The Villages vs. Sun City Center

Today let's take a head-to-head look at two of the biggest 55+ communities in Florida, The Villages and Sun City Center.

History

While The Villages is bigger, more popular, and more famous, Sun City Center has actually been around longer than The Villages.

Del Webb began Sun City Center in the early 1960's, about a decade before Orange Blossom Gardens which would later become The Villages started, and it has been through a number of developers over the years.

While The Villages continues to grow today under the leadership of the original developer's family, Sun City Center is winding down new home development with just a few new home opportunities left.

It’s interesting to note though that essentially modeling the Sun City concept of plentiful, well-maintained amenities and nearby golf cart accessible commercial development is what helped turn things around for The Villages.

The Villages was a struggling mobile-home development before implementing the changes to be more like Sun City communities.

Location

The Villages and Sun City Center are only about 100 miles apart, but their locations are quite different.

A lot of future Florida retirees hearing about The Villages for the first time wish it was closer to either coast. It's about as far inland as you can get. But that does come with some benefits, which include being more insulated from the effects of hurricanes, and partly as a result, lower homeowners insurance rates. Plus, the southern parts of The Villages where the bulk of new construction is taking place are within an hour of Orlando.

While Sun City Center is not directly on the coast, it is 30 minutes south of Tampa, 30 minutes north of Sarasota, and 30 minutes to the Gulf Beaches. There are three airports less than an hour away.  Professional football, baseball, and hockey are also less than an hour away. 

Size

Despite having started earlier, Sun City Center is much smaller than The Villages.

The Villages is home to more than 130,000 residents and Sun City Center is home to around 20,000.

In the grand scheme of things, those are both very big compared to most other Florida retirement communities, but again, they are quite different from each other.

More people in The Villages means more potential friends, more clubs, and a bigger social scene. Sun City Center has all of those things, just on a much smaller scale.

Amenities

With more than 700 holes of golf, The Villages is the biggest golf community in the world, so there’s no competition there, though Sun City Center does have a few hundred holes of golf spread across multiple clubs and courses.

Just like The Villages, Sun City Center has multiple clubhouses, swimming pools, tennis courts, pickleball courts, softball fields and more, but again, just on a smaller scale than you would see in The Villages.

As I mentioned before, Sun City pioneered this concept of a highly-amenticized retirement communty, but The Villages has just taken it to a whole other level.

The main difference I see here is that because The Villages is still growing, lots of new amenities are still being built, and even some older ones are being refreshed.

While they of course provide lots of benefits for current residents, amenities are also marketing pieces to attract new potential residents, and nobody knows that or uses it to their advantage quite like The Villages does.

Real Estate

For the most part, the sizes and types of houses are similar between The Villages and Sun City Center.

However, in addition to single-family homes, Sun City Center also offers what they call “paired villas” … essentially a townhome or duplex. These are basically “maintenance-free” and offer “lock it and leave it” convenience.

There are a few very limited areas in The Villages where you can find townhouses like this, but it's something a lot of people wish there was more of in The Villages.

The price ranges between the two communities are also slightly different.

In The Villages you can find something from the $200k's up to more than a million dollars.

At Sun City Center, while you can find a lot of homes in the $200k range (or even sometimes less), the high end seems to top out around $600k.

Only one neighborhood in Sun City Center is still selling new homes and that is called The Preserve at La Paloma.

In the heart of Sun City Center, Florida, you will find a gated enclave, The Preserve at La Paloma. This new 55+ community offers stylish, low-maintenance attached villas, single-family homes and fun-filled amenities.

A select number of homesites have views of the beautiful Cypress Creek Golf Club or ponds. This intimate neighborhood of only 104 homes is centered around resort-style amenities that include a cozy clubhouse, pool with sundeck and spa, pickleball court, firepit gathering area, and more. Activities and events take place monthly so residents can connect and socialize.

Three new decorated model homes are open daily. Home prices from the low/mid $300s. Quick move-in homes are available.

Which community should you choose?

The decision here really comes down to your personal preferences.

Do you want to be near the coast or is being in the middle of the state fine by you?

Do you believe bigger is better, or do you think you'd prefer a more intimate setting?

Do you prefer a community where new homes and amenities are still being developed, or are you happy with a community that only has a few new homes left to build and sell?

Only you can answer those questions. But whichever way you choose, I don't think you could go wrong with either Sun City Center or The Villages.