[Mrs. Robinson]

Originally Posted by Waverunner

People do have choices for pre-owned sales. You can choose a Villages salesperson/realtor, (small "r) OR you can choose a REALTOR®, (capital "R"), a real estate professional who is member of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® and subscribes to its strict Code of Ethics. You can have both!

If you look at the stats though, it seems that people overwhelmingly are choosing to work with a Villages salesperson/realtor. (Number of listings and sales.)

I don't know what "full services" are lacking from choosing to work with The Villages. They aren't listed by those that tout REALTOR® as the only way to go. We sure didn't see any lack of services when purchasing our home. In fact, our experience was very much the opposite. The Villages realtors have no problem having their customers work with MLS Realtors, to be able to see all of the homes available for sale. You CAN have the best of both worlds here and make your own choices.

I have recently had opportunities to show friends and family our new home town, and have taken them to open houses, where you find a group of courteous, professional sales people, helpful, not pushy, knowledgeable, answering questions, and representing The Villages in a fair and well informed manner.

It is good to have choices!

I agree with most of what you said with the exception of a few things.

The Villages agents, like any agent anywhere, would not like to see you working with another agent; they do have a problem with that!
Other agents are their competition which means that they could lose a commission.

Not to sound like a broken record because I have said this soooo many times in other threads, but the Villages agents are not realtors/Realtors.
The word Realtor is a registered trademark, always capitalized, and can only be used by agents who are members of their local board or association of Realtors and must belong to the National Assn. of Realtors.