With the average house price approaching $250,000, sellers are balking at the prospect of paying up to $15,000 in real estate agent commissions to sell a home and are looking for cost effective alternatives – Flat Fee MLS by UIHS Realty is one.
Flat Fee MLS provides home owners to list their home on the MLS and gain the market exposure neccessary to generate potential buyer interest at a fraction of the cost – a few hundred dollars comparted to thousands.
IHS Realty is a leading provider of online flat fee MLS services together with a very wide range of services to support both buyers and sellers to list, market and close on a home sale.
See Also
Holding an Open House is a great way to market your home – so is the MLS
Combining the power of the MLS marketing system with a dedicated and motivated seller is a sure fire way of getting your home sold.
Real estate agents either love or hate open houses, not least as the most popular day for them from a buyers point of view is Sunday – how many realtors work Sunday ?
If you are in control of your home sale, you can list your home, and open house dates on the MLS and combine the MLS marketing advantage with the personal touch of an open house.
See Also
And should I make one, or accept one?
A backup offer is an offer that is negotiated like any other offer until the buyers and sellers reach a price and terms that are mutually acceptable. A unique term of the agreement is that it is accepted as a backup offer subject to the collapse of a previously accepted offer that is in primary position.
Backup offers are an much underused aspect of real estate negotiations. If you are looking for a home to purchase, you make a backup offer on a property that is currently under contract and continue looking. You simply make an offer and go through the negotiation process as if you are making the original offer. Once you and the seller agree on the terms, your backup contract sits in limbo until the original contract is closed or the deal falls through. The whole idea is to have an offer on the table should the original deal not work out for any reason.
For sellers, it’s a great tool for leverage. You never know when a deal could fall through. There are many reasons why contracts don’t close – financial matters, seller changes his mind, property conditions, unfavorable mortgage terms. If the deal does not close then the seller must continue marketing his home. A backup offer saves time and reassures you that your home is of interest to the market.
See Also
- Contract Forms
Need contract forms? You can order your own contract package right here for one low price. Everything you need in one package.
You don’t want to scare buyers out of purchasing your home
Many for sale by owner sellers are not able to show the home to potential buyers in an objective manner. Often the seller skews the home showing to his own point of view, talking about experiences that he and his family have had in the home.
When you show your home be sure that you don’t bore potential buyers with all the memories you had while living there. You might just scare them out of buying the house. If you talk about all the positive memories you had the buyers just might leave and not call back, thinking they would be stealing your positive memories if they bought your house.
Instead, think about the houses positive features. Why would you buy it? Sell the benefits of the house to your potential buyers and leave the memories for sharing with your friends and family after the house if sold.
See Also
Compare apples to apples and don’t list too high
So you are going to put your house on the market next week. Don’t be in too big a rush. You might underprice your home.
Most sellers are more in danger of overpricing their home than underpricing it. Historically, that’s what many home owners do. They are overconfident. They let their home sit on the market for too long at too high a price and when they finally discover they have priced themselves out of the market, it’s almost too late. Their best remedy at that point is to take their home off the market and relist it a few weeks later. That’s not a good strategy.
Many are waiting until next week to list. I suggest you wait until January the 8th and be careful. Expect an increase of listings friday the 5th. A smart agent will encourage you to list that day and have you take the weekend off. One purpose is to see if you get multiple offers.
That’s a worthy suggestion. See what the competition is doing. Most likely, the other home owners will be overpriced. But don’t list your house at the same price as other houses on the market right now. Proper market research includes a comparative market analysis that goes back six months and looks at house within a few mile radius of your property and of similar size and with similar amenities. That way, you are comparing apples to apples.
See Also
- Price Your Home To Sell
Get a CMA before you list your house in order to prevent yourself from overpricing or underpricing your property.
Buyers need to dig for information
Learn why sellers are selling, if they have deadline, what they paid, what inspections they’ve had done
These days, the home buyer is king.
That’s because in most markets, there is an oversupply of new and resale homes available. Just ask any real estate agent for the “number of days on market,” and you will discover home listings languish much longer than a year ago.
No truer words were ever spoken. Buyers need to gain leverage. You do that by learning about the seller – why is he selling? Does he have a deadline? How much the seller pay and when did he buy? If you don’t ask the questions then you’ll be negotiating in the dark.
Here’s a short list of information to dig for:
Why is the seller selling?
What did the seller pay?
What is the seller’s deadline to sell?
What inspections has the seller had performed?
One more thing – ask your agent to conduct a comparative market analysis.
See Also
Mortgages are easier to come by as well
Competition from other prospective home mortgage applicants/buyers is at its lowest; so your purchase offer will be even more welcome than usual.
Another reason to shop for a home during the Christmas season is because fewer people are competing for mortgages. That means your mortgage application is more likely to be acted upon quickly and will be seen in greater favor. You should shop for a mortgage before you shop for a house. That way, you can walk in with your pre-approval letter and the seller knows you’ll have no problem securing the funds for your housing purchase.
See Also
Avoid this mistake by studying the market before you list your house
The biggest mistake sellers make is to overprice their home. Simply put, overpriced homes don’t sell.
If you’ve had you house on the market for 90 days or more and haven’t had any offers, there’s a good chance you my be overpriced. If you haven’t had so much as anyone come to look at the house, it likely is overpriced. Buyers will not waste their time to view a home that they perceive is overpriced before even looking at it.
Unfortunately, many sellers who try it on their own end up going to a real estate agent and they don’t have to. If their house doesn’t sell, they think it’s them. It could just be the price. Before rushing out and picking a real estate agent, doing comparative market analysis to see where market prices for similar homes to yours are. If you see a sizeable difference in price between your house and other that have sold in the last six months, then you’ve probably got your overpriced.
See Also
A transaction broker can assist the buyer and seller
In the old days of real estate their was one way to buy or sell a house – through your full service real estate broker. Typically this real estate broker, or one of his agents, provided a wide array of services for a fairly large commission rate. Whether or not you required all of the services in their bundle you paid for the entire package.
Today, in most areas, more and more home buyers and sellers are fortunate to have choices in real estate services and the fees that they pay for those services. Transaction brokerage is one of the newer alternatives to the traditional real estate brokerage service model. Rather than acting as an "agent" for the buyer or seller in a real estate transaction, a transaction broker acts as a professional assistant or counselor.
A transaction broker can, for instance, assist the seller of a property in properly pricing the property for sale, assist a buyer in preparing a purchase offer on a home or assist both parties in fulfiling the obligations of the contract towards a successful closing. Although not an agent for either party, they are required to treat all parties honestly and fairly and use reasonable skill and care in the performance of their duties.
See Also
Even other real estate professionals have nice things to say about us
For Sale By Owner sellers aren’t the only people satisfied with IHS Realty services. Take a look at these realtor endorsements:
We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for working with us on the sale of 10863 Constitution Drive. It takes a dedicated agent, like you, to ensure a successful transaction and a smooth settlement. [Our agent] was impressed with your hard work and professionalism…
–Robert A. Blumenkrantz, Broker/Owner – RE/MAX Allegiance, MD
I would personally like to thank you for helping to bring the property at 216 Pocahantas Place to a successful close. Our agent has expressed delight working with you and your level of professionalism. Thank you for helping us maintain the high standards within our real estate industry…
–Theresa Embler, Managing Broker – Abbit Realty, VA
… A seemless closing is assured when the combined efforts of real estate professionals like you and our agent are involved. Real Estate agents like you and [our agent] do a great job in enhancing our client and customer base with a thorough performance and great follow through.
–Tim Lennon, Broker/Owner – RE/MAX Greater Atlanta, GA
To other professsional testimonials, go to IHS Realty’s testimonials page.
See Also
That’s a great opportunity for home sellers
Buyers like the Filadelfias, as well as sellers, are increasingly accessing information on real estate Web sites to become better educated about the housing market and to gain more control over the buying and selling process.
A National Association of Realtors survey reported that 77 percent of homebuyers used the Internet to search for a home in 2005, compared to only 2 percent of buyers a decade earlier. Twenty-four percent of homebuyers said they found their home through an Internet search, up from 15 percent in 2004, the association reported. Only 2 percent found their home this way in 1997.
The beautiful thing about these statistics is that home sellers can now use the same tools that real estate agents used to have exclusive access to. It’s true. If you want to sell your house yourself, you can use the multiple listing service and cut your agent out of the picture altogether.
Buyers are going online to research the real estate market in your area long before they ever contact a real estate agent. That means, they have a handle on what’s available before they commission an agent to negotiate a fair price. That’s money in the seller’s pocket. You can negotiate the buyer’s agent commission down to 1%-1.5% based on whether or not the buyer of your property found your house or the agent did. Furthermore, if you sell your house without the assistance of a seller’s agent, you can save thousands of dollars on commissions.
Flat fee real estate services are the way to go. Don’t miss out.
See Also
It’s the same there as it is here
Realtors are all a buzz about this new form of listing houses on the MLS (multiple listing service). Some feel it creates more work for the buyers agent, while others see this as a way to tap into the For Sale By Owner market.
Even in the UK, they’re talking about flat fee services like IHS Realty. The principle is the same there as it is here. The seller contracts with an online flat fee service, pays one low fee, lists his or her house on the MLS, and buyers and buyers’ agents call for appointments.
See Also
Exclusive agency agreements help everyone
(Source) The FTC has now settled with five MLS systems that did not allow brokers to post listings with anything other than exclusive-right-to-sell listing contracts. From this point forward exclusive agency agreements can be used with MLS systems based in Loveland, CO; Concord, NH; Williamsburg, VA; Appleton, Oshkosh, and Fond du Lac, Wisconsin; and Monmouth and Ocean Counties in New Jersey. Two Michigan MLS systems that did not agree to the FTC proposals face administrative complaints, matters that will be contested in the court system.
We laud the FTCs decision. Not only does it ensure the survival and success of services like IHS Realty’s, but it means greater choice for consumers – and that’s more important. Sellers looking for a place to sell their homes can list on the MLS and reach 75% of the buyers in the market. That ability benefits buyers, sellers, agents and brokers, and mortgage companie. Greater choice always equals more freedom and more benefits for consumers. Chalk one up for the FTC.
See Also
