack or some other malady, then you might know that for a short while, you are sincerely concerned about changing your lifestyle to be healthier.

However, it’s funny, but after a few weeks, most people tend to drift back into their normal lifestyle, and the urgency of their past crisis fades into a blurry memory.

Unfortunately, the older we get, the more rigidly we stick to our patterns of life. I remember having to make similar choices with my lifestyle. I used to love eating, but I have a large family with a long history of heart problems and strokes.

For me, I had to decide, do I want to live to eat, or eat to live? I also hate working out, and would always look for any excuse to avoid it.

After diving head-first into vegan, vegetarian, and other supposedly healthy diets and workout routines, I ended up settling into a pattern that works for me. I still eat meat, though not as much, I still cook with fats, though not as much, and I still consume sugar and salt, though I’ve significantly cut down on those, and my wife forces me to work out if I get lazy.

It’s still hard most days, and I’ve been living like this for a few years now. The funny thing is, though, my quality of life hasn’t gone down. If anything, it’s gone up. I get sick less frequently, and I generally feel better.

Every country has its health challenges. In some parts of the world, people consume far too much salty foods. Some consume far too much fatty foods. Here in America, we pull in so many cultures, and have so many people who consider themselves foodies, sampling cuisine from all over the world and eating out so much, that we have the worst of it all.

We tend to eat several times our daily salt requirements. Fat is in style. We love cooking with butters and oils. We eat so much more sugar than the rest of the world. Take any of our deserts to Asia, and they’ll spit it out because it’s too sweet. (Seriously, I’ve seen this a lot).

I’m not advocating that everyone become vegetarians and spend every day in a gym. I’m not that guy either. But if we take a minute to evaluate our lifestyles, openly and objectionably, there might be some places that we can find a happy balance that keeps us happy and healthy, longer.

Don’t be discouraged. Change is difficult, and it takes time and practice. It’s like moving to one of our active adult communities. They are different for many people, but once they give it a try, they wonder why they didn’t make that move sooner.

Living healthy, living happy, and helping lift those around us is all part of the journey. Give it a try. Maybe you’ll find a fresh new perspective on life. If you do, feel free to share it with those around you.

 

Over the last few years, there’s been a surge of homebuilding in Utah. Unfortunately, Utah hasn’t been able to build houses fast enough to meet the demand of current residents.

It’s hard to imagine, but Utah is increasingly becoming like California. I remember the day, when a person living in California could sell their small house there and move here to Utah with enough cashed out equity to buy four bigger houses.

Fast forward to today, and everywhere you turn, it looks like home prices are trying to catch up to states like California.

Why is this happening? Where can someone find a home? What can be done about it?

These are all questions that both young buyers and seniors are asking.

As Utah’s only dedicated builder that focuses entirely on creating 55+ communities, we find this trend disturbing as well. We know why this is happening. There are things that can be done about it, but most people don’t want to address those things. Let’s dive into the economics of it.

Why are Utah’s home prices so high?

Not enough houses.

This may surprise some people, but even with all the high-density home projects happening, and all the other development that we’re seeing in places like Lehi, Herriman, Saratoga, and others, Utah is still building too few homes to meet the demands of our growing population.

When there aren’t enough homes to supply an area’s needs, two things happen. First, is that home prices rise. This is great if you already live in a home. The value of your house is appreciating quickly. This is not so great, if you are a first-time homebuyer or if you’re a renter, because the demand for housing is pushing you out of the market.

Why aren’t there enough homes?

There are several different factors that are keeping Utah housing below demand.

1. Land available for houses is increasingly scarce. Sure, they’s land. Not all of it is prime for building on, either because it’s meant to be used for commercial projects, or because there is no water and other infrastructure to support houses there.
2. When land is available, the neighbors often protest it. We hear more about this all the time. Neighbors banding together and protesting any new development that comes in near their neighborhoods. Almost always, they site traffic as a concern, even when the streets were designed to handle the additional traffic. Really, it’s a form of discrimination. They don’t like to see empty fields turn into more homes, and when they do, they don’t want to see housing that reflects the current needs of our times. Every time neighbors protest these sorts of things, they either delay housing developments or the shut them down entirely.
3. Getting new housing developments approved through cities is a long and difficult process. Some cities are better at handing this than others, but some cities, due to lack of coordination or outdated procedures or some other reason, take ridiculous amounts of time to approve a new development. We’ve developed in cities where the process takes little more than 6 months to gain approvals, and then there’s been cities that take between 2 and 4 years! And that’s just here in Northern Utah.

What to do?

For many folks looking to move, they are left with a couple of options. First, is that they fork up the extra money to stay here where they’ve lived much of their lives. The other option is that they do what the Californians did ten years ago, and move to a state that is cheaper to live in.

For many of our homebuyers, this second option is out of the question. Much of their family still lives around here, and they want to be close to family. But if the housing crisis continues, then either seniors will be forced out of the state, or their kids will be forced out.

It takes a mental shift. Like it or not, Salt Lake and Utah counties are turning into bigger cities. If we want to keep Utah affordable, we need to not be afraid of development.

Leisure Villas is doing their part to build quality houses for folks 55 and older. We want to keep you here, where you love to live. I wouldn’t call us a high-density builder either, since most of our communities maintain a density at or below 5.5 homes per acre, but even then, we’ve seen the trend of anti-development groups gang up on home builders like us.

What they’re doing, is inflating their home values, by not allowing anyone else to move in. So while it’s in their best interest to block development in the short run, it ends up hurting our economy in the long run.

I don’t know where Utah will be in 20 years from now, but I hope that we are able to come together to tackle some of these big issues that impact us all.

 

I don’t have to tell you all the benefits of moving into a senior community. If you’re over 55, then you already know what you want.

You want to live in a beautiful home, with a low to no maintenance yard, friends your same age. You want a community that supports the truly awesome lifestyle that you’ve developed over a lifetime of hard work and hard play.

For many of you, you also want to live near family. If that family happens to be near Herriman, then you need to get in before these homes are all gone.

 

Availability Is Good, But It Will Not Last

When will Midas Creek Villas be sold out?

Construction has been steady in our Midas Creek development. This wet Spring has made building difficult, but we’re forging ahead anyway. By the time winter rolls around again, we will have gotten every last foundation placed in the ground for this Herriman community.

Granted, they will not all be built up by then, that will last through the Summer of next year. By then, most if not all the remaining homes will be sold. So if you’ve ever wondered if living in a 55+ community is right for you, then stop on by and see for yourself.

For all the fence-sitters

Making a move takes a lot of careful planning, and given how stressful it can be, you want to make the right choice, the first time. For many of you, you may have been following the progress of construction for some time.

Often, we have folks who’ve been visiting us for weeks, months, even years. Usually, about the time that they decide on which home to buy, someone else has already placed it under contract.

Well, this is it, with about two-thirds of our Herriman community sold, you need to decide if you want to live in one of our truly awesome neighborhoods here, or wait for another couple years to see if we can start another 55+ community in Herriman. By the way, as of now, we don’t have any plans for a future development in Herriman.

So come on in. You’ve been following us for a while. You know this is what you want. Let us help you make this easy and painless as possible.

Why now is the best time to buy a home in Herriman

You already know that we’re starting the last year of homebuilding in our Midas Creek subdivision, but why else should you hurry and purchase a home here?

Simple, because if you buy now, not only are you guaranteed to get the home you want and deserve, but you’ll also get the opportunity to choose out your upgrades and options and personalize your home. Otherwise, if you’re lucky enough to get the home you want by this time next year, chances are, that all those options and upgrades that you’d normally want, will be chosen already for you.

While we try to pick out color schemes that look handsome, even attractive, you’d be better off picking something that is especially unique to you.

So come in today. Don’t delay. Your home awaits, at Leisure Villas.

 

 

Every stage of our lives comes with new opportunities. New couples are likely to buy townhomes or small starter homes, families might need something larger, with a yard, and seniors will thrive best in a home designed around their needs.

When you’ve spent the majority of your time, living in your warm comfortable home, raising kids there, and building relationships with great neighbors, it can be a hard thing to move away.

What might make this decision even harder, is if you’re moving into a new home and neighborhood that is completely different from what you’ve become accustomed to.

If however, you are over 55 years old, looking to retire, or are already retired, there are some really good reasons to consider a move into a 55+ Community like the ones we build.

I’ll admit, these communities aren’t for everyone, but before you make your decision, read on a little, and see why an age restricted community is different, and why it might make all the difference for you.

Communities Tailor Made For Active Adults and Seniors

Safer

When we talk about homes that are designed for seniors, we’re talking about more than just a house. Your needs are greater than the roof you sleep under. You need a community of folks like you. Living in a 55+ community, means that everyone is around your same age. Most of them are retired, too.

This means that you automatically have a social environment, where folks know and look out for each other.

Also, since we keep our homes ADA adaptable, we usually have no stairs, unless of course you add an optional loft to your home package. Let’s face it, as we age, those joints don’t handle stairs as well as they used to.

So stay safe and move to the more secure Community by Leisure Villas, and get rid of all the stairs that are in 99% of the other homes on the market.

Easier

Do you really enjoy doing yard work? What about snow shoveling? What about mowing?

Some of you truly do like digging your hands into the soil, and our communities provide you plenty of opportunity to plant gardens and flowers, but all the other chores that go with owning a house can be difficult, or unpleasant.

You’ve worked hard your whole life, wouldn’t it be nice to let someone else do the laborious chores, while you relaxed a little more, and only do the parts you enjoy? All of our homes are in communities that have HOA’s, run by great folks like you, who actually care about your community. You couldn’t ask for a better HOA.

So go ahead, relax a little. Enjoy an extra vacation or two. Donate that snow shovel to your kids and make the easy move into a relaxed Leisure Villas Community where the exterior maintenance is nearly a thing of the past.

Kid’s comfort

One of the hardest things to do is watch your parents grow old. I’m sure most of you can remember such times. It’s sad, and scary at times. In my family, good old grandpa is in his 90’s and stubbornly refuses to move out of his split-level home.

To go anywhere, he must climb or descend at least two flights of stairs. This is after having broken his back once already and struggling with mobility issues. We all love him a lot, but we worry about him as well.

It’s easy to look from the outside in and say, “Perhaps your house isn’t meeting your needs.”

It’s another thing entirely to look at our situation from the inside out, and say, “My house isn’t meeting my needs now,” or “It might not meet the needs of me or my spouse in the not too distant future.”

For your peace of mind, and that of your children’s, do yourself a favor and move into comfort in one of our luxurious Leisure Villas Communities.

Less Lonely

The retired life is meant to be fun, isn’t it? None of us hope to die as soon as we give up the full-time job. For most of us, we’re still active and living life to the fullest. We know that coming years might not be so kind to our bodies, but we are still very much involved in everything.

The thing is, though, that once we’re retired, we find out that most everyone else we know is still busy. Our kids and grandkids come to visit, and we love their company, but what do we do when they’re not around.

Some of us are also unfortunate enough to have lost, or know that we soon will lose our significant other. Retired life can be great, but it also comes with these challenges. When you live in a community with people who are at your same stage of life, you get to make more friends that can help with the sad times that eventually hit us all.

Not only do you get more neighbors who you can relate to, but our communities also encourage getting together to meet neighbors you might otherwise not know. From potlucks, to movie nights, to lunch dates, to service projects, our clubhouses provide great places to meet and built lasting friendships.

If you want to ensure a fun retirement with plenty of friends, or if you want a supportive network of friends for any lonely times to come, move to one of our friendly Leisure Villas Communities.

Avoid assisted living longer

One thing that we are all aware of, is that we aren’t getting any younger. We hope that we won’t lose our memories. Some of us hope we won’t really die, so we choose not to think about it. Others of us, try to soak up life the best that we can today and hope that tomorrow will be good as well. There’s probably even those who look forward to the end, in hopes of a better life after this.

We all hope for things to turn out the best that they can. The longer we can put off death, and assisted living (which is arguably worse), the better we’ll be.

So can living in a 55+ community help you liver longer and have a better mind throughout your later years?

Well, let me ask you:

Would more social contact in your life, keep your mental health better?

Could a safer house prevent accidents to your physical health, and help your overall longevity?

Would you be able to avoid unhealthy physical and mental stress by not having to maintain a yard?

Many people believe that living happier, leads to living healthier, and living longer. If you believe this too, then don’t you owe it to yourself to move to a Leisure Villas Community?

Are you ready?

There are plenty of reasons why a community should be tailored to your stage of life. Given a minute, I’m sure you could think of some more than have been mentioned here.

It’s not always easy leaving the home you’ve become used to, especially when it has so many memories tied to it, but if you want to enjoy the next few decades to the fullest, then finding a home that meets your current situation will drastically improve your lifestyle.

So visit any of our communities, and see if you’re ready to make the move to one of our amazing 55+ Communities. Nobody builds them better than Leisure Villas. We’ve been at this for a long time, and we’re constantly striving to provide you with the best possible solution to your retirement dreams.

Buy a home from Leisure Villas today. It will be the best move you ever made!

 

Have you ever wondered if reverse mortgages are some sort of scam?

Maybe you’ve heard of these lending instruments, but they seem too complicated to wrap your head around.

If you’ve ever wondered about selling your home, refinancing, or just finding a way to raise a little extra cash to help you through your retirement, this might be of some interest to you.

As a disclaimer, I’m not trying to sell any mortgages. I’ve interviewed mortgage experts for the sole purpose of delivering you some of the facts, to help you better understand this lending vehicle.

Over the past several years, I’ve seen a lot of different things in the home lending world. Among these have been double-digit rates, bridge loans, sub-prime mortgages, and yes—reverse mortgages.

Some of these, are things of the past. Though, some of them might still come back, like high interest rates.

Since reverse mortgages have gone through some changes in recent years, lets dive into them, and see what they are, how they work, and if they are a potentially useful tool for you.

Are Reverse Mortgages a Scam?

Definition: Reverse Mortgage

To understand a reverse mortgage, let’s work backwards. I’ll assume that you know how a regular mortgage works. You pay each month towards your debt, part of that money covers interest on the loan, part of it pays off principle, which builds up equity, and then there are a few extra expenses that cover things like insurance and property taxes.

Pretty simple, right?

A reverse mortgage is a little different but follows similar principles.

First: It assumes that you’ve already paid off all or a large chunk of your home. It might also assume that you have a large amount of equity, even if you haven’t paid off much of it. This would be due to the value of your home going up, which in this market, most of our homes have increased in value over the last decade.

Second: A reverse mortgage flips the traditional mortgage backwards, so that your home returns money to your pocket, instead of you paying into it. The insurance and property taxes are the only exception. You still pay those.

But how is this possible? It’s pretty simple, and even safe, though there are a few things you’ll want to consider before going that route.

The 12 Nitty Gritties

1. Most, but not all reverse mortgages are federally insured, meaning that, these are legitimate lending vehicles that are backed by the United States Government.
2. You can purchase a home or refinance your home with one of these loans, you just need to be 62 years or older.
3. Under most conditions, you will still be eligible for Social Security and Medicare.
4. You keep your home. The title is under your name, not the banks. This means that if you want to sell it in the future, you still can.
5. While some of these loans can have a maturity date, the bank will never require more money from you than your house is worth.
6. These loans are for houses, which generally includes anything from single-family detached, up to 4-plex attached homes, and even FHA approved condos.
7. Like a regular mortgage, there are some credit requirements, which a lending officer would need to verify.
8. Also, like a regular mortgage, there are property requirements that your lending officer would need to verify.
9. This is not for vacation properties. You need to live in the house for at least 6 months out of the year, making it for your primary house only.
10. Naturally, there needs to be some equity in your home. Depending on interest rates, your age, and other possible factors, you should probably have about 40-60% equity in your home to qualify for a reverse mortgage.
11. The value of your home cannot exceed $726,525
12. There’s a few other piddly requirements, like you need to meet with a reverse mortgage counselor to ensure that this is a good option for you. Frankly, this isn’t a bad requirement. It would be unfortunate to enter into a long-term loan of any sort and not be fully informed of how it might affect your financial future. And of course, the government isn’t going to support this sort of loan for you, if you owe the government a bunch of money and haven’t paid up.

Why would I do this?

You might be thinking, “I’ve spent so many years trying to get out of debt, why would I want to give up all that equity now?”

It’s true, a reverse mortgage reduces your equity. That seems very counterintuitive to what we’ve been told our whole lives.

But unlike a regular mortgage, where if you lose your job, you lose your ability to pay your mortgage, and subsequently, you lose your house, a reverse mortgage doesn’t require you to pay any more than the smaller fees for taxes, insurance, and HOA dues (if applicable) each month. After all, this type of loan is for people who are NOT working, because they are retired, or close to it.

Also, as long as you remain current on those smaller expenses, you continue to own your own home, Eventually your equity position might go down to zero, but even then, the bank cannot take your home away until either you permanently move out, at which time, they will pay you or your kids the remaining equity left in your home. If there is negative equity in your home, you and your kids are not required to pay it. That’s where having a federally insured loan comes in handy. The government insures that you will not owe a dime when all is said and done.

Your kids can also have the option to buy the home for 95% of the appraised value, when you move out or die.

Most people consider reverse mortgages for the following reasons:

• They find themselves at retirement and are unable to buy a new home more suitable for their needs.
• They own their home outright, but are homebound because of a restricted budget that doesn’t allow for any vacations or traveling.
• The market is hot, and they can get more money out of their home now to use as a safety net for future needs
• They like to have extra cash on hand to take advantage of investment opportunities.
• They can have the ability to help kids or grandkids with school. This may also apply to helping with down payments on a house of their own.

Most people are afraid of reverse mortgages for the following reasons:

• They will have less money to pass on to their children when they die.
• These people are afraid that this is a sneaky trick of banks to steal their homes away.
• They have an emotional attachment to having their home paid off.
• They don’t understand how it works.

You might be asking, “Can’t I just get a home equity loan if I need cash in a pinch?”

While it’s true that most peoples’ first thought is a home equity line of credit, you have to remember, that when you withdraw money on that sort of loan, you have to make regular monthly payments again, until you completely pay back the loan. This is great for younger working families and individuals. But for retirees on a fixed income, this can be very difficult.

Is it worth it?

This is a decision that everyone has to make on their own. There are pros and cons to this decision, things that need to be thought out carefully. That’s why visiting with a financial planner might be a good idea.

For example, your kids might not get much of an inheritance. But think about you and your parents. Would you rather that they lived more comfortably throughout their retirement, and had the ability to go on vacations once and a while, or been able to visit family more often? Chances are, your kids want the best for you too, even if it means less money for them when you die. After all, you earned that money, not them. They’re working, not you. They understand this.

Other things to consider, what are your end of life plans going to look like. For many of us, those last few years might include assisted living homes or memory care facilities. These aren’t fun things to think about, but expecting our kids to take care of us might not be every parents dream. That’s why a financial planner can be very useful. It would be best to make sure that all your bases are covered, with enough left over to handle the worst case scenarios.

For the most part, you shouldn’t be afraid of a reverse mortgage. Like any lending instrument, you need to make sure it matches your long-term plans and financial goals.

For more info on reverse mortgages, please check out this Myths/Facts website that dives into all the misconceptions surrounding reverse mortgages.

As always, I hope this was a helpful and educational article for you. Here at Leisure Villas, we strive each week to produce helpful content that is relevant to our friends and family who are 55 years and better. You can visit us at https://www.leisurevillas.com/

Disclaimer:

We are not financial advisors. The information in this article is written to the best of our knowledge, based on interviews with industry experts. It should not be taken as financial advice. We always recommend that you visit personally with a qualified expert. They will be able to evaluate your current situational needs and provide the most up to date knowledge and advice. Thank you.

 

Have you ever seen those pictures, you know the ones, where it looks like everyone is happy, and life is perfect?

We all know that those are staged photos. The same thing happens with videos. I love seeing peoples reactions to videos that were staged, but made to look like real, spur of the moment, candid snippets.

So is anything out there genuine? Sure!

Is it attainable? Yep, and that’s what I want to talk about.

I’m not just talking about living in an ideal 55+ community, like the ones we build. I want to examine a few ideas that can make any neighborhood a better place to live.

What Makes A Neighborhoods Feel Good?

Consider the needs of the individuals

By now, most of us have heard of the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It suggests that we have a pyramid-like structure of needs that start from basic and climb in priority.

In a nutshell, it is suggested that the needs are as follows:

1. Physiological needs: These are things like food, shelter, sleep, the essentials for living.
2. Safety is next: Once our physical needs are taken care of, we desire a need to feel secure.
3. Belonging: This is where good friendships become highly valued.
4. Esteem: Once you have friends, you want their respect, and you want to feel a sense of accomplishment.
5. Self-Actualization: This is the peak. When everything else is satisfied, you need to know that you are living up to your full potential.

Many of us in a community live at different stages along this list of priorities. So how does this help us unite our neighborhoods and create that utopian community that we would love to live in?

I don’t want to make this a study in sociology, I would rather make this a practical tool for evaluating our communities and deciding how to increase our overall happiness. So let’s dive into it.

What makes you happy/what makes your neighbors happy?

Knowing what makes you happy will help you determine the position you hold on the hierarchy of needs. As a reminder, it doesn’t matter where you are on this list. It isn’t a competition. It’s simply a way of judging what makes you happy at this time in your life.

Physiological Needs

Are you happy if you can keep a roof over your head, and keep you and your family fed? Then you are probably at the first level. For many of us, we start out here. When we’re struggling as a young family, possibly owning a mountain of debt, and few job place skills, this can be a real concern.

Many of us might also struggle with this as we retire. Health care becomes more expensive, and our physical needs become more fragile.

Making the most of it

If you have neighbors who have real physiological needs, helping them with those needs can provide a great source of friendship and joy. Maybe it’s giving them rides to a doctor, maybe it’s helping them in the yard, or passing on a job referral. Maybe babysitting is something they could really appreciate so that they can take care of something important to them.

Safety

We are all vulnerable at times. This may come as a result of past experiences or feared possibilities. It ranges from assault, burglary, natural disaster, food poisoning, radon, to a whole host of other concerns. Some of us feel safe in any circumstance, while others of us are constantly anxious about the next possible catastrophe.

Making the most of it

Helping a neighbor with this requires us to know a little about our neighbors. Sometimes, all it takes, is knowing your neighbor to set them at ease. If they don’t know who you are, then you could be, well, anybody, even someone who is untrustworthy. Other things you can do, might appeal to your personal interests. Do you enjoy emergency preparedness? If you have a clubhouse or church house that you can meet at, you can host informative classes on your specialties. There’s a lot you can do to help people feel safe, even if its as simple as watering their plants or collecting their newspaper when they’re out of town.

Belonging

I’ve met people whose physical needs are met, and they feel safe, but who don’t feel at all like they belong. If this describes you or someone you know, what can be done to help that? You may consider yourself the perfect neighbor, and still they don’t feel as if they belong. You may not even know that they don’t feel a sense of belonging. Hint: A good clue that they don’t feel as if they belong, is that they don’t ever talk to you.

Making the most of it

One common thing that I’ve noticed among people who feel a lack of belonging, is that they don’t reach out to others. This is usually based on fear of rejection. So many people worry about being the one to ask a neighbor to be their friend. Sure, we’ve all been blown-off before, but we don’t usually know the reasons why. The best way I’ve found to help establish a cohesive neighborhood with folks who feel as if they don’t belong, is to be the one who says hello first. Make that initial contact, then follow up.

Esteem

When I think of esteem, my first thought turns to pride. But as I ponder on this more, the dreaded pride, that cripples so many people, is not so much a part of this stage of needs. While it still plays a part, it is more dangerous if someone displays a large amount of it in the earlier needs. If you feel as though your basic needs are met, and you feel as though you belong to your community, then the need for pride becomes less important, and we start needing real esteem, not fake esteem.

Making the most of it

This is the confidence building stage. People who need esteem might come off as prideful, but they might also just be searching for validation. If that can be met, then these folks will know that their opinions are worthwhile to others. Their happiness will come from being a true value to their neighbors. These are the folks who can benefit most from service opportunities. Find ways to include them and their expertise, especially as it relates to needs within your neighborhood.

Self-Actualization

These folks seem to have it all. Their focus is personal development, education, and culture. They aren’t elitists, and they aren’t always wealthy. Often they are philanthropists. These people are confident, and their happiness often revolves around their being able to contribute to society.

Making the most of it

Don’t be afraid to ask these people for help. Often, they are more than willing. They’ve already learned the importance of being involved, and they know they can be of value. Also, you can pass along fun ideas that you learn of. Maybe there’s a Broadway play coming to town, or a trip to some historic site coming up that they might enjoy visiting with you.

Summary

If I could summarize all these community building ideas into one cohesive thought, it would be this: Get to know your neighbors and serve them.

That’s almost seems like an oversimplification of it, but it can appeal to so many of us, regardless of where we are in our life’s journey.

If you’re familiar at all with the lifestyle we encourage at our active adult communities, then you’ll see how this simple thing fits into all of our programs. For instance: We encourage monthly potluck dinners, HOA involvement, movie nights, lunch dates, quilting, book clubs, aerobics, and service projects. All of these things help bring people together. If people can be brought together, then they can get to know each other. Once they know their neighbors, they become more aware of their neighbors’ current needs, and by helping them, both people benefit and the overall happiness of the community improves.

Well, what about church?

Yes, if you live in a place like Utah, where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or some other church is the dominant religion, you may know that many people are already involved in community activities and services. Does this mean that we don’t need to worry about our community?

Well, if you’re part of one of those churches, you might already feel as if many of your neighborhood needs and friendships are met, but I’ll bet that most of you have neighbors on your street, that you barely even know. What about them?

Perhaps you are not a part of that church organization, and you want some of that good neighborly vibes. There’s always a need to be more neighborly. Perhaps it’s time to step out of your comfort zone and act to make your neighborhood the sort of place where you would want to live.

That’s what we do at Leisure Villas, and you can do that too, in your neighborhood, or even in one of ours.

With Springtime here, and Summer right around the corner, I thought I’d share a few

tips on how we make our landscapes really beautiful.

Whether you live in one of our 55+ communities for active adults or not, it’s always nice to have an attractive yard.

Also, since we don’t control the communities once we’ve sold out of them, perhaps some of you living there would like to know how we did the landscaping before you took over the HOA. Many of our communities have landscape committees, and some of them have some good green-thumbs, but I’m sure that there’s someone out there who might find this article interesting.

 

How to make your planters pop.

A recipe for stellar flower gardens

Every year, we make an emphasis on dolling up our senior communities. Inevitably, this means placing large orders of flowers. But a good flowerbed starts before the flowers ever get planted.

First of all, we find that raised beds look much better than flat beds. So if you have room and dirt enough to berm your flowerbed, it will make your flowers look more bushy and full.

Also, make it easy on yourself. The last thing you want to do is be watering them each day by hand, and believe me, they like water. So plan for sprinklers or drip systems if you live in a climate that is dry, like ours here in Utah.

Next, and this is the fun part, picking out the best flowers that will make your yard pop.

Over the years, we’ve developed a short list of our favorite flowers. You could call this the Leisure Villas Recipe for landscaping:

First ingredient, is your perennials. These are important, because as their name suggests, they will come back each year. So you’ll want to carefully consider where to plant them.

There is one thing I would caution about here though. If you want your garden to look the best, don’t be lazy. It’s very tempting to plant only perennials and call it good for the next several years. This is fine, really, but if you really want to upstage the Jones’ next door, you need to take it up a notch.

I would plan for about 15-20% perennials, which can get pretty tall, and fill the rest with annuals, short and medium sized. You will want a definite variety in height.

This gives you a great variety and control over your flowerbeds.

Here are our favorite tall perennials:

Cone Flowers

Black-Eyed Susans

Daisies

For small and medium sized winners, try some of these which will often be annuals:

Snap Dragons

Salvias

Zinias (the profusion sort are really nice, but they sell out quickly)

Dianthus: These flower for a long time and are usually bi-annual or perennial.

Petunias: You really ought to have plenty of petunias. Make sure to get the ones that are most likely to be spreaders, as these will fill up the most space and cover the ground, even overlap each other nicely. They are with out a doubt the number one most planted flower by Leisure Villas.

Photogenic yards

Having a yard that would make most neighbors jealous seems daunting. But when the local pre-schools start stopping by to take class photos in front of your flower garden, you can secretly hide behind your curtains and smirk with satisfied delight.

Now, just because you have a winning combination of flowers, it doesn’t mean that you’re done. I would also recommend a few smatterings of bushes or grasses, like Karl Foersters, and even some short ornamental trees if you have the room.

Once you’ve got a good variety, don’t forget to fertilize. These flowers can look great, but they will really thrive under ideal conditions. Something close to a 16-16-16 granular fertilizer will ensure that your flowers are well fed for the summer.

Then don’t forget to pull out the weeds occasionally. Once the flowers are spread and thriving, most weeds will either be choked out or completely overshadowed by the beautiful colors, but keeping it as weed free as possible will only magnify its awesomeness. Oh, and don’t forget to cut off the dead flowers, especially with plants such as geraniums. Dead dried flowers will not show well.

As you may have guessed, there are some costs involved with a flower bed of this magnitude. If you buy all your flowers from a nursery, then expect to pay anywhere from $500 to $1000 or more, depending on the size of your planters. I’d also plan on spending a full day tilling your garden, and planting.

Ways of reducing costs, might be to start your own flowers from seed indoors, rather than buying them from a nursery. This isn’t always practical for everyone, but now is the time to start prepping for it if you want to go that route.

So is it worth it?

I asked myself this for a couple of years. Finally, last year, I bit the bullet and planted this arrangement in my yard. The price-tag hurt, but after having a full summer of non-stop blooming, with granted, a few hours here and there to maintain it, I have to say, that this might be a regularly budgeted luxury that is totally worth it to me.

So true, it is a luxury, and I don’t really care for upstaging my neighbors, but it made our yard feel great, and we fell in love with our yard all over again.

I hope this has been helpful for you. Whether you try this in your yards or not, is entirely up to you. Perhaps you even have a different winning combination of flowers. If that’s the case, I applaud you for it. This is just the formula we use at Leisure Villas, and it works very well for us.

Have a great summer, and enjoy your landscaping.

The price of buying a home in Utah is not cheap. If you’ve been out shopping, you know what I mean. Seems like there’s always a bit of sticker shock.

Unfortunately, the retirement communities for active adults are not immune from these soaring prices. The nice thing though, is that if you own a home or property, then the value of that has also gone up.

But what if you own more than just a home. What if you have a house that sits on five or more acres of land? All of a sudden, your property is worth more than most people can afford.

This means that whoever you sell the family farm to, is likely to be a developer, because nobody will pay those prices for a hobby farm or estate anymore.

So, who do you sell your property to?

Kill two birds with one stone

You’re over 55, and looking to move, but you have to sell the family farm to do so. Since we specialize in building 55+ communities, you might consider stopping by and seeing if we can help with both your problems.

Naturally, we’re not the perfect solution for every case, but who knows, you might come off looking like a genius if everything works out right.

First of all, moving into a 55+ community like ours is brilliant. We’ve got the lifestyle and culture that makes retirement fun. There’s also the safety factor of living in a private community like this where a majority of the people are retired. People look out for each other here.

Second, since we are an active growing company, we consider every single piece of property that someone offers to sell us. We can’t choose every property for one reason or another, but we will go out and visit every piece that is pitched to us, as long as it is 5 acres or larger.

Also, since we construct quality homes and provide a community feel to every development we build, that is both beautiful and functional, you can be sure that if we develop your land, you won’t have to feel embarrassed when your neighbors ask who you sold to.

Easy and it makes sense

Sure, a one stop place for buying a home and selling your old property may sound lazy, it’s really not. Since we can’t buy every property, we’ll only do what makes real sense. We also believe in dealing fairly with everyone.

So, if it looks like it could work out, why not? Of course, you’re the one who’ll make the final call. Rewind to twenty years ago, when people knew what rewind meant, and our product was so new that many people had no idea what to think about us.

Today, it’s getting hard to find family or friends who doesn’t know somebody living in one of our communities. The majority of those people, if asked, will likely tell you what a great decision it was moving there.

55+ communities aren’t for elitists. They are for active adults who like building close friendships with other fun adults. They like to spend their time more efficiently so that they have more time to do things that really matter to them.

Maybe you’re not 100% sure if one of our 55+ communities is right for you. That’s fine. We’re not for everyone. Come on by and see, though. You might just be surprised.

It’s old news now. In fact, I wouldn’t even call it news anymore, but it looks like we’re safe in the short term from a service tax in Utah.

Due in large part from pushback from the public, the bill was not passed. This is probably a good thing, for now.

When I first heard about it, it felt like a policy that was being pushed hard and fast, without anyone actually reading or thinking about it, kind of like Obamacare was.

Needless to say, I was worried. How would this effect our business as a developer and builder of senior communities?

But are we out of the woods yet? Sort of.

Tax Reform In Utah

Going forward:

If you’ve been following the stories, you probably already know that we have some challenges ahead. Utah has long been recognized as being one of the most fiscally responsible states in the Union. For some reason, that makes me happy, even though I’ve had little to nothing to do with that, aside from my vote.

I also think there is a strong belief among our representatives that some form of tax reform is due. Personally, I don’t follow the state’s balance sheet at all. I have no idea if we’re in trouble. If the bill’s sponsor is to be believed, then we are departing from a goods economy to a service economy.

That may be true, but I don’t know if it’s the largest culprit. You may be providing more services than goods, but that money you make is still often used to buy goods.

What I do know, is that we buy and sell a lot more online than we used to. Some post offices are even forcing us to install extra parcel mail boxes to accommodate all the extra online orders. Taxing those purchases and sales, has not been an easy road.

Any time that something new is taxed, that wasn’t previously taxed, heartburn ensues. The question is, will a service tax in some form come back? My understanding is that, yes, there will be more discussion on this in the near future, possibly even later this year.

Are there alternatives? Sure.

Are they any better? I don’t know. All I believe is that a quick push is not the right answer.

I get that nobody wants more taxes. It may even be true that a service tax, along with product tax reductions might alleviate the overall tax burden, I don’t know.

One thing is for sure, I don’t envy the road against public opinion that our lawmakers are facing. I’ve been there before. Sometimes when we develop a new community, the neighbors band together against us, and even if our product is better than any of the other possible project that might develop on a neighboring land, they don’t always believe it until it’s in and done.

I remember one such community. All the homes around it were your traditional single-family homes on lots. It was a good well-maintained neighborhood, but we struggled getting it started. Then once built, the neighborhood embraced it with open arms, even loved the place.

I remember working on some of the homes there, about half way through the subdivision, and watching the local preschool come and get pictures in front of our superior landscaping. The local farmers would also take the kids around the 55+ community on a hay-wagon, towed by their tractor, all dressed up in their Halloween costumes, like a big Halloween parade. It was really fun to see how they embraced it. But I digress. I was talking about taxes.

How the bill would have affected us:

My biggest worry was that the new tax bill would put a lot of contractors out of business. Imagine all the services that go into a home:

First, you have the primary services.

I consider these the most recognizable services that go into home construction: The framing, the plumbing, the electrical, the paint. These are the basic essentials of a home. Every one of these are service-based. That means, that they would all be taxed, and that is a very significant chunk of your home.

Second, you have the secondary services.

These are like subcontractors to the subcontractor. Let me explain: Many of our subcontracts, we’ll take drywallers for instance, don’t hire most of their employees in house anymore. Most of their labor crews have been split off into minor roaming subs for the main subcontractor.

These people would also need to be taxed, even though the primary subcontractor was also being taxed. This essentially amounts to a double taxation.

It gets even more complicated when you consider a planner. Say you need to hire someone to plan your house or your development. You hire a professional, who hires their secondaries, like engineers, surveyors, and lawyers. These engineers and surveyors might even hire a third level of service providers that I’ll call tertiary subs for consulting, geo studies, water studies, etc. The list could extend beyond that. If each of them are having to tax for their services, then suddenly, we have triple taxation on a single service.

If they want a real moneymaker, they found it, though I don’t think it would work in the short term. The homebuyer is really going to struggle forking over that kind of money, which is why many homebuilders will go out of business, at least, in the short term, until the housing crisis deepens, and people are willing to pay an even higher premium for homes.

It will, in effect, eliminate any efforts our lawmakers are already doing to encourage affordable home prices. So yes, it’s not hard to see why we were worried about this in our industry. But I find it hard to believe that there is an easy silver bullet that will not hurt any industry targeted by extra taxes, which brings me to my next question.

Should we turn away any new tax reforms?

I hate taxes as much as the next person. However, I do think that if our budget is being strained, for whatever reason, then we mustn’t shy away from it. It’s a tough issue, and if you knew that in your home, you’d be facing a financial pinch in the near future, you would need to seriously consider your budget also.

Usually the two main places are to look: first is where you’re spending more money than you need to, keep in mind that need vs want is a sore topic, especially on the public level. The second place to look is at finding other ways of generating additional income.

I don’t have any of the answers. I wish I did. There are plenty of people who believe they have the answers, whether they do or not, I can’t judge. But if we get enough of them together under a spirit of compromise and common sense, then hopefully something good will come out of it. Needless to say, some real thought and consideration is in order.

At least that’s my opinion. Maybe you have a different one. We live in the greatest state with the most going for it. We’ll get this figured out.

Welcome to Part 2 of our neighborhood development blog. Last week, we addressed a couple of concerns about traffic and density being added to an established community. If you haven’t read it, you can check it out here.

Today, I’d like to discuss a few more concerns that residents often have when the farm next door gets sold to a developer like us.

Let’s face it. Nobody ever seems to want any new homes in the field next door. That’s totally understandable.

But as things always go, eventually those inner-city properties will be developed. You as a neighbor have a right to be concerned and involved. So lets discuss a few more items that you might be considering, or might want to consider.

Concerned about a new 55+ Active Adult Communities coming into your neighborhood?

Parking

We recently attended a zoning meeting where a concerned resident asked about the parking. The concern was, that in a project like ours, would there be enough parking for the home-owners and their guests.

Luckily, we’ve been doing this for many years now, and we’ve addressed the question of parking quite well. In our 55+ communities, even guests have enough room to park without overflowing into the surrounding neighborhoods.

Part of this is planning on our end, but part of it is also the demographic that we serve. While many of our homeowners receive occasion guests, the majority of our homeowners have fewer cars on average. With each having a double car garage, plus two spaces in their driveway, and additional parking by the clubhouse and street-side parking within the community, there always seems to be enough parking for everyone.

Other neighborhoods I’ve seen in the past, haven’t been so well contained. I know of one new neighborhood, not ours, that built townhomes that were often rented out to college students. While they too should’ve had enough parking, their demographics encouraged too many people to break the city ordinances and over-occupy many of the homes in that subdivision. This caused overflowing cars to park on the surrounding neighborhoods.

So yes, parking is a valid concern. Luckily, our senior communities are well designed to accommodate all necessary parking for residents and visitors.

Visual aesthetics

Property rights are a funny thing. Our founding fathers were adamant about preserving property rights. This is one of the major parts of the Constitution. Among those rights are the ability of a property owner to use their property as they see fit.

Naturally, there has to be some restrictions on this.

Zoning and planning are among the restrictions placed on property use. This is a good thing. There has to be limits or else city infrastructure will be strained or underdeveloped.

There’s also a trend lately, to impose design standards for what someone puts on their property. This one is a little more iffy. I’m personally not opposed to some design standards, but there should be limits to what a government can demand. I wonder at what point does a city violate a property owner’s rights when they start dictating every facet of building’s visual appearance.

In any case, we’ve all seen those developments that look horrendous. Some of them are even brand-new subdivisions. Granted, most of those are catered to first-time home buyers, so they’re trying to keep the costs as low as possible.

While there are often many ugly homes out there, we tend to associate ugly with higher density. This is a little unfair.

For instance, we build higher density communities. Granted, our communities aren’t a lot more dense than a standard single-family-home subdivision, still, many people might be concerned that we too would just slap some piece of garbage on a newly developed piece of land. This couldn’t be farther from the truth.

We’re selling to retirees, not first-time home-buyers. Our buyers have higher expectations. They don’t want to live in an ugly community. So we put a lot of effort into designing beautiful homes, inside and out.

Our landscaping is rarely outclassed by any other community, and since it’s managed by an HOA, it stays nice too.

I’ve often looked at our communities and thought of them as parks, with ramblers homes. All the land between the homes is common ground, and so the greenspace isn’t fettered with lots of mismatched fences and lawn garbage.

In short, our communities look amazing! The landscaping is great, and so are the exterior treatments of the homes.

Of all the builders

There’s a lot of builders out there. With some of them, you know what you’re getting. With others, you have no idea.

We are one of those builders with a proven track record spanning about two decades now. With us, you can be sure that we won’t hurt your neighborhood. Most likely, we’ll take that farm, or vacant land, and turn it into a low traffic community that is beautiful and gives grandma and grandpa a place to retire to.

These are people like you, people like your parents. We strive to build without stairs, and to provide warm receptive places for them to enjoy an active lifestyle throughout their retirement.

If a property near you is set for development, you couldn’t go wrong with Leisure Villas Community. It would be hard to say the same for a lot of other types of developments of similar or even of less density.

How Much Extra Traffic Does A Senior Community Add To A Neighborhood?

One of the challenges of building wonderful communities that are tailored to the 55+ community, is finding land.

We’re always on the hunt for that next special location that will be a great neighborhood and a great fit for our unique developments. Whenever we do this, it’s important to us to visit with the neighbors and inform them of our intentions.

Occasionally, we’ll find neighbors who are concerned about what we might bring to the area. This is normal and natural, as most people are vigilant of how their area will be affected by future developments. This article is meant to address some of their concerns.

Myths Of New 55+ Active Adult Communities

Myth #1: A 55+ community will be too dense for my neighborhood

The truth is, very few new developments are in the 1/2 to 1/3 acre lot size anymore, at least, hear in Salt Lake and Utah County. Suitable land for development in Utah is scarce, and there is a large housing shortage here. Most of our standard communities have a density of about 5.5 homes per acre, which is only slightly denser than traditional ¼ acre lots.

Most new developments are pushing for 8 or more lots per acre. This means, that for now, we are still one of the least dense developers in the business.

We like this lower density for our customers, because it allows us to build larger homes that are rambler-style, meaning single floor homes. Most of the higher density homes out there right now are narrow and tall. Sure you’ll never need to buy a stair stepping exercise machine, but after you hit a certain age, those stairs can be more hassle than healthy.

Myth #2: Won’t a senior community increase the neighborhood traffic?

To a point, any development will increase traffic, but eventually, land will get developed. The question is, how will different developer’s products impact you?

Before any new development can be built in a city, the city requires a traffic study to be conducted. This study helps the city determine if the roads are capable of handling the new traffic. There are specific engineers that have made a career out of being the best experts in this field. When consulted, they find that a senior community will produce significantly less traffic than a community of regular single-family homes.

How is this possible, especially if you have more homes in a senior community than, say, a third or quarter acre lot subdivision?

Who lives in a standard single-family styled home? Usually, families.

Who lives in a senior community? Usually, seniors.

The thing about seniors, is that many more of them are retired when compared to younger families. This means that on average, they’ll have less people living in each home, they’ll have fewer cars, will not be traveling as often, and especially not at peak travel times.

These traffic reports are not derived from theoretical hypothesizing. These traffic studies are conducted by actually laying down meters, and physically observing the real traffic of completed communities that have come before.

So statistically speaking, an average 55+ community will generate less neighborhood traffic than a less dense, single family home neighborhood.

To be continued

It’s often disappointing for many long-time residents to see a nearby field give way to the increasing demand for housing. Often, the extra open space is part of why many people move to a particular location. Problems however arise, when somebody moves into a neighborhood, then says that nobody else can move in afterwards.

We understand the difficulty involved with the changing dynamics of our great state. Growth is good, but growing pains can often accompany it. That’s one of the reasons why we build with beauty in mind. We sincerely strive to become a value to each and every city that we build in.

While many builders are content with slapping up the cheapest, fasted product that will sell despite looking horrible for years after, we are committed to building luxury home, lifestyles, and communities that look great and feel great, whether you live in them or around them.

There’s a lot more we can discuss as it relates to this issue. Perhaps we’ll address that in a later article.

 

 

Every now and then, I have somebody ask me what we would charge to rent them a home in one of our luxurious 55+ communities.

That’s when I tug at my collar and say sorry, this might not be the place for you. All of our homes are for sale, not for rent.

I’ve met some really amazing people who for whatever reason, prefer to rent. It’s especially sad when they want to move in here, and you want them to move in, but home ownership is out of their budget.

However, the question of renting, as with most things, doesn’t always have a straight forward answer. For some of you, this might help clear things up.

Are Any Of These Homes Apartments or Rentals?

To rent or not to rent, that is the question.

So there are two sides to this question, and no, I don’t mean, should I rent or buy. Obviously, we want you to buy. No, the questions I’m referring to deal with:

First, can I rent a home in this community?

And

Second, can I rent out my home to someone else?

These two questions can be summed up in one answer, yes-ish.

That doesn’t sound very reassuring, I know. Let me explain. We don’t like to sell a home to you if we think you’re going to buy it just for a rental. Our goal is to provide owner occupied homes for retirees and near retirees who want to enjoy the leisure and luxury of owning in a 55+ community.

That said, we aren’t legally allowed to stop you from renting out your home once you own it.

Over the years, though, we’ve found that most of our homes aren’t often used as rentals. The cost to buy a home, plus the amount of rent it would need to generate to pay for itself, is not usually feasible for most people.

Having said that, I have seen some of our community members who for some reason or another, have moved out, but kept their home there and rented it out. This is rare, usually only about one in a hundred do this. The last one I remember, was because a widow married a widower, and suddenly they had two homes.

While I totally understand having separate rooms, hence our newest double master floorplan, separate houses can be a hassle. So yes, there are a few instances where our homeowners have rented out their homes. There’s a few instances where I’ve seen two widowed friends in the same home as well. One is the owner, the other is the renter.

If you’re looking for a place to rent, these homes are few and far between. But hey, it never hurts to ask around and see if anyone knows of somebody that is trying to keep a house warm. All I’m saying, is that this might be a difficult hunt.

Alternatives for renters:

What if you really do like the 55+ community feel, and homeownership isn’t on your list of to-do’s. Well, since finding a home for rent in one of our communities is never an easy task, might I suggest an alternative?

Not long ago, we finished building our very first 55+ apartment community. As with all of our other communities, this is finished luxuriously, with grand amenities, including a huge library, pool, spa, exercise room, common area, warming kitchen, walking trails and more. Even more, it has a lot of great people who love to socialize. There’s always something fun going on.

We’re constantly growing and striving to remain the Utah leader for building the best active adult communities possible. Stop by for a visit, we’d love to discuss your options.

Great news for anyone who is over 55 and is looking to buy a home in Utah!

Over the winter, we built a few extra homes before anyone purchased them. With Spring hot on our radar, we want to get an early start on the selling season.

In a couple of months, the buyers will be back out in force, and buying a home before someone else does will be like two rednecks fighting over the last Black Friday TV at Walmart.

So to help you get thinking about moving a little earlier, we’re offering a quick close deal for anyone willing to close on a home within 30 days of signing a contract!

End of Winter Sale

Details:

Not all of our 55+ communities have homes that qualify for this offer. As of today: Midas Creek Villas subdivision in Herriman has 1 new house that qualifies for this, and The Villas At Waters Edge in Vineyard has a few more.

Our project in Saratoga Springs, The Villas At Legacy Farms, does not have any homes that qualify for this special deal, since we are still months away from having any homes completed there.

So here’s the deal:

For the next month or two, until we’re sold out, if you put one of our inventory homes under contract and close on it within 30 days, we’ll discount your home $5000!

This discount is on top of some already smoking deals that you can find in our Villas At Waters Edge community. To learn more details on how you can save by moving to Vineyard, give Josh a call 801-438-6546. He’ll be happy to help you discover the price advantage of moving to Utah’s newest shore-side community, and it really is a fun place to live.

A growing town:

Since most of our deals are in Vineyard this month, lets take a moment to see why Vineyard might be the place for you.

Only one block away from Utah Lake, it’s not unusual to see people running along the shore-line trail, having a picnic, or wading out with a fishing pole.

Do you like canoeing? Gaining access to the lake is easy, at Vineyard Beach.

Maybe you want to pull out the motorboat and go for a leisure ride, well, Lindon harbor is only about a mile and a half away.

Also, if you’ve driven by anytime within the last few months, you may have noticed that on the North side of 800 N, leading into the Waters Edge area, there is a lot of dirt-work happening where Geneva Steel used to be. This will the be commercial half of Vineyard, and will likely bring with it the shopping and grocery that will officially turn Vineyard into a fully developed city.

Utah county is growing quickly. It is one of the fastest growing cities in America. With all this growth, possibly another two million people in the next 40 years, home prices are only going to keep climbing. Getting into a new home now, especially while we’re offering a few discounts, means that this is the best time to move.

So if you are at or nearing retirement, and would like the leisure of living in a community where an elevated lifestyle is valued, then stop on by and see if The Villas At Waters Edge is the place for you.

Recently, our business participated in some training to help us improve our company culture. We focused this on understanding our personalities, what drives us as individuals, and how we can apply that to better understand each other and our customers.

For this training, we received high recommendations to use the Larcen Consulting Group. Carla Fugit was amazing. This wasn’t the first time that many of us had experienced personality training in our company.

We serve the retirement community, providing great homes and great communities for active adults, and we’re always looking for ways to improve and provide you with the best product on the market, and quality customer experiences.

There were many things we learned, that will help us improve, but there were also a few take-aways that I thought might be interesting to write about for our customers.

Getting The Most Out Of Your Community

Disclaimer:

The things I’m sharing, are not necessarily the opinion of the Larcen Consulting Group or their presenter. These are my own opinions and extrapolations that I formed. If you are interested in pursuing personality training, you would be best served to hire this group to give you a professional assessment and consultation.

Differences:

Buying a home is an important decision. At Leisure Villas, we want to give you more than just another home. We want to create a community where people can retire to, and enjoy an elevated lifestyle.

Part of that lifestyle that we emphasize, deals with enjoying new friendships with others who are at your same stage of life. We also promote a fun healthy environment for your kids and grandkids to visit. People often credit our wonderful floorplans, but they also say how secure they feel living in our communities.

But what if you’re the sort of person that doesn’t like to party. Maybe you look at the clubhouse and wonder, why should I care? or, When will I ever use that?

Maybe you’re the sort of person who does like the parties, and wonders why your neighbor is being such a downer.

The thing is, we aren’t all cut from the same cloth. We all have different things that motivate, inspire, and excite us. Most importantly, this is great!

Diversity is fun, challenging, and stimulating.

In our communities, sure you’ll find others like you. Likely you’ll become great friends. Beyond them, you’ll get to meet and interact with folks from all walks of life. Often, it’s our differences that bring us closer together, and frankly, who doesn’t want to be a part of something?

You don’t have to go to every party, or be involved in every little thing. Maybe your best friends will be the ones you see, only when you’re picking up your mail, or the ones you meet when you go to an HOA board meeting.

The idea of an elevated lifestyle means that all people, regardless of their personalities, can come together and create something great. That’s what we’re all about. By bringing what is best about you, your strengths, your passions, and yes, even your weaknesses, and combining those with a neighborhood of others who want to be part of something, not merely another house on the street, you can create what we affectionately call “Community.”

We build communities, not subdivisions. We build lifestyle, not just living places. You’ve lived other places before, among which were likely some great places. We want our 55+ communities to be at least as good, hopefully better, and it’s all about the people.

There’s an elephant in the room, and I think it stepped on my concrete floor and cracked it.

Okay, maybe not, but you’ve still found a crack in your concrete floor, what do you do now?

Maybe you’re thinking, is this going to be a problem? And what is causing it? Will it get worse?

This is a rather simple problem, but stressful for some, mostly because it can inspire mixed emotions from fear to anger. So today, Lets dive deep into the issue of cracked slabs. Since we build slab on grade homes, often called patio homes, for most all of our 55+ communities, this is one area that we would like make sure you’re educated on.

The Case of The Cracked Slab

Concrete 101

Before we get too far, lets have a refresher course in concrete physics. Don’t worry, we’ll keep this simple.

Concrete utilizes three primary ingredients: 1- water, 2- cement, 3- aggregate (aka rocks).

When mixed in proper proportions, you end up with a mud that will soon hardened into a rock-solid shape. Hopefully, this shape is established before it hardens. This “mud” as it is often termed, utilizes a chemical reaction that form binding structures with all parts involved. This chemical reaction will last for years after you initially place your concrete. That means, your concrete will keep getting harder as long as you have it.

The first seven days are the most critical time for concrete. The majority of the hardness happens at this time, and contrary to some rumors you may have heard, the concrete is not flexible at this stage. This is why you should never drive on new concrete for a minimum of one week.

The rest of the noticeable hardness happens throughout the duration of that month. After that, the changes continue but at diminishing rates.

While the concrete is hardening, it is also drying. There is a difference. Concrete does not get hard because it dries, the chemical reaction is what makes it hard, the drying is from excess moisture draining into the ground or evaporating into the air.

As the concrete dries, even after it seems hard, it acts a little like drying mud, you know the sort, you’ve seen it after a mud causing rainstorm; it’s filled with a maze of cracks. Concrete does the same thing when it dries, it shrinks.

As concrete shrinks, it has only one place to go, and that is towards itself. However, nobody wants or expects concrete to go where-ever it will: You want it to stay as wide as your foundation, and the Earth that it rests upon doesn’t want to give up on the laws of friction.

So while the concrete is struggling to shrink, forces are trying to keep it from moving. Imagine what would happen to a glass bottle if you secured both ends tight, and then it shrank, even just one millimeter. It would not end well.

This is the reason why your sidewalks and driveways have relief joints cut into them. It’s to encourage the cracks to happen there, instead of through the more flat and noticeable areas that will cause you heartburn. Of course, this only works most of the time, but almost every joint you see, will have a crack in it.

You might also notice that inside your house, there aren’t those huge relief joints that you see in sidewalks and driveways. That’s because those large obvious joints aren’t easy to lay tile and carpet on.

As a general rule of thumb, any slab of concrete over nine feet will crack. Sorry for any of you who say that your basement floor never had cracks in it. You probably just didn’t notice them.

Can cracks be stopped?

There are a few ways to stop or limit cracks. One is to place rebar into the concrete. Like most builders, we do this. Granted, it doesn’t prevent all cracks. We place rebar in several strategic locations to keep the concrete from settling and pulling away from places it needs to be. It also helps lend strength to the slab.

Also, concrete poured in the middle of the summer is going to have more cracks than concrete poured when it is colder. Why? Well, lets think about it. What does the hot Sun usually do to water? It evaporates it quickly. So during the Summer, your concrete dries out faster, producing more cracks. So if concrete is poured in the cooler months, assuming its placed on a good base, it will have fewer and smaller cracks.

There are other ways of avoiding cracks or keeping them to a minimum, but they start getting very pricy. The cheapest of these pricy options is to fill the whole slab with steal mesh. This will still allow cracks to occur, because the concrete is shrinking around all this mesh, and the mesh might not be shrinking with it. The idea though, is that the mesh will keep the concrete from settling or from separating too badly. We do not install mesh, because it’s a high cost additive that doesn’t fully stop cracks from occurring. And since we pour your floor on compacted fill, we’re not worried about settling issues.

The next option, is to use a post-tensioned slab system. This will either keep the cracks from happening at all, or keep them so small that you’ll have a hard time seeing them. The only problem, is that your slab has to be twice as thick and cost 20 times what it normally would.

Generally, you only see post-tension slabs on things like tennis courts or large commercial styled projects where any visible crack really is a problem. They accomplish this by running thick steel cables through the concrete, then tightening and securing them to the outside of the concrete. Essentially, what they’re doing, is creating a gigantic spring every couple of feet that crisscross to suck the concrete into itself. This means that as the concrete shrinks, the steel springs help the concrete shrink across the ground it’s sitting on, keeping any cracks from forming, or at the very least, from separating.

Naturally, this is overkill for most homes.

Should I be worried about the cracks in my floor?

Generally, cracks in your floor are nothing to worry yourself over. The only time that you might be concerned is if the cracks start changing vertically, suggesting that there is some settling happening. On our homes, this is pretty rare, but if it does happen, the settling usually all takes place early on and we’re able to grind or fill the differences.

Ceramic or porcelain tile can struggle over cracks too. Since the concrete will always move just a hair from hot to cold seasons, those cracks might cause havoc for tile, causing joints or even the tiles themselves to crack.

Most good tile companies are used to dealing with this issue, and they’ll often bridge the cracks with products meant for such situations.

Caulking cracks in your floor does very little good. People are often worried about water coming up through the cracks, but on a patio home, your floor is well above any underground water. If you had a basement, then that would be different. Water would always be a concern, but even then, the cracks would do little to stop the water from penetrating, because concrete is not waterproof. It is porous, and water will leach through solid concrete and still flood your basement if it is present.

Once your carpeting and hard flooring are in place, you’ll quickly forget all about those cracks. They won’t be felt under your floor, and they won’t be a place for pests to hide.

Concrete cracks can seem scary at first, but they are common on almost every home that has a concrete floor. If anyone ever tells you that your concrete floor should not have any cracks whatsoever, beware, they don’t know what they’re talking about.

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

Many of us have the day off work today. For the rest of us, we are left to contemplate human rights from our workplace.

Whether we are at home, on vacation, or continuing the daily grind, today is an important holiday. Many of us were around on August 28th, 1963 when Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his iconic speech. I remember speaking with one senior a few months ago about the time when she was a young  girl trying to survive the Chicago Riots of 1968.

Human rights, when you think about it, were very limited in the US, and not very long ago either. Many would argue that we still have a long way to go.

Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr.

How far we’ve come

There is no doubt, that in the last hundred and fifty years, we as a nation have grown up considerably. Human rights have improved drastically for all races, genders, nationalities, and religions. Slavery, persecution, segregations, diminutive legal rights, and more are hopefully things of the past.

Without question, racism and persecution still exist, but with every new generation, we come closer to shedding the prejudice, pride, hate, and the pain that have existed for too long in our nation.

In many parts of the country, Mart Luther King’s, Jr.’s dream has become the reality, and for that we are grateful.

How far we have to go

Despite the progress we’ve made in the last several decades, the war rages on. The US is a giant melting pot, or so we’ve all been taught. Like multiple major waterfalls crashing together, this combination can be turbulent at first, but eventually, the expanded river grows strong and steady.

Even if we feel that we are near that calm end, there are still eddies of resistance that remain. We don’t have to look far to see these pockets of problems in the news, even today. When people persecute or bully others based on color or religion, you know the fight is far from over.

To think that Apartheid in South Africa lasted clear until 1994, is evidence that our world is still struggling to shake the shackles of separatism. And this isn’t just limited to racism.

In our day, there is an estimated 400,000 slaves still in some form of captivity, here in the US alone! That’s not even considering the 43+ million more around the world.

Laws around the world are quickly condemning slavery around the globe, but it is still an industry that thrives behind the scenes. Until we as a nation, and a world, can drop our fears of difference, our pride, greed, and elitisms, we’ll always be fighting this in some degree. For many of us, it takes opening our eyes, then being brave enough to confront it.

Today is a day to be inspired

So today, where-ever you are, don’t forget to take some time to reflect on our history. We have a lot of great reasons to be proud. Great men and women who have come before us have opened our eyes and made our country greater that it has ever been.

Just remember, that there is still room for many more great men and women to make a difference. Maybe that is by sharing your experiences with your kids and grandkids, or maybe it’s donating time to help those who are in need, or just being a friend. Being retired means that we have a spectacular opportunity. We have time. Time to have fun, but also time to do a lot of real good. In many cases, doing good and having fun can be one in the same.

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day!

Thank you for choosing one of Leisure Villas’ premiere retirement communities.

By this point, you are either living in one of our amazing homes for active adults, or you are about to move in and are reading this article to know how things work once you are here.

As always, we strive to build the best house we possibly can. Home construction however will occasionally have flaws or errors. Most of these are basic and easily corrected, but it does help to understand how the process works.

Getting Something Fixed

Expectations

First, managing expectations is an important part of home ownership. We pride ourselves on being Utah’s best builder for senior communities. We know that you want to retire into a home that is low maintenance and well suited to your lifestyle.

We do a great job at creating such communities, but we can’t negate all home-owner responsibilities. For instance, there’s obvious maintenance like replacing old light bulbs or smoke alarm batteries that we don’t do for you. Nor are we going to vacuum your carpets each week and replace your furnace filters every two months after you move in.

But there are other issues that may arise that don’t seem so cut and dry. For instance, the weather stripping on your door. This stuff eventually rubs off. Sometimes after some of the veins are gone, others still keep the weather out, but other times, it and needs replacing.

Also, it’s good to keep in mind, that there are industry standards for construction quality. We pride ourselves on exceeding many of these standards, and we do our best to accommodate marginal requests, but occasionally we may draw the line when a request becomes completely unreasonable.

When to make a request

Generally there are three main times that a fix request should be made.

    First:  Pre-settlement Inspection.

The pre-settlement inspection, also called a walk-through, should be done before a home is closed on and occupied. This is a time when the builder can show you through your home and explain all the different features and how to work them.

This is also an opportune time for you to see the home and discover any items that you feel are not up to industry standards. We’re always striving to have few to no items that need fixing at this stage. We spend several days before these walkthroughs, touching them up and getting them ready to occupy, but occasionally we miss something, and if you find something, we’ll do everything in our power to get it fixed before you move in, though sometimes, this isn’t possible right away. In those rare instances, we consider the problem to be a warranty issue, and we’ll finish it as soon as possible after you’ve moved in.

    Second:  14 Day Callback.

Ideally, once you’ve moved in, you should be able to enjoy your excellent new home. However, at this time, you might notice something that you and we missed during your initial walk-through. Not a problem. Let us know, we’ll be happy to fix it for you as soon as possible.

    Third:  One Year Callback

Here it is, the final warranty callback. By this time, you’ve lived in your home for a full year, and if there was any last minor things that have been bothering you that you, that didn’t get taken care of in the first two callbacks, this is the time to get them done, or forever hold your peace. We recommend letting us know within the last 14 days before your warranty expires.

We usually ask that you request warranties during these three main periods, this last one being important, because your warranty ends after this time, but also because if you wait till the one-year mark, your house will have finished settling as much as it is likely to. This means that any extra screws popping through sheetrock will be evident, and any other things that can fail or that were installed incorrectly will have presented themselves by now.

Most warranty requests made outside of these three main callback periods are usually considered a lower priority, since most anything major will have already been caught by the first two request periods. Thus we can’t always jump on every little thing in between, since we have other priorities that are more pressing. Besides, a lot of time is expended every time we have to do any warranty request, so if we can lump all of them together as often as possible, we are able to work much more efficiently.

If however you have a real serious problem, such as a water leak or your furnace stops working in the middle of the Winter, by all means, we’ll jump on that right away.

If you have any questions about what is or is not included in your warranty, feel free to ask one of our sales representatives. If they don’t have the answer for you, they can quickly find it.

How to submit a warranty claim

There are two main ways that we prefer warranty claims to be submitted. The first is via our online portal. At this time, that portal is maintained by BuilderTrend, a software that you will get a log-in and password to once you close. This log-in can be accessed through our website.

The other way you can submit a warranty request is to visit with our sales staff. During construction, and while we’re still selling homes in your community, we will maintain a sales staff dedicated to your neighborhood. Whenever you submit a request through them, please do so, preferable in type, since they will mostly be entering it into our BuilderTrend tracking software for you.

We discourage you from calling in your requests, unless it is an emergency, and we discourage you from stopping our construction team on site to discuss your warranty. This is because they are usually very busy, and while they will ultimately be in charge of getting any work performed, they don’t have time to visit with everyone everyday.

Thank you

We are very glad that you chose to buy a home in one of the top 55+ communities in Utah, built by Utah’s best builder of retirement homes. We sincerely hope you enjoy your home, and that everything we mentioned here makes sense.

If your experience is anything like the nearly 2000 other satisfied homeowners we’ve worked with in the past, then we expect that you too will agree that this will be the best move you ever made.