I’m often asked if there is really any difference between flat fee companies and whether there’s anything to compare, other than price, when selecting a flat fee MLS provider. The answer, of course, depends on the owner/seller’s motivation. If you just want to list or advertise your property for sale in the MLS, then cost really is your only concern. However, if you want to actually sell your home, then here are some other factors to consider:
- How long has the company been in business?
The market does a pretty good of weeding out bad eggs. If a flat-fee MLS broker has been in business for a number of years, there’s at least some reason to believe that other sellers have found them to be trustworthy and capable of doing what they say they’ll do. Especially if they’ve survived a couple of down markets and the recent real estate recession, the company has established a business that’s robust enough to succeed regardless of market conditions. Since the real estate market downturn, lots of agents have taken to flat-fee MLS listing just to be able to stay in the business. So new flat-fee MLS listing companies are poping up everyday. However, if the company just started last month and they can’t give you the names or addresses of lots of other properties they’ve actually SOLD, they probably won’t be able to provide the level of service and support you need. Their track record for successfully assisting by owner sellers hasn’t really been established.
- What kind of support do they provide?
A good flat-fee company should provide several methods of support. While most online companies want to communicate through email, this may not be the method that works best for you. Top online flat-fee MLS listing providers, like Bloomkey.com, offer telephone support, an Online Help Desk, Online Chat and dynamic FAQ’s so that you can get the support you need when you need it.
- What other websites will your property appear on and what strategic partnerships have they established? A good flat-fee company should be able to have your home or property listed on ALL of the leading real estate websites. Since over 80% of buyers now start their search for a home online, it pays to be listed everywhere buyers might be looking. While all flat-fee brokers list properties on Realtor.com and the Broker IDX by virtue of the MLS feed distribution, few have taken the time to establish relationships and proprietary RSS/XML feeds to the larger real estate portals like Trulia.com, Zillow.com, Yahoo Real Estate and GoogleBase, to name a few. Bloomkey has even created an automated posting system on Craigslist to provide your property with an HTML formatted advertisement on the world’s largest classified website.
- What other tools does the broker provide to help make sure that your property not only gets listed, but has a better than average chance of selling?
Any agent who has been in the business for any length of time (or owner who has sold a number of properties) will tell you that it takes more than a sign in the yard and an ad in the MLS to sell a home. If you take the average online flat-fee MLS company today, you’ll find that most of them offer little more than the opportunity to take your money online and stick your property’s data and photos into the MLS – never to be heard from again. They’re really more like online business cards with a cash register. Very few have gone to the expense and trouble of creating feature-filled back end web applications that give sellers access to online real estate selling tools and services to assist with the home selling process.
These are just a few of the questions owners should be asking when determining with whom to list their properties. Remember, anyone can list your home for sale, but that’s probably not where you want it to stop. A successful sale requires more than minimal effort – especially in today’s buyer’s market.
For more information on what top flat-fee MLS listing companies can provide in terms of service and benefits, visit Bloomkey.com
About the Author
Lawrence Bunnell is a partner at Bloomkey. In 1997, Mr. Bunnell co-founded the first national online real estate brokerage (and the first real estate company to ever become licensed in all 50 states). He has been responsible for creating several online flat fee real estate companies and is largely responsible for the advent of the Internet based flat-fee MLS listing segment of the real estate industry. Mr. Bunnell started his career in real estate in 1984. Prior to creating the online flat-fee MLS listing industry, Mr. Bunnell was one of the nation’s top selling real estate brokers at the RE/MAX, ERA, and Coldwell-Banker real estate franchises.
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Posted in FSBO, Flat Fee MLS, Flat Fee Real Estate Brokerage, Flat+Fee, For Sale By Owner, Real Estate, flat fee, flat fee MLS borkers, flat fee MLS brokerages, flat fee MLS companies, flat fee MLS listing company, flat fee MLS service, flat fee broker, flat fee brokerage, flat fee brokers, flat fee companies, flat fee listing broker, flat fee mls broker, flat fee mls brokers, flat fee mls company, flat fee mls listing, flat fee mls providers, flat fee realty, flat fee services, flat rate, flat rate broker, flat rate mls, flat rate realty, for sale by owner tips, fsbo guide, fsbo seller
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The “mulitple listing system”, called the MLS, gives the broadest exposure possible to homes for sale. In today’s competitive market, you need the most marketing exposure possible, but attempting to sell without the benefit of the MLS can be a like trying to sell shares of stock without the stock exchange. Or, proverbially, “like trying to find a needle in a haystack”. Advertising to the public is a high cost proposition and since you only have one property to sell, the economies of scale work against you. Realtors® have the benefit of having thousands of properties to sell. The MLS creates an efficient marketing system through which Realtors® can cooperate to assist each other in selling each other’s listings.
And through the Realtors® trade organization, the National Association of Realtors®, an MLS listing also gets exposure on Realtor.com, the nation’s leading real estate web portal, you’ll reach even more potential buyers when your property is listed in the MLS by owner. According to a recent survey, over 75% of buyers now start their search for a home on the Internet, most of them on Realtor.com.
Now you can list your home or property in the same MLS used by Realtors® without having to pay a listing commission. List by owner on the MLS with a flat fee MLS listing company like Bloomkey® and you can have the best of both worlds. More exposure to help you sell your home for the highest possible price and still retain the right to sell on your own and not pay a commission.
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Posted in Flat Fee MLS, Local MLS, MLS, MLS, MLS Service, MLS entry, Real Estate, by owner, flat fee MLS borkers, flat fee MLS companies, flat fee mls broker, flat fee mls brokers, flat fee mls company, flat fee mls listing, home sale, home sales, home seller, home sellers, home selling, home selling alternatives, limited service providers, limited service real estate, list house, list property, listing agent, listing broker, low cost real estate, mls entry only, mls listing, mls listing service, mls listings, mls only, multi list, multiple listing, multiple listing service, mutliple listing service
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Tagged by owner mls, Flat Fee MLS, mls listing, real estate marketing
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Flat fee MLS is one of the best ways if you are planning for a sale of your property. Believe me, for I did it and had got a positive result while selling my house. If you want a price that is worth your home or you are in search of home owner rebates, then the flat fee MLS is surely going to help you in a big way.
Some of the advantages of flat fee MLS are as follows:
1) It is comparatively cheaper to the traditional real estate listing.
2) You can share wide information about the property you are intending to sell
3) The viewer will be able to see the property live as it allows posting of photographs
4) The people from the real estate will also be aware that your home is under the ‘for sale by owner’ category. This makes the sale faster
5) You will have the option to post open houses too through flat fee MLS
6) On sale of your property, you are not required to make payments to the agent of the buyer.
7) There is also no question of payment to the agent of the seller
Try it now!
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Posted in Find Real Estate, Flat Fee MLS, For Sale By Owner, agent, discoun mls, discount MLS, discount MLS broker, flat fee, flat fee MLS companies, flat fee MLS listing company, flat fee mls broker, flat fee mls company, flat fee mls listing, flat fee mls providers, for sale, home buying rebates, home for sale
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Tagged flat fee, Flat Fee MLS, flat fee mls agent, flat fee mls online, For Sale By Owner, MLS, Real Estate, real estate agent
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These days, many home buyers are looking to the web to help them find the properties that they want to look at. For some, it’s a matter of time: our days are increasingly hectic and, well, buying a house takes time; why not look at properties when you’re on a lunch break at the office or on hold when you’ve made a call?
When you’ve make the choice to sell your home with flat fee mls it’s easy to get your home listed on the web alongside properties that have been listed by real estate professionals on Realtor.com and on a page of its own.
However, that doesn’t mean that you want to have just any website: there are things that you can do to make sure that your home stands out. The best way to do that is to add more information about your property. In addition to extra photos and a virtual tour through your home, an audio tour that lets site viewers and callers hear more about your home.
Even better news is that, when you add an audio tour to your Bloomkey flat fee MLS listing, you’ll be able to know that the information will be widely available – included on Yahoo Podcasts, iTunes and other sites.
With an audio tour, you can do more than just show your home; you can tell buyers everything they need to know about it.
When you are selling your home FSBO, you need to do everything possible to get that home in the eyes of buyers.
The first step in that process is to get your home listed in the MLS – the Multiple Listing Service. IHS Realty allows you to get your listing added for a Flat Fee, and they also give you access to other tools that you need to help you to sell your home more quickly.
One of these tools – a tool that is essential for selling any home – is a great flyer.
A great flyer will:
- be well designed. A well-designed flyer is more visually appealing, and therefore more attractive to prospective buyers.
- be informative. An informative flyer will give prospective buyers the information that they need about your home. Basic information will include the size and age of the home, features of your home and, of course, your asking price.
- have a picture of the outside of your home
- list the website address that prospective buyers can visit to learn even more about the home that you are selling
- tell the prospective buyer about upgrades made to the home – new floors, new appliances if they are included, other upgrades, etc.
- provide contact information so that prospective buyers know where to reach you if they have additional questions.
And of course, a great flyer is something that you will want to have available at all times while you are trying to sell your home; information needs to be available in order to be useful.
Find more information about Selling Your Home FSBO and Get Selling Tips at IHS Realty
Maximizing equity in cooler market conditions
As inventory increases and home prices level nationally, flat fee MLS is your ticket to maximizing equity. You get the marketing same marketing exposure as every other home listed in the MLS with a fraction of the cost. If you are contemplating listing with a full service agent you need to find out exactly what services you will be receiving, because chances are, you are not getting any added marketing advantage for the thousands more you will pay. Find out if you will have a property webpage with a unique URL that can be used in advertisement – since over 75 percent of buyers begin their search online, if a home warranty will be included, if a virtual tour will be included in the MLS and Realtor.com, if your listing will contain multiple photos, if you will have a "Realtor.com Showcase Listing," if you will be provided home flyers, if your home will be listed in multiple MLSs. Every one of these items is included with a flat fee MLS listing, the only difference…you pay $499 instead of giving away 3 percent – enough money to buy a brand new car! So next time you think about listing with a full service agent, ask yourself "is it worth it?"
Supply catching up to demand
The 45% of agents reporting a higher number of buyers than sellers is far more balanced than the 61% just 3 months ago. The final results of the survey tallied 45% of agents reporting more buyers than sellers, 31% reported more sellers than buyers, and the remaining 24% reported a balanced split. The balanced split could serve as an explanation to other results of the survey.
- Home inventories are continuing to rise
- Multiple offer frequency has decreased by 31% from 70% in the first quarter of 2005 compared to 39% in the first quarter of 2006
- Only 7% of sellers are getting more than the asking price
As the market continues to cool it will be important to use selling tactics for a slow market. Flat fee MLS listing is a good alternative to the traditional method saving sellers thousands in commissions. The MLS is an important marketing tool as 75% of home sales take place through the Multiple Listing Service. Sellers will have the opportunity to use commission savings advantageously in pricing and enticing agents to bring potential buyers.
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Consumers Reacting to Realtor Commission Rates
Residential real estate is an industry in which consolidation and time-saving technology have not only not saved consumers any money, but also coincided with steep price increases. It is an industry that has used its political muscle in a number of states to ward off competition from discounters. And at a time when the Internet has wiped out legions of other middlemen in other industries while squeezing the incomes of those who are left, the number of real estate agents has continued to climb along with their income.
Looming large in all this is the Internet, which threatens to break the exclusive hold that local Realtor groups have had on information and information channels vital to buyers and sellers. The Internet has made it easier for buyers and sellers to go through the process without agents. And it has provided an opening for lower-cost brokers offering limited services.
Companies such as Insight Realty, serving the entire Mid-Atlantic region has averaged over 200% growth in the last 2 years with their flat fee MLS Listing services. While their marketing efforts initially focused on FSBOs (For Sale By Owners), their rapid growth indicates that all homesellers are gaining interest in these services.
Recent forums also indicate growing consumer resentment toward the current rate of real estate commissions. Of course the term current is relative in this industry as the commission rate has largely remained unchanged over the past 80 years.
An online exchange on the Washington Post website include the following exchanges:
"Thanks for finally saying what’s needed to be said for a long time. Many in the real estate industry refuse to change, continue to overcharge for services rendered and real alternatives are needed. I don’t blame them though. If I could bag a $20k+ commission on a listing that sold in less than a week with minimal effort in this active market, I’d try to stave off competition too."
"You’d think, in markets with tight inventory, full service agents would be willing to bargain on commissions. Again, a few are, particularly involving expensive properties, and in those cases you should be able to find a good one willing to go down to 5 percent. But remember, selling agents for one customers are also buying agents for another, so they may not be as desperate as you think. They have a lot at stake in maintaining the traditional price levels and disabusing consumers about the wisdom of bargaining on price. These are conversations they DON’T WANT TO HAVE."
"The real estate industry, at least here in MD, is a self regulated industry that gets huge sums of money for little work. All you need to do is understand that the settlement lawyer, who can be sued if there is a problem in the contract the agent prepared, gets about $400 for his work while the agent on a sale of a $400K home can receive 6% or $24,000. Something is wrong. If I can sell a car myself I should be able to sell a home without paying such huge fees to people who do not even require a college degree to be the experts they claim to be."
As you can see, it appears the traditional real estate industry is in for change. Let’s hope that the interests of the consumer drive the process and not the protection of an outdated industry.
For Sale by Owner’s and Flat Fee Listings are popping up more often for good reason
About 15% of all homes are sold without a real estate agent (For Sale by Owner). Many are predicting that this number may rise dramatically as the housing market softens. High loan-to-value ratios, increased home equity loans and other factors could result in many sellers deciding that they cannot afford to pay 5-6% in commissions when selling their home.
Add this to the high growth in real estate values and the temptation to try something different will likely drive more consumers to seek out alternatives when selling their home. FSBO services now range from simple website placement to flat fee MLS listings to document preparation.
Most of these companies offer these services for fixed fees rather than commissions and are a fraction of the traditional brokerage commission. "It’s just really hard to pay that $22,000 commission," Debbie Carbonatto ( a FSBO) said, adding that they already have sold one home themselves, with good results.
"FSBO can be a real win-win for buyer and seller," she said.
NAR backs attempts to limit your choices in how you sell your home.
Is it appropriate that the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission attempt to protect consumers’ interests by calling into question the actions of the nation’s largest trade organizations whose legal counsel has stated in an openly unapologetic letter that it’s is perfectly alright for local Realtor organizations to lobby for legislation that is anti-competitive? Clearly, for a country built on the principal of free trade and unrestricted competition, the answer is yes.
There should be no misunderstanding that the efforts of traditional elements within the real estate industry to legislate under the guise of "consumer protection" is solely aimed at protecting the status quo and their interests (chiefly their right to a full, double ended commission), not those of the consumer. If these participants are so eager to champion the rights of consumers, why not champion the right of consumer to make choices in types and levels of real estate services they receive? Why not allow free and unfettered competition from limited service and MLS entry only brokers?
The problem is that most consumers don’t take an interest in legislation effecting real estate until they go to sell their homes, which only happens on average every 3-5 years. If they knew what was going on while they weren’t watching, how might they feel about laws that restrict their ability to choose which services they can purchase and at what price. How powerless and shocked would they feel to find that the President of the largest trade group in the country (who, SURPRISE, is also a state legislator) had the temerity to introduce legislation in his own state effectively eliminating a homeowner’s ability to sell their home and save thousands of dollars using a limited service broker.
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