Selling home

[starflyte1]

Our home has been listed with a Villages realestate agent for four months and has not sold. Though we like our agent as a person, I am beginning to think that we would be better off to list with an outside realtor. The pictures of our home on the for sale sight do nothing to sell the house and I wonder if a buyer doesn't look through the listings and pick which to see. We need someone to make it a point to show our home.

It is in move in condition, on a circle of about 50 homes with no thru traffic and is on a beautiful golf front lot and is priced at $249,000 which is one of the lowest prices for a golf course lot home.

We want to sell it so we can move to a villa for our two Yorkies. If we could fence the yard at the house, we would stay. It is a nice home with a great floor plan and lots of storage.

I guess my question is, should we go with an outside realtor? If so, which? We like the ads that Sally runs in the paper and is a sponsor of this site, so maybe we will call her.

[paulandjean]

We also have had the same problem.Our home was listed for 6 months with the villages real estate.Our real estate agents have never shown the home themselves.We had many showings by other agents,but the offers we received are very low.Not low because of the real estate mess,but really low. Not very happy with the service from the village real estate. Good luck to you.

[BobKat1]

It does seem that after 4 months on the market it couldn't hurt to list your home with an MLS realtor. When people do online searches for homes in TV, through sites like Realtor.com etc., they'd see your listing. It might be seen by a wider audience. Good luck to you.

[zcaveman]

We want to sell it so we can move to a villa for our two Yorkies. If we could fence the yard at the house, we would stay. It is a nice home with a great floor plan and lots of storage.

I have seen people put in a birdcage that goes outside the patio/concrete area to give their dogs a place to roam, play, and do their business. It is not really a fence but it is a thought if you do not want to sell.

[Opulence]

Our home has been listed with a Villages realestate agent for four months and has not sold. Though we like our agent as a person, I am beginning to think that we would be better off to list with an outside realtor. The pictures of our home on the for sale sight do nothing to sell the house and I wonder if a buyer doesn't look through the listings and pick which to see. We need someone to make it a point to show our home.

It is in move in condition, on a circle of about 50 homes with no thru traffic and is on a beautiful golf front lot and is priced at $249,000 which is one of the lowest prices for a golf course lot home.

We want to sell it so we can move to a villa for our two Yorkies. If we could fence the yard at the house, we would stay. It is a nice home with a great floor plan and lots of storage.

I guess my question is, should we go with an outside realtor? If so, which? We like the ads that Sally runs in the paper and is a sponsor of this site, so maybe we will call her.


Hi - I recently returned from my PLP visit to TV. I went out with an agent from TV and then I went out with Sally. I highly recommend Sally and her partner Cindy. They are very knowledgable, very professional, & quite personable. I feel my time was well spent with Sally and she showed me properties which met and even exceeded my criteria. We have been in contact since my return - their follow through is excellent.

Betty

[starflyte1]

Thanks for the replies.

Zcaveman, something to think about. We have a screen cage, in addition to the lanai. We could make it even bigger to include grass. The lot has plenty of space, even for a pool.

Mary, we have thought abut an invisible fence. It would keep our dogs in. But, it would not keep animals out. One morning a fox or something like one, calmly walked past our place on the cart track.

Paul and Jean, what did you do? Sell or change agents?

BobKat1 and Opulence, Thanks. I think we will talk to our listing agent tomorrow. It needs someone who really wants to sell it.

[Opulence]

Hi,
Have you thought of an invisible fence,we live next door to great people that have two little dogs the fence works great for them. Mary

Hi Mary - Someone recently mentioned (in another post) that invisible fencing is not good to have in an area that has ligthening storms. Supposedly TV has it's fair share . . . I believe that two homes recently had direct hits and were lost due to lightening . . Apparently it's a big no, no for that reason. I thought I should mention this, especially when two little dogs are involved.

Betty

[Virginians]

We could not find any house priced at $145,900 anywhere on the Villages site.

[BobKat1]

I took a quick look and found multiple pages of both new and pre-owned homes at $145K and less. Were you looking on their main site?

[nkrifats]

I see a lot of pre-owned villa's for less than that.
I bought my patio villa for 7K less than what you are saying and it is a 2 BR; 2 Bath. Very Happy with it and it was just what we was looking for.
This was in May when we bought.

[starflyte1]

Our home is listed for $249,900 and is on Gerardo Ave. As I mentioned before, the pictures do not show well.

Pat

[2 Oldcrabs]

You may want to look at the price of new homes. The builder may be under-cutting the value of resales. Also if you have wallpaper, it can turn a lot people off. We have just spent over a year removing wallpaper and re-painting in anticipation of listing our house.
A lot of people watch "Just sell this house" on HG-TV.
I would try a MLS realtor.

[deano_hoosier]

Looking at Trulia.com, there are currently 209 listings among the private real estate companies (does not include those listed by The Villages Realty). The Villages Realty has 468 listings. That's a rough total of 677 listings in the Sumter County area. Sales for these non-Village listed pre-owned homes averages 82/month according to Trulia.com data.

Running a sales report on qualified sales for YTD (those are sales that exchange $$$'s and not just trust transfers) -- shows that for the 8 months there have been 1318 qualified sales. This total, 1318, does include newly developed properties that are sold by the developer and the pre-owned properties.

So, if you look at an average month for '09 in Sumter county, there are 165 sales of new and pre-owned homes. There is an inventory of 677 pre-owned homes alone.

There are no doubt some apples and oranges in this comparison, but if you take the 82/month average sales of non-village listings from the 165 sales of new and pre-owned homes, that leaves about 83/month of new/developer home sales and of pre-owned listings by The Villages real estate folks.

Or looking just at pre-owned homes with 677 listings and sales of 82/month.. that would mean the average time listed is 8.2 months! If the pre-owned sales by The Villages realty group is split (50-50???) with the new homes. That would bump the sales of pre-owned homes to maybe 120-125/month or a 5.5 month supply. In any case, it is an inventory problem of some magnitude.

[BobKat1]

When you add in FSBO homes, that adds even more inventory to the pool of exisitng homes for sale. A great time to buy!

[starflyte1]

Thanks Deano! Your post is quite interesting.

I talked to our TV agent today. We are going to leave it with him for a while longer, and have added a $1000 bonus for the buyer's agent. And, he is going to take a new picture of the living room.

[JeanneBeannie]

I agree, thanks very much Deano...very interesting statistics :eclipsee_gold_cup:.

Starflyte...I also offered the $1000 bonus to the buyers agent and my house sold approximately 1 month later, and I did get more activity. My house was sitting for months before I did that with hardly any activity. I owe it to a poster on here that came up with that idea. :bowdown:

Good luck! :beer3:

[784caroline]

Starflytel1

How long did you extend the listing....any incentive is GOOD..but these incentives are only for agents...CORRECT !! I hope you kept the listing extension to 30 or 60 or less.

[starflyte1]

784 We did not extend the listing. The original still has two months to go. And the $1000 is for the buyer's agent.

Jeanne I hope the $1000 helps. I too got the idea from this bb. Hope it works for us like it seems to have for you.

Pat

[alemorkam]

You need to keep in mind that when buying, or selling, a house in the villages using a villages sales agent, that the agent's #1 priority is to sell NEW HOUSES. They have already sold the preowned home once when it was new. There is an inventory of new homes, and their job is to sell new houses. My view, and the view of others I have talked with, is that the Villages sales people use the preowned homes in their inventory to show, and then compare them against new homes, and then persuade the people looking to buy a new home for the same price or less. I bet if there was a way to find out, that when a village's sales agent shows a preowned home, the majority of those people end up buying a new house from the agent. I think they use the preowned inventory to showcase their NEW homes.

Mulitiple listing realitors can only sell pre-owned homes in the villages so when they list your home they need to sell it while competing against new home prices. They only make money selling preowned homes in the villages, while villages sales agents make more selling new homes.

[paulandjean]

I agree, the villages real estate agents try to sell the new homes first. Our agents (2) never shown our home in 6 months. Seems more concerned about open houses. many people who looked at our home bought new.We thought when we signed with a village real estate they would represent us the seller, however never turned out that way.We will try selling on our own for a few weeks,and then try a new agent.

[BogeyBoy]

You need to keep in mind that when buying, or selling, a house in the villages using a villages sales agent, that the agent's #1 priority is to sell NEW HOUSES. They have already sold the preowned home once when it was new. There is an inventory of new homes, and their job is to sell new houses. My view, and the view of others I have talked with, is that the Villages sales people use the preowned homes in their inventory to show, and then compare them against new homes, and then persuade the people looking to buy a new home for the same price or less. I bet if there was a way to find out, that when a village's sales agent shows a preowned home, the majority of those people end up buying a new house from the agent. I think they use the preowned inventory to showcase their NEW homes.

Mulitiple listing realitors can only sell pre-owned homes in the villages so when they list your home they need to sell it while competing against new home prices. They only make money selling preowned homes in the villages, while villages sales agents make more selling new homes.

Do you have any knowledge of the pay/commission structure for TV sales reps or are you just speculating? I am sure there are reps that are going to do the right thing for the buyer regardless of the pay, some that are driven by the pay, and some that just show what's out there and go with the flow. If a customer is undecided a sales reps can certainly influence the final decision, show a few resale "dogs" and they'll sell a new home. But if they show only new homes that don't fit the customer's needs they can push a resale on them.

I think TV sales reps job is to sell houses, new or resale. Quite often they will sell a new home to the customer who just sold the old one. Now they have two sales.

[BogeyBoy]

Before you list with any agent, TV or MLS, get them to lay out a marketing plan for your home. Ads, open houses, caravans, web-sites, how to stage your home, types of photos/virtual tours, commissions/incentives, weekly feedback meetings, etc. Make sure you get a good market analysis of the value of your home. (You may not like what you hear if you bought in 05/06.) If you push price the agent may list your home high to please you - and never sell it.

Ask your agent for a detailed list of homes they sold in the last year, especially in your neighborhood. Then ask them how many they listed. If they listed 20 and only 2 sold - you might want to look at other agents.

Make a solid marketing plan with your agent up front - that way they know your expectations - and you have a list to make sure they are doing their job.