Sorry, but The Villages agents are not Realtors.

If I had a house go on the day it was first listed at its asking price I would realize it had been priced under market value by my agent.

Not always the case since every sale is unique but the person that benefits when a house sells on day one is the realtor. Think about it...if a $300,000 house sells for 5% less than it should in the first week the owner loses $15K. The realtor only spent a week of effort and lost (assuming 7% commission) about $1,000.

Not saying realtors purposely or routinely undervalue property - that would be counter productive in the long run. Just saying realtors have much less to lose when it is.

That isn't necessarily true.

It definitely would not be true if your agent gave you a copy of a recent competitive market analysis of the last three months of sold homes in your area which you studied backward and forward.

Those kinds of facts don't lie and tell the real story.
The price of your house should petty much be based upon those facts with plusses for upgrades and minuses for anything negative.

Interview at least 3 agents and require then to bring a market analysis based on recent sales of comparable homes.

Go to open houses of comparable homes to see the competition. Sometimes you will meet an agent you click with that way.

If they allow dual agency in FL, don't do it.

I am a lot like you. Most of us if we are thinking to sell our house would be closely watching the market ourselves which is easy to do in this age of online information. Plus many of us have seen a few of our own homes sell in our past, and probably our children's and neighbors as well, and most of us pay attention to the value of homes in our area and what kind of placement and additions add or subtract from a home's value. It isn't like it used to be when only a real estate agent could get their hands on what homes sold for. We are intensely interested in this because for most of us our home is one of our biggest financial outlays and assets.

P.S. Kathy. I have 87 items for sale right now on Ebay. Fun and one can always use the cash.

The CDM, CA house I am in now I had a signed purchase contract for the asking price through the listing agent who could keep both sides of the commission with my offer within four hours of the sign going up in the home's front yard - in 1996, before the internet listing services we now enjoy. The next day at an open house she received three solid offers, two of them for cash, all three above asking price through other agents.

Obviously the house was underpriced. I knew that as I had been looking in that neighborhood for a year. Diligence pays off!

BTW, Zillow shows the house to be now worth about five times what I paid for it in June of 1996 which turned out to be the very bottom of a big market dip in the area.

Pardon my ignorance for a change, but what is a CDM, CA house?

You were very fortunate when you purchased your house and it would seem that there was something better in your offer than the other three.

It makes you wonder if that agent gave the results of comparable sales in the neighborhood, and shared the results with the seller. OR -- perhaps, because the times were at the bottom of a bad real estate market, she advised the seller to list at a low price to create interest and get the house sold.

I believe at that time (1996), The Villages real estate cooperated with all brokers, and not only their own Villages' agents. Do you recall if that is correct during that time frame?

Don't take Zillow's estimate of house values to heart. Those figures are usually grossly overpriced.

My understanding is that VLS listings are not in the MLS, so if you list with VLS you are only selling to people that are buying through the VLS. Whereas, if you list through the MLS, those listings are available to all realtors to sell.

Realtors
 

The Villages realtors can not show MLS.

That is because Villages agents are NOT Realtors. Only Realtors can use the MLS for which they of course must pay a fee.

[/COLOR]Of course Zillow's estimates can be off the mark but based on recent sales one of which was two doors down this one is at present on the number.

If I were selling my Villa in TV, I would try to sell it FSBO. It is easy to get a good grasp on market price by checking recent sales through the County assessor websites, Zillow, and the Villages website. If you settle on the price it would likely sell through a realtor and discount it 2-3 % you will likely sell quickly provided you market it smartly and have open houses. We purchased our Villa from an individual that was about to list, but hadn't yet done so. One of his neighbors told us he was probably going to sell soon so we stopped and talked to him, indicating we were interested. He allowed us to look at the Villa and it was exactly what we were looking for in the exact location we were interested in. He told us he had talked to a Villages salesman and they told him they would want to list it for X dollars. We took that figure and offered him 96% of it and he accepted. Three weeks later we owned the Villa.

Once in a while, we all get lucky.

You were lucky in that your timing was perfect and everything fell into place at the right time! :clap2:

If you list with VLS they will knock off 1% on the commission since you sold with them.

I listed with VLS and sold in about 3 weeks. I bought a MLS listed home that was on the market for 6 months. The MLS people will tell you they can get more money for your home to get the listing then it sits on the market or you have to do price drops to get it to sell.

MLS will not market your home like the Villages look at the paper everyday to compare. The Villages sells 70% of the homes with MLS about 30%.

If your Villages agent pushes new homes get another one, our agent never did push one over the other and showed us what we wanted to see.