[2BNTV]

To All,

I was wondering what the average renting time to finding a pre-owned home is?

My understanding from reading several posts is that it is a good idea to hire an outside real estate agent to show you houses that are not covered by TV real estate agents.

Just want to be ready when my time comes to move to TV.

[salpal]

You need to have an outside realtor if interested in a pre-owned home not listed by The Villages. The Villages does not list on MLS. Realtors do have access to MLS (Multi-list service). In order to see ALL your options, you would have to have a Village "realtor" and an outside realtor. I put Village realtor in quotes as most of them are not licensed real estate agents, just representatives from The Villages' marketing team.

[l2ridehd]

I don't believe the issue is finding a home you like, but in finding the location you want. Each Village is a little different, ease of getting places, which rec center and pool you like best, which town square. I would rent for 3 or 4 months to decide where I wanted to look before starting the search. Another couple months to find the home, then a month or more to close. So 6 months minimum.

[iandwk]

My wife and I rented for two months last summer. It took us about that length of time to decide where we wanted to live. We rented for 3 months this summer after selling our home up north. We found out that our minds were very easy to change, so the two months last year weren't necessary for that purpose (they were a lot of fun, though).

It actually took us less than a week to find the home we wanted. We used a Village's realtor and an outside one. It was a close call. The Villages realtor had two that were at the top of our list, but the outside realtor showed us one that grabbed us and we bought through her.

You will hear a lot of bad things about Village's realtors, trying to steer you to the new homes and only showing the worst pre-owned to get you to buy new. We didn't have that experience. We had a very good Village's realtor and an excellent outside one. If you want to pm me, I can give you names. I can also give you an agency to avoid using.

One thing we intended to do, but didn't, was to drive through the areas we wanted to live in and look for FSBO's. A lot of them are priced kind of high, but the owners tend to be very flexible since they aren't paying a 10-15 grand commission.

All in all, I would recommend 2 months minimum to rent. 3 months would be the optimum. You can take your time and it gives you time to get past any problems you may encounter (see my post in the thread "Pre-owned woes").