The Villages Sales Reps

[mowdie]

We were told they are split by either new homes or preowned. Have a few questions regarding choosing a preowned sales rep. The daily sun's first and second page of classified list the daily preowned open houses. Is it correct to assume the villages pays for these daily open house ads? A few pages in where village reps have their own ads featuring houses they have listed, or are pending, does each sales rep pay for these ads themselves?

[graciegirl]

Jim McLaughlin was our sales rep for two homes here. He showed us new and resales and did NOT push for either. Our first home was a new spec house and our second one we built a little over eighteen months ago.

I am pretty sure that The Villages pays for all advertisements for homes for The Villages. Maybe the reps pay for the other ads that kind of promote themselves. I don't know....


Jim says there is no incentive to push either. He and his wife Patti are their own best customers. I ran into them a couple of weeks ago in front of the sales center in Brownwood. They just closed on their sixth home. (All of them homes, not investment properties.) I bet they haven't been able to find all of their Christmas tree decorations for YEARS with all of that moving from one house to another..

Jim did NOT sell the house we moved from. We did. Easy Peasy.

[mowdie]

Jim McLaughlin was our sales rep for two homes here. He showed us new and resales and did NOT push for either. Our first home was a new spec house and our second one we built a little over eighteen months ago.

I am pretty sure that The Villages pays for all advertisements for homes for The Villages. Maybe the reps pay for the other ads that kind of promote themselves. Can I ask why you wonder who pays?

MLS realtors cannot sell new homes for THE VILLAGES.

Jim says there is no incentive to push either. He and his wife are their own best customers. I ran into them a couple of weeks ago in front of the sales center in Brownwood. They just closed on their sixth home. (All of them homes, not investment properties.) I bet they haven't been able to find all of their Christmas tree decorations for YEARS.

Jim did NOT sell the house we moved from. We did. Easy Peasy.

thanks for the info gracie. to answer your question why i'm asking who pays for the individual ads - exposure is the answer. I guess a better question would be are all pre-owned homes advertised equally by the villages?

[gomoho]

I believe in this day of technology more homes are found on the internet. I look at the paper and their are so many I don't know where to look first. On an internet site you can fine tune a search and see only what meets your criteria.

[Sparty6971]

We bought pre-owned back in July 2009 and Pat White was our agent. She did both new and pre-owned but we didn't even want to look at a new one so wasn't shown them. I think if you look at home sales highlighted in newspapers versus on the Internet, the numbers here in TV will be very much like you find in Ohio, New York, California, etc. You can't show all the homes in the paper - not enough paper if you still want to carry local events, sports, national/international news, comics. I wouldn't worry about whether an agent is properly advertising any home in the paper and who pays for it.

[gpirate]

You really need two realtors as we are learning as we look for a home. TV & local realtors do not share their listings between each other. If this is incorrect please jump in and explain.

[Phanatic Luvr]

You really need two realtors as we are learning as we look for a home. TV & local realtors do not share their listings between each other. If this is incorrect please jump in and explain.

You are correct gpirate. The Village agents, although licensed, do not belong to a Multiple Listing Service and therefore are not Realtors. An agent must belong to a Board of Realtors to earn the title REALTOR. The Village sales reps are agents. Not saying they don't work extremely hard or know their business. If you list your home with a Village agent, your home will only be advertised in places like the Daily Sun and The Village websites.
If you list your home with an outside Realtor, one that does not work for TV's, your home will be viewed on multiple websites like Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, etc... which a lot of people search when looking to buy and/or relocate. The Village agents are not allowed to show listings of outside Realtors and Realtors are not permitted to show listings of TV's.
I hope this has helped for those who need to understand.

[ricthemic]

Jim McLaughlin was our sales rep for two homes here. He showed us new and resales and did NOT push for either. Our first home was a new spec house and our second one we built a little over eighteen months ago.

I am pretty sure that The Villages pays for all advertisements for homes for The Villages. Maybe the reps pay for the other ads that kind of promote themselves. I don't know....


Jim says there is no incentive to push either. He and his wife Patti are their own best customers. I ran into them a couple of weeks ago in front of the sales center in Brownwood. They just closed on their sixth home. (All of them homes, not investment properties.) I bet they haven't been able to find all of their Christmas tree decorations for YEARS with all of that moving from one house to another..

Jim did NOT sell the house we moved from. We did. Easy Peasy.

FYI: someone edited out a question on your original post.

[ilovetv]

Internet is far better exposure for one's listing, especially since buyers come from all 50 states and other countries. The print edition of the Daily Sun has a limited audience right here locally (although it's a very large audience here with most homeowners subscribing for daily delivery).

All the TV real estate listings, new or pre-owned, are equally presented on the TV website:

Pre-owned:
Properties of The Villages (http://www.thevillages.com/homes/vls/index_new.asp)

New homes:
Search New Homes and Villas for Sale in The Villages, Florida (http://www.thevillages.com/homes/search/)

Also look at the link at the top of these pages that show the Daily Open House listings.

Never underestimate the number of seniors using internet on the computer, laptop, iPad, iPhone etc. I'd guess that 90% of people already in TV, and 95% coming to look at homes in TV are active computer and internet users who are quite fluent.