Most years, The Villages leads the nation in new home sales.
Here's a look at how many homes The Villages has sold over the last several years:
2024: 3,208 New Home Sales
You're still #1!
While sales in many places across the country have slowed down, The Villages managed to pull off an increase in new home sales year over year.
The Villages was one of 14 Florida communities to crack the list of the 50 Top Selling Communities in the country.
2023: 3,029 New Home Sales
The Villages saw a 23% year over year drop in new home sales between 2022 and 2023. This drop can be attributed to several factors like higher interest rates that affected the overall real estate market, but from what I've been hearing it seems like a lot of people are waiting for neighborhoods a little further away from the turnpike to open up.
Despite the drop, The Villages was still the #1 selling community in the country for 2023.
2022: 3,923 New Home Sales
Coming in just below last year's pace, The Villages remains the top-selling community in the country for 2022.
Despite a real estate slowdown nationally, master-planned communities, in particular those in Florida, are still selling a lot of new homes.
I've been tracking new home sales in The Villages since 2003, and this is the fifth-highest sales year on record for them since that time.
2021: 4,004 New Home Sales
According to real estate consulting firm RCLCO, The Villages blew the doors off the competition this year, selling more than 4,000 new homes for the first time since 2005. This is the second highest one-year total for new homes sold in The Villages.
Lakewood Ranch in the Sarasota area came in second with 2,574 new home sales.
The Villages 2005 one year sales record of 4,263 new home sales still stands.
4,004 new home sales represent a 63% y-o-y increase from 2,452 sales in 2020, while taken as a whole the Top 50 master-planned communities only saw a 5% increase in sales.
It's clear that The Villages benefitted from pent up demand after a year of lockdowns in 2020, as well as a strong inventory pipeline that a lot of other communities lacked. There have been years in which The Villages could have sold more homes, but the inventory was just not in the pipeline.
Will 2022 be the year The Villages breaks their own new home sales record? Topping 4,000 new home sales is tough to do, let alone two years in a row. But hey, what's The Villages if not always full of surprises?
2020: 2,452 New Home Sales
You’re still the one!
The Villages once again claimed the top spot as the #1 selling master-planned community in the country according to two firms that track such data.
2019: 2,429 New Home Sales
The Villages again claims the #1 spot as the best-selling master-planned community in the country with 2,429 new home sales. That's a 14% increase over the year before.
Keep in mind, that figure is just new homes, and does not include resales. Incredible!
The Villages can also claim the title of best-selling community of the decade, with 24,440 new home sales from 2010 through 2019.
Lakewood Ranch, a multi-generational community just a short drive away in Sarasota again claimed the #2 spot in the rankings, selling 1,655 new homes in 2019.
Another community you hear a lot about these days is Latitude Margaritaville, but they only sold 437 new homes in 2019. That's a terrific sales number and year for them, but the community is just not of the same massive scale as The Villages and Lakewood Ranch.
2018: 2,134 New Home Sales
The Villages sold 97 fewer new homes in 2018 than they did in 2017, but with these kinds of numbers, I don't think anyone is going hungry in the developer's office.
The second best-selling community in the country this year was Lakewood Ranch in Sarasota with 1,482 new home sales.
2017: 2,231 New Home Sales
The Villages sold a total of 2,231 new homes in 2017.
That is up 13% from the 1,966 new homes they sold in 2016.
The Villages regained the top spot that they previously held before Irvine Ranch out in California topped them last year.
The Villages was one of only four communities to sell more than 1,000 homes in 2017.
One of those communities though is not too far away. Lakewood Ranch in Sarasota placed third on the list with 1,206 new home sales.
2016: 1,966 New Home Sales
For the first time in recent memory, The Villages sold less than 2,000 new homes, and no longer held the title of Top-Selling Master Planned Community.
In 2016 The Villages sold 1,966 new homes. That’s down 14% from the previous year when they sold 2,294 homes.
This drops them to the #2 spot on the list, behind Irvine Ranch out in California, which sold 1,989 homes.
To put things in perspective though, The Villages still sold more than the #3 and #4 communities on the list combined.
2015: 2,294 New Home Sales
The Villages sold 2,294 new homes in 2015.
This is a 12% drop in sales from 2014, and the lowest amount of sales the community has posted since 2010 when 2,208 new homes were sold.
Despite the drop in sales, The Villages still ranks as the best selling master-planned community in the country, edging out Irvine Ranch in California which posted 1,674 new home sales.
Another Florida community, Nocatee, which is located in the Jacksonville area came in third with 1,105 new home sales.
The 2015 drop in new home sales that The Villages experienced can be attributed to multiple factors.
For one thing, the general thinking at the time (which we know did not play out to be true) was that The Villages was nearing completion in 2015.
A slowdown in sales is a perfectly normal occurrence for a community nearing buildout. As less and less new home opportunities are available, more people begin to purchase resales.
The Villages also has some strong competition from other active adult communities nearby, and some would-be Villagers choosing to buy elsewhere instead.
2014: 2,601 New Home Sales
2013: 3,419 New Home Sales
The Villages sold 3,419 new homes in 2013.
This is a 20% increase y-o-y from 2012.
Once again The Villages led the nation as far as sales within master-planned communities is concerned, with Irvine Ranch out in California coming in 2nd with “only” 1,444 new home sales.
2012: 2,851 New Home Sales
In 2012 The Villages recorded 2,851 new homes sales, their best year since the national housing bubble began to deflate in 2006.
To put this kind of success into perspective, The Villages outsold its closest national competition, Irvine Ranch in Orange County, California by 1,417 homes.
The nearest competition in Florida came from Lakewood Ranch located in Sarasota which clocked in at 573 sales in 2012.
And its important to note that when I say “competition” I mean other master-planned communities…not necessarily 55+ communities like The Villages.
Over the last 10 years, The Villages has sold 29,632 new homes, an amazing accomplishment in any market.
2011: 2,307 New Home Sales
2010: 2,208 New Home Sales
2009: 2,115 New Home Sales
June 2009 is considered the “official” end of The Great Recession, and I think The Villages deserves a huge pat on the back for not letting new home sales dip below 2,000.
A lot of Florida communities had trouble selling even 2 new homes a year during The Great Recession.
2008: 2,238 New Home Sales
2007: 2,403 New Home Sales
Ah, 2007. Not exactly my best year, nor was it for The Villages.
This year The Villages saw the largest drop in year-over-year sales, by selling 1,560 fewer homes than in 2006.
December 2007 marks the “official” start of The Great Recession, but all you had to do to know that a recession was going on before then was to be selling real estate in Florida like I was.
2006: 3,963 New Home Sales
2005: 4,263 New Home Sales
2005 marks the high water point in The Villages as far as new home sales is concerned with 4,263 new homes sold.
I'm just going to put it out into the Universe that I will be extremely shocked if another community in the United States surpasses this amount of new homes sold in a single year in my lifetime.
What an incredible feat!
