Flat Fee MLS Listing

Sell Your Home with Flat Fee MLS Listing

Now There's a Smarter Way to Sell Your Home!

In just a few short years, since the advent of the Internet, flat fee MLS listing has become the preferred method of marketing a home for sale by owner. Compared with traditional real estate brokers who often charge 5-7% of a home's selling price in order to list your home in the MLS, a flat fee MLS listing gives your home the same tremendous marketing exposure for thousands of dollars less.

According to a survey by the National Association of Realtors, more than 70 percent of prospective buyers begin their quest on the Internet, usually at www.REALTOR.com. Unless your home is listed for sale with a member of the local MLS (multiple listing service) with access to this site, you will be cutting yourself off from 70 percent of prospective buyers.

A recent survey by the National Association of REALTORS showed that over 70% of home shoppers now use the Internet, usually Realtor.com, to find a home. The only way to get your home listed on www.Realtor.com is through a real estate agent or broker who is a member of your local Realtor Multiple Listing Service. Realtor.com and many other real estate websites collect the data from the local MLS to display to their users.

Unless your home is listed in the MLS, you'll be missing out on 70% of home buyers. Everyone knows that increased demand causes price to increase. If more buyers are aware that your home is on the market, it stands to reason that you will receive a higher sales price.

How It Works

When you list with a traditional real estate firm, you usually agree to pay a listing commission (say for example 6%) which is due at settlement and deducted from the proceeds of your sale. Half of that fee is the "listing portion" of the commission (3% in this example) and this amount goes directly to the firm that lists your home in the MLS. The other half, the "selling portion" or "buyer agent's fee" of 3% goes to the real estate agent who procures a buyer for your home. If the listing agent sells your home without a buyer agent's involvement, their company gets the entire 6% (even if you found the buyer yourself!).

With flat fee MLS, instead of paying the "listing portion" of the commission (3% of the gross sales price of your home) you pay a flat fee (generally between $400.00 and $750.00) at the time of listing and the "buyer agent" fee of 3% ONLY IF a buyer agent procures a buyer for your home. If you sell the home to a buyer directly without a "buyer agent" you pay only the flat fee. You save approximately $2,500 to $5,500 for every $100,000 of your sales price depending on whether you sell the home with or without a buyer's agent.

flat fee mls listing

With savings like these, it's easy to see why flat fee MLS listing has become more popular. The only caveat to selling flat fee MLS is that you, as the owner, are required to do at least some of the work of the listing agent. You'll need to be prepared to conduct showings to unrepresented buyers, negotiate the price and terms of your real estate transaction and coordinate the inspections and closing activities generally handled by a listing agent.

But with the USA median average sales prices approaching $250,000, many sellers are simply unwilling to pay a real estate agent a commission of $15,000.00 to sell their home. Because while 6% of the sales price of your home may not seem like a large percentage, it usually translates into a much larger percentage of your home's equity. Equity is the amount of cash you get to keep after the expenes of the sale have been paid. It's the bottom line.

And, most MLS by owner companies can provide additional services to complement the listing of your home on the MLS and on REALTOR.com for an additional fee or a smaller percentage of the sales price at closing. So all the services that traditional agents charge 5-7% commission for are available on an "a la carte" basis from flat fee MLS listing companies.

For more information on listing your home in the for sale by owner MLS, Click Here. Flat fee MLS listing has created a level playing field for the For Sale By Owner consumer.

Now, for the first time, home owners selling on their own can receive the same exposure for their properties once reserved exclusively for REALTOR members of the MLS. It is possible, for a relatively low fee to obtain the marketing exposure necessary to obtain the highest price for a home in least amount of time without having to pay a listing commission to a real estate broker.

Greater exposure means higher selling price and faster selling times. A flat fee MLS listing gives you the ability as a homeowner to sell your home faster and for a higher price than marketing a home any other way.

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