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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For sale by owner advertising has changed along with the real estate marketing landscape in general. Today’s marketing of real estate has expanded signficantly from a “sign in the yard and an ad in the paper”. Internet advertising allows by owner sellers access to distribution channels that circumnavigate the globe. What used to cost home sellers a good deal of money with very limited reach has now become far more cost efficient along with the ability to reach millions of potential buyers.
Bloomkey now offers for sale by owner sellers the option of several marketing distribution channels from which to launch a property marketing campaign.
- The Multiple Listing Service, or MLS, offers sellers access to the real estate agents and brokers in their local areas.
- The Broker IDX is a system through which brokers who own real estate websites show properties that are listed in the MLS to the public.
- Realtor.com, the nation’s number 1 ranked website, has it’s own set of distribution partners who receive and display property listing data.
- ListHub is a company that aggregates data from MLSs around the country and sends that information to leading real estate websites like Yahoo Real Estate, AOL Real Estate, Walmart, Vast and many others.
- Bloomkey has it’s own distribution partnerships with websites like Zillow.com, Trulia.com, Google and many others.
Companies like Bloomkey give by owner sellers a one-stop marketing resource for selling real estate. Instead of hunting all over the Internet for property listing websites, sellers can enter their property information and upload photos one time and have their properties appear on all of the major real estate marketing distribution channels. In fact, many of the leading distribution channels are not avaialble to the public directly. Companies like Bloomkey make marketing properties for sale an economical and time savings venture.
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Posted in FSBO, For Sale By Owner, Local MLS, MLS entry, Real Estate, Real Estate Market, Selling My Home, advertising, by owner, flat fee MLS service, flat fee mls company, flat fee mls providers, for sale by owner tips, fsbo guide, fsbo seller, home sale, home selling, home selling alternatives, list house, list property, mls entry only, sale by owner, sell a home, sell home, sell house, sell my home online, sell your home, sell your house, selling a home, selling a home by owner, selling by owner, selling home, selling in a buyers market, selling privately, selling your home
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Tagged by owner marketing, For Sale By Owner, fsbo advertising, home marketing, online real estate, real estate marketing, selling a home
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FSBO’s keep more money selling on their own
There’s no doubt about it. More home sellers are choosing to take matters into their own hands and sell their homes by themselves. Two changes in the way property can be marketed are making them more successful.
One, the Internet allows For Sale By Owners (FSBOs) unprecedented access to the marketplace. No longer are home sellers at the mercy of local real estate agents who once stood at the gates to the real estate transaction with their control of information about which properties were for sale. Promoting a property nationally is now as easy as posting on a web classified site like Craig’s List or even creating your own web page.
The second factor increasing FSBO’s success rate are the availability of "a la carte" real estate services. No longer are real estate tools and services available in a "one size fits all" model whereby sellers pay a real estate broker a relatively large commission for a suite of services. Now, in most states, (see limited service article) home sellers can choose which tools and services they want from a variety of models.
Most importantly, FSBO’s now have access to the Mutliple Listing Service (MLS) through online companies offering flat fee MLS listing. Companies, like InSightMLS.com, offer a way for home sellers to list their property alongside traditional real estate agents properties in the MLS for a one-time, flat rate. An MLS listing provides the greatest marketing exposure possible by promoting homes to all of the area real estate agents and their buyers.
For added exposure, most MLSs also provide listing on Realtor.com, the number one real estate website in the world with over 6,000,000 unique visitors per month.
With the marketing exposure problem solved, it’s a matter of home sellers educating themselves enough to handle the more subtle aspects of the real estate transaction. Many online guides are available to assist the FSBO seller. As they say in real estate licensing school: "It ain’t brain surgery".
See Also
