Sale of home
 

The properties of the villages charges 6% fee. What agency will list my home for less 5% at closing?

The last time I sold a home was in Maryland in 2011. I knew of a local realtor that charged 4.5%, so I had focused on them. I went to their website and found they had about 30 agents. I looked at each agent and most of them had 1, or 2 or maybe 3 listings except one agent had over 30 listings. I called her and listed my home that night and it sold by noon the next day. True Story.

Here is a link to Zillow and a search of the top selling and listing agents in Sumter County. Since we don't know their commission rates, I would click on each agent and look at their website and see what info is available and the listings they have. Skip the top 3, featured means they paid for their spot. Start with Robbie Shoemaker and work your way down.

https://www.zillow.com/sumter-county...%20County%20FL

There are cons to listing with a brokerage house which charges less than the standard market commission.... There are realtors that will not show your home to prospective buyers as they will be receiving a lower commission. They will have to do the same amount of work for less money. When there are many homes on the market, it is not always wise to try to reduce the commission you will be paying.

There is also the flat rate broker, these were popular in Maryland. The normal commission split is 4 ways, 1/4 to the listing agent, 1/4 to his broker, 1/4 to the selling agent and 1/4 to the selling agent's broker. The flat rate broker will charge a fee of $75 - $300 and that is all they will get. You pay them and they will put your home in the MLS system, they may take photos depending on their fee and they will not do much more. The other 3 parties will still get their normal commission, so your saving the difference between $75- $300 and what a normal 1/4 would of been. On a $300K home at 6% would be 4 way split of $18,000. However in this case, the llsting agent would not be getting the 1/4 share of $4500, but instead already received $300. There is a savings and you're getting MLS exposure. Here I did a search of flat rate brokers

flat rate broker sumter county florida - Google Search

I don't think the initial listing fee is all that important. You can list the house with a 6 percent fee, but, if they bring you an offer less than full price, you can always renegotiate their fee at that time.

No you can't. The listing fee (almost always a percentage of the sale price) is set at the time of the listing. Now, some agents may throw some of their commission into the price but that is not a renegotiation it is also unlikely.

I don't agree. The last house I sold had a 5.5 percent commission in the listing agreement. The agent brought me an offer which was less than the asking price. So, I asked her to reduce the commission to 5 percent. She agreed and modified the listing contract. The deal went through. I considered that to be a renegotiation of the commission because I had no obligation to accept a lower offer than the full listed price.

List the house at whatever percentage the Realtor asks for. When they bring you the offer shed a tear and tell them how close they are but it's going to take a little more
$$ MONEY $$ to ring the bell. The thing that makes this work is that you have to say you are going to take the house off the market if this deal doesn't fly. It's amazing what they will do when they know you are serious. They want to close the listing and a smaller piece pie of the pie is better than no pie at all.

I never ever give more than a 90-day contract. The could stand on their head and spit Chicklets more time isn't going to happen.

Good advice. I will probably use the villages properties. We want to downsize to a courtyard villa, and they will give back one % so, that may be in our best interest.

Call around, there are MLS, Licensed Realtors that do business here, in The Villages, that will place your home under contract for less than a 6% commission.

You will be represented by a Realtor, not a "sales agent" AND your home will appear in Zillow, Trulia, and other on-line, world-wide listing services.

We are going to sell our designer with large lot, T&D pool/birdcage. Any thoughts on the best time of the year to sell. The snowbirds are coming back now, but the hot summer would be more appealing for the pool. We are ready to sell, but not in a rush.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.

You usually get what you pay for.

Suffice it to say, we have purchased and sold several homes. The main thing to keep in mind is to list your home at a “fair market price”. A good Realtor will make a market analysis for you. I’ve seen it happen several times where an owner tried to “squeeze” more money out of his house and ended up in the long run taking much less than the market price for his house. In The Villages, if your house is priced at or just below “market”, it will sell rather quickly and you can then move on.

Great point, and the Villages does a market analysis before you list. One more reason to go with them. They also give 1% back if you buy new from them so that’s the 5% I’m looking for anyway.
While looking at the cost of living on their website, I see a cost Development District Assessment. what does that mean?

You are right.I did the same thing.By reducing the commission to 5% I received my minimum sale price.There were two Brokers involved (listing & selling brokers).At first the selling broker balked,and then decided that A Bird in The Hand is Worth Two In The Bush. The Agents would have you think that 6% Comm. is written in stone,but it is not.They could sell for 1% Comm.

I don't think it is about honesty at all. The listing contract states a price for the house and a commission for the broker. If the agent asks you to accept a lower price than the price stated in the listing agreement, then there is nothing wrong with asking the agent to lower the commission. I don't consider that to be dishonest. It is certainly not a breach of the contract.

Is it safe to assume that the agents in your examples were not Villages reps?
Is it also safe to assume that the homes in your examples were not in TV?

My example was for my previous house in Virginia. But, I would not hesitate to discuss commission rates with Villages reps or any other real estate agent when selling a pre-owned house in The Villages.

All homes in The Villages are sought after these days. If your home is clean, and well presented, you should be able to sell it yourself quickly if you are reasonable about the asking price and keep in mind WHERE it is, view or lack of it and size.

There are closing lawyers to help you close for less than a thousand dollars.

Yes & Yes

When I sold real estate in Hernando County in the late 80's I worked at ERA Hedick Realty in Spring Hill, our advertised commission rate was 4.8%. We were the number 1 listing broker in the county with usually about 250 listings on the board. Prudential, Century 21 and Remax were the next largest and they all showed our homes. If we sold a home listed by another broker, we still split their 6% commission. At this time the average home sales price in Hernando County was $66,000. A new masonry home with a birdcage pool with 3 BR 2 BA and 2 car garage was about $100K - $115K.so you can see the cost of living was much lower 30 years ago on the Gulf coast of Florida north of Clearwater.

My specialty was vacant land, what you would call residential lots, for which we charged the going rate of 10% commission. I loved vacant land, no keys, no inside photos, no viewing appointments and usually I carried a few signs in my trunk which I just stuck on the lot, homes required a large ERA sign post that had to be installed with a post-hole digger by someone else.

You could show clients many lots in one day, however in most cases buyers would just see your sign themselves and called and bought the land after getting the details. My broker paid for 500 mailings per month, so every month I would send out 500 letters to owners of vacant land who had an out of state address. I would just say, would you like a market analysis of your property. I would get about 40 replies every month and about 20 listings a month from those.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...ufMeyguRBNYZ&s

Well, well, we’ll. Looked at new home in monarch grove. The home cost is 1/2 of the sale price of my current home. Read that sentence again. Sounds good, but, but ,but, The annual tax on that 1/2 price new home would be twice, yes 2 times the current annual tax on my current home. Really, yes really. I’m still dizzy from that, and confused why I would even consider moving. I could replace every appliances, my entire heating/air unit and even my roof for less than the tax increase foe ten years. Plus, I would give up my perfect location for a questionable location near a Fenny. WOW, what was I thinking. I love my house and I will stay right here.

Sorry,I made a mistake.I negotiated a 4% commission not 5%I don't feel it was Dishonest,Unethical,or lacked Integrity. It's called negotiating.An agent doesn't have a problem asking a client to lower the price after they signed a contract with the seller. I didn't think that we were allowed to attack Posters on this site.In your Convoluted post you called the OP Despicable for asking a simple question.

I don't understand your math.

Attached is a comparison of real estate taxes in TV. Where do you come up with "The annual tax on that 1/2 price new home would be twice, yes 2 times the current annual tax on my current home."?

The lowest millage rate is in unincorporated Sumter County -- 12.4001. The highest is in Lake County, Pine Hills & Pine Ridge -- 17.9898.

My figure comes from a combination of adding wildwood city tax, that I don’t pay now, and the lower tax I have for my current home of 10 years that has enjoyed lower tax increases due to the limited increase allowed in Sumter county. It is complicated but as explained to me, if I bought my current home at today’s value, my tax would go up by approx 30%. Add that to the wildwood city tax and my annual tax would double. :shocked::shocked:

That doesn't sound right. Are you SURE????

Nope...cannot fathom this being true. I think you have miscalculated something.

I really enjoy watching prices and costs around The Villages.

Let me say it in a way that everyone can’t get it.

My current annual tax bill is $2700.
My current home market value is $400,000.00.

To buy a new home with market value of $300,000.00 within the Wildwood City Tax zone, the annual tax would be $4800.
So, if I bought a home valued 100K less than my current home, my tax bill would still go up $2100.

Let me add a suggestion. Before making up your own mind, look at your last tax bill, then ask an agent what the annual tax would be for that home in wildwood city tax zone. In my case if I just replaced my home in that zone, I would go from $2700 to $6400. A fair share of that increase is because my tax’s are based on my being in Sumter county for ten years.

...

Keep in mind that the priority of the Villages Realty is to sell new homes, used homes are not! Some Village Really people will show your home and then tell the prospective buyer that they can get newer home for blah, blah, blah!

Los and lots and lots of used home sales are handled by TV sales staff. So if their intent is to get people to buy new construction, they are failing.

We ran into that as well years ago.

Tax
 

Do you know about Portability ?

That is not true. Our rep showed us used homes the second time because we wanted to see them. The reps make the same percentage new or used and they do not need to do ANYTHING to sell homes here, new OR used. Their new and used business is thriving. It is hard to find a home that is long on the market unless the sellers are asking too much, didn't keep it clean, present it well, or if they stay during the listing and HOVER,. Well priced, clean homes that are used sell fast and new homes sell fast too. NO. I don't sell houses, never have, nor does anyone in my family or any friends. AND I don't know the Morse family, although a step brother is a neighbor. Met him once.

Maybe it’s just me, but I never negotiate a real estate person’s commission down. I never try to short change them. They work way too hard most of the time, not necessarily just on the house I’m selling or buying. I worked in real estate for one month and that was enough. Being available 24 hours, showing vacant houses to questionable individuals etc did me in immediately. If I don’t want to pay commission I sell my own home. Or go for a set fee broker. As for house price, I offer the amount that a particular house is worth to me and the seller can determine if they consider it a fair price to them. Works for me so far.

Good question

https://www.lakecopropappr.com/pdfs/Portability_FAQ.pdf

OK, sorry I took so long, but I have gone to the Experts at the Villages homes and finally got a printout on my current property tax vise property tax on a comparable home within the wildwood city tax zone. I said my tax would truly double. When considering the increased bond, it would more than double. I caution anyone considering this, due your due diligence and check closely. I may still move, but financial facts are important to me. When someone calls you wrong here without facts, that is just fictional gossip. Or as we here so much today, FAKE NEWS!

So with an additional bond, your “taxes” would be doubled? Is that to say it was fake news because taxes are taxes and bonds are bonds?

No Sir, LOL, that is not at all what I am saying.

That was true many years ago, but it's not true now. Our original TV sales agent sold our used home in less than a day for over the asking price price. It hadn't even been posted on the web site yet nor had an agents' open house. Two offers, both over asking, both from renters.



I think the rental season is an opportune to put a house on the market, even with a pool. Everyone who bought on our next neighborhood last year was a renter who said This place is fun, let's buy! It was very spontaneous.