Central Florida Nesties
smilejenn
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
~*~062307Bride~*~
Hi!
I'm going to check out the new construction in Verde Ridge this weekend and I saw that you already live there. Can I get your opinion on a few things? This will be the first time that we look into new construction... Does the construction traffic/noise bother you at all? What about driving into Orlando? It's quite a drive to get to a mall, right?
We have a house under contract in Winter Garden, but our inspection didn't come back as we hoped. We're pricing out some other options to see if perhaps Verde would be a cheaper alternative for us. 
Re: ~*~062307Bride~*~
Traffic/noise - the development does go up to the turnpike, but we hardly hear anything. The turnpike traffic is a bit more noticeable in the winter time (because the air isn't as thick as summer), but it isn't loud at all. As far as traffic, there really isn't any until 50 and, even then, we don't think it's bad. We take a back way to get to the turnpike on ramp so that we don't have to go through any of the traffic lights.
Driving to Orlando - we take the back way to get to the turnpike entrance and can be in the Disney area in a half hour.
Mall - we're still getting used to the area, so I'm not sure where all the malls are, but the West Oaks mall is about 20 minutes down 50 (or you can take the turnpike). We also have a new shopping center with JCPenney, Ross, TJMaxx, Michaels, Dollar Tree, Famous Footware, a new movie theater (Epic - really good popcorn! lol), and a BJs. To be honest, we actually like having a little bit of a drive to get to the mall (I grew up in South Jersey and had 5 major malls within 20 minutes of my house, so this is different!!) - it helps us save money because I'm not going shopping at the mall all the time!
We love living in Verde Ridge - the neighbors are great and the houses are of great quality. The 3 builders (Pulte, Hibiscus and Adams) all have office close to each other, so check them out. Pulte currently has 4 models (with 2 samples to walk through), but they also had many other models before these (they started selling the 4 current models in the beginning of the summer, I think) - I have heard of people getting them to build the "older" models because they didn't like the newer ones. Just something to keep in mind
Good luck!! Have fun and let me know how it goes!
Thanks! I was thinking it shouldn't be that far. Personally I would be kinda scared to go to West Oaks Mall. But, the shopping center in Winter Garden is just like the one we have now in Waterford Lakes.
Great point! We actually just drove from the neighborhood in Clermont to that shopping area in Winter Garden, and it's about a 10-15 minute drive. Not bad at all! And definitely better than West Oaks Mall
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I agree, SBW is a great neighborhood! Unfortunately we found mold in the home during our inspection, so we backed out of the contract. How much did they charge you for your HOA initiation, if you don't mind me asking? The HOA and their lawyer wouldn't give our agent a firm number, and we've heard they can charge between $1000-$10,000. lol Quite ridiculous!
Oh no! I was worried about our inspection too because of mold and termites. The HOA is ridiculous! They are supposed to charge you a $1,000 initiation fee and that's it. That is for normal sales though in which the homeowner has been living there the whole time and paying their dues. If it has been foreclosed they up the initiation fee to $4,000 plus back feed and penalties which can shoot up a lot! They told us we had to pay $8,000!! We said no way and were going to pull out of the property, but luckily the seller (a bank since it was foreclosed) agreed to pay $7,000 of it leaving us the normal $1,000 fee (which is still a lot IMO!)
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Great job negotiating your way out of that HOA fee! Wow, 8k is just ridiculous! When we first heard rumors about an initiation fee, we called the HOA directly and they told us that they never charged an initiation fee. Then we heard through the rumor mill that it was a $1000 initiation unless a bank had possession of the property for over 12 months, and then it would be $4000. Last week our inspector told us that the HOA was known for pulling shady business with new buyers and he had heard the fee can be as high as 10k!!
That's great that your inspection came back clean! Besides the issue with mold, we lucked in that the inspection was held the day after it rained and we saw that the lawn was soggy. Evidently even with tiles and a gutter system our lawn would always be somewhat wet because it was built on swamp land. Isn't that ridiculous? A house that sold for 450k+ during the housing boom is built on swamp land! lol
Stoneybrook is definitely the best neighborhood in WG though, so you well do great in terms of resale!