I have been looking at houses via the internet since we left TV in April. I have looked at tons of houses on Trulia (same as Zillow, for my money) and The Villages. What I will say as a prospective BUYER, is that The Villages is pretty half-assed as far as their presentation of a property on-line. Most of the time the pictures won't even load. If I were selling, I'd go with MLS.

The word "Rogue" says it all. I wouldn't go near them.

I am not sure what you are talking about but I do know that the criteria for a child being a student at The Villages Charter School is that the parent is employed by The Villages. I think of it as a good thing overall. It encourages responsible people to move here to have a really good education for their children.

That is how it is. You must be employed by The Villages to have a child in their Charter Schools. This sounds like it may be connected. Is it?

Just given the focus of the TV sales force, sorry, marketing department, which is new construction, I would list an existing home with MLS. MLS sales are mostly resales, so they would have least conflict of focus. But that's just me, individual results will always vary.

sportsguy

We are looking at our 4th house. My research is based on what we need. New area was not in the mix of house hunting. I would love to move to the new area just for the running and biking trails, but due to parental units we need to stay in a certain area, and need larger footprint. Use a pretty straight forward approach for analysis.

Absolutely, I would list with them simultaneously. Why limit your options---if the Villages balked, I would go with the outside agent only.

FYI, TV agents will not show a house that isn't a TV agency listing. I'd go with MLS agent. Serious buyers of a used home will look at all agencies.

Selling a house in TV
 

Personally, I would use an agent from TV. They have the best & most complete information to share with prospective buyers. If I could recommend someone, it would be Nannette Tolleson. She has 20+ years experience in TV and is very honest.

We tried the agents for the Villages twice. We thought the years (17 years) in between would have improved the service we got from them. Nope. Same practice. They care nothing about the resale homes. No online exposure, unless one is specifically looking at the Villages website for homes for sale. Note: people coming from other states are usually searching through other online apps.
The second time around, we fired the Villages real estate agent, paid the fine gladly since we had had NOBODY come look at the house, got a wonderful agent from Keller Williams (Crystal McCall) and sold the house within a couple of months.

If you want good solid representation choose a Realtor. The village sales agents are not Realtors and therefore not governed by the NAR code of ethics.I suggest looking for your style of house online and decide which agency would give you the best coverage. Buyers are smart these days so overpriced houses do not sell.

We live in central Villages, near Sumter Landing. There have been 3 or 4 houses on our street for sale, all were MLS, and all sold within a month or two, some within days. It is important to have the home properly priced. I do think The Villages gives good recommendations as far as price. I knew someone that went with an outside realtor, who suggested she price her home a little higher than what it seemed to be worth. She was excited that she thought she could get more than what The Villages had told her. It sat on the market for at least a year. After making some staging improvements and lowering the price, it finally sold. I would probably get an estimate from The Villages as far as price, and go with that price when listing it with MLS.

Village agents do not cooperate with outside brokers. This limits the amount of buyers that could see and buy your house.

I would absolutely use a regular mls agent and not the villages. They control who sees your property snd irs not available on the mls listing. Also if you list with the villages outside and regular realtors are NOT allowed to show your house!! I snd many people I know had a nightmare by listing with vilkages. Also it’s impossible to get out of their contract and they try and hold you to it for months after the 6 months by small print! They used my home to sell their new property!!

Sorry for the autocorrects on some words!

Those "Rogue" agents sold our Villages home in less than a week for only $2,000 below asking price. They are honest and professional realtors who had the guts to stand up against mistreatment by The Villages. I highly recommend them!