20 Communities Similar to The Villages Across the U.S.

Bill Ness is the founder of 55places and Neighborhoods. His real estate career began in sales for Del Webb before becoming a sales manager for Sun City Huntley. Bill then helped to organize the grand opening of the popular Edgewater community in 2005, gaining firsthand experience of the intricacies of active adult communities. After noticing that the industry lacked a central, reliable, and unbiased resource for active adult communities, Bill left Del Webb in 2007 to start 55places.com. Starting the company with a laptop held together by duct tape, Bill meticulously built 55places.com into the nation’s leading resource for active adult communities. Having traveled to countless 55+ communities and having interviewed residents, builders, and agents around the country, Bill is considered a leading expert on the active adult lifestyle. Bill resides in Chicago with his wife, Gina, and their three children.

Chad Walker joined 55places in 2022. He comes with 14+ years of experience in the Real Estate industry, ten of which have been dedicated to leading operational excellence. Chad started off in the industry as a top-producing Real Estate Agent in Seattle, WA before taking on positions to lead high-performing teams of real estate professionals to advocate for customers along their journey of home ownership. Chad specializes in the real estate tech sector and focuses on the strategy of growing sales, revenue, and teams by collaborating with other leaders on the company’s goals and initiatives. Chad has a customer-first mentality and builds his organization around that passion. Chad currently resides in Seattle with his family and enjoys traveling when not thinking about real estate.

Bill Ness is the founder of 55places and Neighborhoods. His real estate career began in sales for Del Webb before becoming a sales manager for Sun City Huntley. Bill then helped to organize the grand opening of the popular Edgewater community in 2005, gaining firsthand experience of the intricacies of active adult communities. After noticing that the industry lacked a central, reliable, and unbiased resource for active adult communities, Bill left Del Webb in 2007 to start 55places.com. Starting the company with a laptop held together by duct tape, Bill meticulously built 55places.com into the nation’s leading resource for active adult communities. Having traveled to countless 55+ communities and having interviewed residents, builders, and agents around the country, Bill is considered a leading expert on the active adult lifestyle. Bill resides in Chicago with his wife, Gina, and their three children.

Madeline Crozier Sutton (she/her) is an experienced freelance writer and editor who has worked with 55places since 2018. Now a fifth-year PhD Candidate in English at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, she has a BA and MA in Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse from DePaul University. She specializes in researching real estate trends across the country with a focus on the Midwest and Southeast regions, including the housing markets of Chicago, Indianapolis, and East Tennessee. Dedicated to helping homebuyers make evidence-based decisions, she brings six years of experience in real estate writing and research.