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Everyone’s favorite 55+ community was recently featured on CBS News.

Latitude Margaritaville, a 55+ community, is inspired by the vibes of the late musician Jimmy Buffett. It’s just one of the 800 active adult communities in the U.S., where retirees are finding community, and more. Correspondent Martha Teichner reports from the Daytona Beach community where it’s always five o’clock.

Our very own Bill and Kelley Sarantis had the surprise of a lifetime several years ago, when the legend himself, Jimmy Buffett, showed up at their doorstep.

Bill and Kelley were #9 to move into Latitude Margaritaville and today Kelley is the #1 choice of realtor for residents buying and selling the community.

Click the photo before to watch the full video from the Daytona Beach News Journal.

It’s here!

Follow the picture below to view the the latest Barefoot Bulletin with all things Latitude Margaritaville!

From RV enthusiasts to Jimmy Buffett fans to yogis, there’s a niche retirement community for almost everyone.

Via Kiplinger.com

Moving famously like a pig-in-a-python through the economy for seven-plus decades, Baby Boomers have been shaping consumer goods and services since they were in onesies. Now, history’s most influential generation is fueling the growth of the next logical sector: the niche retirement community.

Niche retirement communities are exactly what they sound like. They’re residential developments, urban, suburban and even seafaring, designed to appeal to narrowly cast affinity groups–from Jimmy Buffett fans to yoga practitioners. And they come in almost every type of senior accommodation — from active to independent, assisted living through continuing care.

Niche projects account for a small percentage of the nation’s 50,000 or so senior communities and facilities. But they are “the segment to watch,” says Andrew Carle, an adjunct lecturer on aging and health issues at Georgetown University, and a consultant to the field. There are five to six dozen university-based retirement communities for retirees who want to return to the student and academic life. There are some two dozen properties focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender seniors. There are retirement communities for retired postal workers, equestrians, environmentalists, RV enthusiasts and Parrot Head fans of singer Jimmy Buffett. Even Disney is getting in on the action; it’s about to launch Storyliving, a planned community in California “for the next chapter of your life” that includes a 55+ neighborhood.

Boomers, who are hitting 65 at the rate of 10,000 people a day, are buying in.

• In November 2017, when Buffett announced his first Latitude Margaritaville in Daytona Beach, Fla., an active-living property for people “55 and better,” more than 150 fans and other lovers of the flip-flop life camped out overnight at the sales-office for first dibs on 300 properties. Today, Latitude Daytona Beach is a planned community of 7,000 people and there is a waiting list for homes under construction. There is another Latitude in the Florida panhandle, one in North Carolina, and two or three planned for Texas.
• In 2016, when the Delaware-based Kendal Corp. announced Enso Village, a life-plan community devoted to Zen tradition in Northern California’s wine country, 1,194 people put down $1,000 for a priority reservation; when the 275 units went on the market in 2020, they sold out in four months; Kendal is now developing a second Enso Village in Southern California.
• Nalanda Estates near Sarasota, Fla., which describes itself as an Active Indian Retirement community of 83 homes, states on its website it is sold out.
• Florida’s The Villages–renown as a hotbed of conservative politics and libertine social lives–has sold some 70,000 houses.
  “A developer could open a Grateful Dead community and fill it quickly” says Carle. “I can virtually guarantee it.”

Read more: Kiplinger.com

Via Minto.com

TAMPA, FL – (January 10, 2023) – Minto Communities USA announces that four of their five master-planned communities have been named on the John Burns Real Estate Consulting list of Top 50 Master-Planned Communities in the United States for 2022. All four Minto communities were ranked among the top 25 on the list. Minto is the only master-planned community developer and home builder in the U.S. to achieve this result.

The Minto communities that ranked in the top 25 include Latitude Margaritaville communities in Daytona Beach, Florida, Watersound, Florida, and Hilton Head, South Carolina, along with Westlake in Palm Beach County, Florida. Latitude Margaritaville Watersound, the newest of the Latitude Margaritaville communities, made the list for the first time at number 14. The other three Minto communities made the Top 50 list last year and all moved up in the rankings for 2022. Latitude Margaritaville Daytona Beach is number 15, up from 19 in 2021. Latitude Margaritaville Hilton Head is number 25, up from 36 in 2021. Westlake is number 21, up from 33 in 2021.