The Villages - Florida - USA

The Villages still ranked No. 1 nationally in sales.The Villages now has 93,420 people—that's a 29 percent increase.

Last year, 2,307 retirees purchased homes in The Villages.

The development's scale and isolation make it feel more like a colony than a community. Almost everyone is old, almost everyone drives a golf cart — they outnumber cabs in New York City by a factor of four — and almost everyone is white. 

Spanning 23,000 acres, The Villages boasts 513 holes of golf, 85 restaurants, 63 swimming pools, 14 medical centers, located a hour's drive north of Orlando. 

That's because despite having fewer home sales last year, The Villages still closed on nearly 1,200 more homes in 2014 than the No. 2 master-planned community on the list. Second-ranked Irvine Ranch in Orange County, Calif., sold 1,431 homes last year, a 1-percent increase over 2013.

"Most master-planned communities sold fewer homes in 2014 than 20B, some due to delays in lot availability or nearing sell-out, and others due to a combination of a slower market and higher new home prices," the John Burns website states.Thirteen of the top-20 master-planned communities on the list sold fewer homes in 2014 compared with 2013.

Normally, selling 24 percent fewer homes from one year to the next would hurt a master-planned community's national ranking based on sales, but not The Villages.

The retirement community sold 818 fewer homes in 2014 compared with 2013, but with 2,601 total sales last year, it still held onto the No. 1 spot as the top-selling master-planned community in the nation last year, according to a top-20 ranking analyzed more than 130 communities nationwide.

Yet three themes to success were seen last year, the website added, including master-planned communities like The Villages that are marketed to active seniors.