Is Leisure World Worth It? Full Breakdown of Costs and Lifestyle

if you're looking for the perfect place to retire and enjoy your days Leisure World has it all that's why I'm helping a lot of people move in Leisure World but of course Leisure World is not for everybody that's why I want to show you around not hide anything from you uh we'll talk about the financials we'll talk about some of the amenities and we'll talk about some of the home prices and the types of homes that they have in here also I want to show you something that brings real peace of mind to a lot of residents in Leisure World and you're going to see all of that in this video [Music] all right so Leisure World is an active senior community in Seal Beach California lots of activities uh pools Golf Course clubhouses they even have a few churches in here the community is gated uh so it's very secure and they have security driving around all the time checking up on people they also have a fitness center too so whatever you're looking for you'll find it in here so if you think all the amenities are great wait until you see the one thing that makes people fall in love with Leisure World but first I want to show you what can

expect from your social life here all right so now we're inside of a two-bedroom unit this part right here so the front doors over here sometimes they put the door in different places but right here you know it's on the side normally in in a standard unit this would be part of the patio so the patio kind of goes you know out here and it wraps around okay so this is an end unit so the end units generally um go for a little bit more money because they're on the end um you don't have a neighbor next to you um but what what they've done here is they've put basically built this out and you know add it on to the unit give it extra square footage so this is the living room I think we have a blind down here not a big deal those are cheap so this is what the standard two-bedroom unit's going to look like without without the patio of course or the the addition all right here's one of the bedrooms all right this one has central air conditioning as you can see um some of them they'll have like air conditioning units built in they work just as good the central air is preferred but you know um

it's more money too this is the kitchen all right you'll see a lot of this um standard you have standard appliances in here these appliances are from uh Leisure World the uh as you can see the microwave is a little bit older my we actually have this unit in escra right now my client's going to replace that unit um a lot of the units also have these uh cutting boards built in too so you know people want to get rid of those and and put in their own uh countertops and it's relatively inexpensive um and again Leisure World cooktop Leisure World um oven and you have a Leisure World refrigerator over here all right so then here's the master bedroom all right go through here pretty decent size remember most of this unit is is standard um with the exception of the air conditioning and then we also have here's here's the bathroom um this again standard standard bathroom if you look you know in here pretty standard um but if you look over here this is an generally an upgrade in Leisure World so the the washer and dryer and this they they build them into this area or this closet in the in the uh bathroom and as you can see this one

kind of goes all the way back to the wall of the kitchen so to do this type of work is going to run you you know and don't quote me on this because prices change all the time but going to run you about 2,000 to put the washer and dryer in um but then on most units you'll have a a cupboard out here where you can store food that's gone cuz you know we have the washer and dryer but you do have this side which is a little bit shorter of a cupboard which works pretty good so normally they would there would be doors right here for for a a little cupboard but with the addition of the washer and dryer they got rid of that you know for the most part this unit has you know it's got you know the carpeting throughout um it's you know there my my client's planning on pulling the carpet out of it doing any kind of work inside of Leisure World you have to go through the Golden Ring foundation and basically get permission you know they have they have their own contractors or they have a list of contractors I should say you can bring your own contractors in but they have to get approved through

the association and it you know it takes a little bit longer to do it if you want to bring your own contractors in or you can go to people that have already you know gotten in here um don't know if it's going to cost you less if you use their contractors or more but you know it's it's actually a Leisure World but you know for the most part it's really not that huge of a of a deal with that being said a lot of the you know a lot of the pricing we can tell you you know for the washer and dryer Edition is going to be about you know um 2,000 plus or minus um this this unit actually has central air I'm not even going to quote a price on that because you know these videos change all the time air conditioning units they have in a lot of the units in Leisure World they run about ,000 a piece so if you want one in this room one in that room and so on you know 5,000 times however many times so there's only really only in this one there's four rooms because we've you know because they've actually added on back here uh but normally there's only three rooms and in

SE Beach it gets hot but it doesn't get uh hot very long long so like during the summer you might get hot you know for a couple of weeks like really hot this summer not so much but during the September August September time frame it can get hot and you know you will probably want air conditioning during those periods but other than that not a big deal the other thing to note here is everything in here and you can see um let's go back over here um into the kitchen you can see that the uh all the appliances are um Electric so there's no gas um you know obviously the refrigerator there's no gas um um in Leisure World so you know if you like cooking with gas and it's that big a deal it's probably not the place for you another thing to note in Leisure World is behind this um door in the kitchen right here there is the hot water heater so if you need access the hot water heater you actually have to pull refrigerator out okay so I have seen units in here that were unreal like you walk in and you can't even believe you're in Leisure World they are like done very well um this one is is

definitely an upgraded unit um but my client's going to come in and fix it up you know make it her own uh this one is going for about 375 right now and we're in 2024 so you know by next year it'll probably be more and if she adds on to it it's going to be worth even more if you're if you're looking at a one-bedroom you're basically going to have not that right most of the one bedrooms they're not in unit so you're going to be on the in the middle so there's going to be a neighbor right here along this wall and then you you'll have you know the the living room like this the kitchen the bathroom over here all right and then you'll have one bedroom so that's pretty much in a nutshell the units that are in Leisure there are some other ones uh that we'll talk about in a little bit in the um buildings around here there's two-story building a few two-story buildings uh some three-story buildings as well but uh you know the the single story units this is pretty much the layout for all of them another thing to to note too we're right here is the uh parking structures you know every unit gets one uh

G one parking spot I was going to say garage but there are no garages just one parking spot again depending on where you live the distance of the parking uh is actually could be an increase in the price um most of the units have parking like really close by so it's not that big a deal you know I think this unit's like down here on the left so it's pretty close um they all all have parking like up front in front of the units too so if you get you know if you're you have groceries and you you're worried about you know hauling the groceries groceries are right there the other thing too is all the units trash is going to kind of be Central like right in here you'll see the trash can and they're they're on all the parking structur so pretty close plenty of room to empty your trash not a big deal so after seeing this home uh I'm sure you can see why people want to live here there's you can do a lot with the homes they're very inexpensive uh when you consider you're in Southern California most of the homes in Seal Beach well let's let me just say the average home price outside of Leisure World in

Seal Beach is going to be about 1.6 million dollar so you're in a great community at a great price in Leisure World they have think there might be six club houses in Leisure World they uh they have clubs from cooking clubs uh woodworking uh clubs I actually saw a video production club today as well so there's pretty much anything you want to do there's going to have clubs uh for that um and it's a great place to go and meet people um you know it's it's a very very friendly Community everybody's you know as I'm as I'm going around uh went by the golf course and people just hang hanging out having a good time talking you know you go inside of the uh clubhouse and there there there's a table tennis tournament going on right now so plenty of things to do you know like I said before Leisure World is an active Community there's uh 6,600 units in Leisure World most of those units are going to be the single stories you know with either a one or two bedroom there are some units you know there are a few buildings that by the front gate that are two stories those units are are going to be uh between 1,200 and 1,400 Square

ft you know i' say 1400 cuz what what they do is they're all they're all pretty standard at 1,200 ft but what they do is they build out the um patio so you'll lose a patio but you get an extra you know a couple hundred square fet for the most part in Leisure Ward you're going to have two bedroom one bath or one bedroom one bath there are some two-bedroom two baths on the single stories um they've added on to some of them I actually saw a bathroom in a closet the other day which is and the units and Leisure are going to start from about 0,000 on up I saw one the other day that um was it was about 900 ft unit but they had totally redone it that unit was going for right around 700,000 incredible so right now we're driving by the RV uh parking lot so if you have an RV and you live in Leisure World here's your parking lot right here you just drop it off you know get your golf cart out and head on over to your unit and you know stay there for a few days and head back out on the road I mean if I if I had an RV living in Leisure

I'd probably be here yeah maybe half the time maybe not but really active uh Community too so if you join some clubs out here you know you might want to stick around and you know hang out meet people I mean that's that's what that's what they do here so now let's talk about the qualifying process in Leisure World so to qualify in Leisure World you're going to basically take the cost of the units let's say and and I'm going to do this for easy math let's say it's 0,000 which I haven't seen anything for 200,000 in a while I did see something a couple years ago going for about 170 and it was in bad shape so and these are all cash units too so if you find something for 170 and you need to put 50,000 into it now you're at what 220 um maybe you should be looking at 220 where you don't have to do any work you know but some people like to do it some people want to go come in buy the cheapest they can find you know do their own work on it and uh you know make that money uh when they sell it which is a good idea as well you take that uh cost

that 0,000 times a 1.2% uh property tax and then you divide that number by 12 then you add the HOA cost right so let's say it's 0 a month and let's say that is 0 uh for property tax so now you're at you know 0 plus2 20 that's 0 a month that's what your your your payment's going to be in here and then depending on which Mutual you live in now the mutuals are basically different HOAs inside of the big HOA the Golden Rain foundation so some mutuals will want a factor times four some will do 4 and A2 some will do five times that uh cost so let's say you're at uh you know I'm not going to use the number I just used let's say 0 a month total times four so you have to make ,000 a month in income most units in here you're going to be you're going to need to have at least like ,600 in income to qualify and what they're going to want to see is they're going to want to see your uh last two years taxes uh they're going to want to see what your what your your tax income was and then you're going to have to have uh enough money to buy the

unit cash and then you're going to have to have uh on some mutuals they're going to want to reserve they're going to want you know 30,000 50,000 25,000 it really depends on um which Mutual you're moving into and also when you're actually moving so you know in 10 years from now it's going to be different uh but that's basically how you qualify now once you submit the offer on the unit the escro compan is going to basically ask for all this information they're going to need your driver's license your uh passport your birth certificate you various different documents um that you're going to have to have those uh documents are going to be reviewed by the escra officer and that escro officer is going to give you a basic pre-qualification uh for the unit in about 10 days after that and it's usually right at 10 days I've had it come a little bit quicker but you we we we give them 10 days the Golden Rain Foundation is going to say yep you're qualified um and they're GNA authorize you to proceed further in the escrow escrow uh basically takes 45 days uh no matter what uh two weeks before the end of that escro period you're going to have to come in and

do an interview with the uh president of the HOA of that mutual and then they're basically going to give you the nod to to allow you to move in it's a pretty easy process it sounds a lot more complicated than it is it's really not um you know one of the other things that people ask me is do I need to get a home inspection in here and my answer is going to be I would get a home inspection but is it necessary not really because when we're getting ready to list a unit for sale in Leisure World they do what's called a a pre-listing inspection that could take you know two weeks to get that scheduled but what they do is they'll come in they'll inspect everything in the unit the appliances they'll make sure the air conditioning is working they make sure there's you know the unit's in good condition if it's not the seller uh has already had to put a deposit in to sell the unit and they'll basically take the money out of that deposit to fix certain things um that need fixed you know it's up it's kind of up to you whether you want to do a home inspection you know home inspector is going to come in

and they're going to look at the unit they're going to kind of do the same thing the home inspectors cannot go into the attics in uh Leisure World they can't get on the roof the out the exterior of the building is uh maintained by the Golden Rain foundation so I really don't see a point in doing it but I'm not going to tell you not to do it I would you know I would always recommend that you do your own do diligence and make sure that you know what you're buying is a sound uh purchase if you want to have contractors come in and take a look at it and kind of give you a quote as to what they think it's going to cost you know to add carpeting or whatnot you can do that too so you can get a good idea of what the actual cost is going to be once you move in you know with with that being said I wouldn't do a home inspection in here but you know I'm not going to tell you not to one of the other things that you want to consider too is if you have a uh like a handicap placard on your car you can get a parking spot for a

golf cart right in front of your unit you're going to have to pay for that on your own um when you go to move out of the unit however you also have to re have pay for it to be removed unless the person buying the unit from you has also has a handicap Placer um Security in here is is you know pretty tight I'm you know I'm driving around I've probably seen them you know three or four times today they Patrol Leisure World to make sure that you know people are uh safe and you know nobody's illegally parked or parked in the wrong spots um you know the again cars just park one of them out here um Park one of them in your um your covered parking um you know when when we come in as Realtors we have to actually have a parking pass issued to us on the way in the gate so that you know we can uh you know we can be legit we don't get towed so that's something else they just started too as far as like Seal Beach is concerned if you are a resident of Seal Beach you can buy a parking pass to park down in Oldtown which is where everything happens um you know

Oldtown Seal Beach is a very active Community as well they have a lot of events going on down there they have concerts in the park they have band on the sand they have uh you know 10ks that uh that happen like once or twice a year they have the car Shi they have the annual fish fry um you know tons of restaurants shopping all on Main Street there's you know so you're going to want to get a a parking pass for Oldtown uh Seal Beach and as a resident you can get a parking pass for and then you can add on a guest parking on that too there's another parking pass that you can get down there that is a beach parking pass that's 0 a year do you really need need it man not so much if you like to just go straight down to the beach and you want to park on the beach go ahead and pay it 100 bucks a year is not a lot of money now speaking of Transportation down to Seal Beach there's a lot of Transportation in here uh there's shuttle buses there's actual city buses uh sa beach has a started a new service called the circuit which uh basically is like a little electric

vehicle I think they're only down in Oldtown Seal Beach though they drive you around for you know very cheap the Leisure World shuttle buses you can just jump on them they'll take you down to the you know shopping centers they'll take you to the grocery stores they'll take you down to the pier drop you off um you know spend the day and then you get back on the shuttle bus and come back they used to have uh buses that would take residents out to Pachanga Casino so that you could gamble your all your life savings away U but you know some people love it it's it's I mean it was great you in the morning you jump on the shuttle bus and you're home by 4:00 in the afternoon so hopefully they'll get that started up soon here um you know that was a that was a great benefit for a lot of people I know also in Leisure World there's a um Health Care Facility as opum Healthcare it's more of a um like a clinic like a like an urgent care clinic there are uh several uh hospitals close by the VA Hospital which is maybe five to 10 minutes drive away from here and uh the you know the Long Beach VA

hospital is amazing it's you know they they do a really good job in there I actually go there myself and you know it's probably one of the bigger uh VA hospitals in the country as well and they they literally do everything but right next to the uh opum Health Clinic you also have a pharmacy there so you know if you need your prescriptions fi they're right there as well um you know for you to take advantage of it you know like I said there's literally anything you want to do is right here in Leisure World you really don't have to leave the community other than go grocery shopping and probably not even then cuz you know we have we have a a lot of services that will deliver groceries right to your door as well so why go anywhere else I mean it's it's a great place so every now and again I have somebody ask me about um if you have an electric vehicle how does that work with Leisure World so outside of the St Andrews gate which is like a the gate closest there's three gates in leisure it's the gate closest to um actual Oldtown Seal Beach there are some charging stations out there they're very slow charging stations but they're

charging station so basically you park your car there probably leave it overnight and when you get up in the morning your car will be charge it's kind of slow there's also some uh Tesla superchargers that are really close you know just just a side note I know people ask me about that Leisure World is a place where you can enjoy an active connected lifestyle with the ultimate peace of mind and I know that because I've helped a lot of people move in here so if you ever have any questions or you know you're ready to make that move go ahead and give that number right there a call and if not you're still doing your research go ahead and click that video right up there and learn a little bit more about living in Leisure World