VLS vs MLS on a pre-owned home?
 

Advantages? Disadvantages? Thanks in advance.

Selling or Buying??

I think you have to look at both markets when either buying or selling to see the complete picture. If you are buying you need only contact an agent when you have decided to look at a house. Of course if you decide to look at houses spaning both markets, then you will need two different agents.

One of each for buying pre-owned, Villages for buying new of course, and Villages for selling. After having 4 personal experiences I would recommend Beth Pope of The Villages for buying and selling.

Another vote one of each for pre owned

Oops, buying.

Don’t the VLS and MLS charge different commissions?

Need both.
If you don’t have both, you are limiting your choices.

As someone who is actually in the process of finding a home, we started with Village realtor on 10/17/24 for a pre-owned and had 3 for us to see. Then they really pushed the new section and drove us way down to Middleton. The following day, wife and I happen to go to an open-house by ourselves on Saturday and met an outside realtor.

After her open-house, she showed us 5 pre-owned, then emailed me 12 more on Sunday that met my criteria. Five more on Tuesday. Monday she called to hear my thoughts and again this morning at 10am to let me know upcoming decreases and to hear my thoughts. Never heard from Village realtor after that first day.

Of course it all depends on who you get and how many houses you are willing to see. We are open for anything. So Zillow has a ton in that area as long as you know the actual boundaries of the village. Don't go by google or zillow map. Also zillow doesn't usually mention bond and roof year since they are not village people. And I don't mean the band, although I would like for them to play at the village. That's my two pennies worth.

It’s been my experience that most VLS agents “push” the new homes. It could be because new homes, as a general rule, are less time consuming for the agent and an easier sale. Most prospects come to The Villages looking for a new house. VLS agents have a monopoly on new house sales and the Villages lifestyle program. It is what it is.

This is easier.

I would look on The Villages site & look on Zillow.
This will cover the market, then go see your Fav's.
(without broker pressure)

If you want the comfort of "being represented"......... ask a friend for a referral.

I sold my home in the villages and unfortunately signed up with a VLS agent. I was thoroughly disgusted as they used my home to try to sell new homes! I would never sell a home again with anything but an MLS agent. VLS agent started out with two open houses and a neighbor overheard them using my open house to push their new houses in comparison! After the open houses, they barely tried a darn thing to sell my house. It was many trips to complain and filled with heartache and sleepless nights before I finally got them to work for me.

To find preowned homes on Zillow type “Zillow The villages Fl” if you know a particular area zip code then type “Zillow The Villages 32163” there are many zip codes in the Villages. The advantage to having VLS agent if they are good is that they will send you a notice of what is coming on market before it hits the regular website. They won’t tell you about non villages listings so you have to have MLS too. You do need it look at villages homefinder site and Zillow regularly to see everything as agents don’t have time to look at everything all the time and some unfortunately will only tell you about what they get most commission from selling. If you say what area and size of home here you may get replies from people about to put home on market. Be sure to look at bond and taxes as each county has different tax structure. Make a list of what activities you will be trying to do and make sure near there too. Good luck.

When buying to see as many available homes as possible, we checked VLS, MLS, and FSBO.com (For Sale by Owner).

I made the mistake of contacting the Villages sales rep because I didn’t know any better. He drove me down south and showed me new sales. He did show me a few preowned but they were not to my liking. I wasted three days here before I realized that I should have contacted an MLS agent. Three months later I came back, contacted an MLS agent who showed me over 20 pre owned homes. I ended up finding the one I wanted to buy. As many said, contact both VLS and MLS.