Flat fee MLS listing is the way to sell in today's buyer's market
Flat fee MLS listings allow sellers to offer just the buyer's agent a commission. Typically, flat fee MLS sellers offer buyer's agents 3%. Some by-owner MLS sellers offer commissions ranging from 1% to 4%. Because of this, sellers have an inherent advantage over other MLS listing that are paying 6% to list. This buyer's market is a price driven market!
Realtors sell 86% of all homes. A flat fee MLS listing allows sellers to garner the attention of all Realtors within a given city by offering just the buyers agents a commission.
The biggest mistake a for sale by owner can make is to not list flat fee in the MLS but write on their ‘FSBO’ yard sign ‘will cooperate with brokers’. If this is true, that you are willing to pay a buyer's agent 3%, then why not cooperate with ‘all’ the Realtors in your city and not just the few that happen to see your FSBO yard sign.
The significance of a flat fee MLS listing is not just the fact that Realtors control the majority of home sales but rather sellers need to advertise to as many buyers as possible in order to get the highest price possible for their home.
Most homes have 2 or 3 buyers waiting to buy it at any given time. One of those three potential buyers will be the best buyer because that buyer will pay the most for the home. To find that buyer, a seller needs every possible marketing resource working for them.
A flat fee MLS listing will get the message to all the local Realtors but there are many more buyers to appeal to. A flat fee MLS listing also creates a listing on Realtor.com, the world's biggest real estate website. This listing is just as important for a successful by-owner MLS marketing plan as being listed in the MLS. The reason is most buyers have Realtors they are working with and once a buyer sees a property on Realtor.com, they call or email that listing to their agent. Then that agent calls the listing broker or the seller directly and makes an appointment to view the property.
Realtor.com is where most online real estate buyers search for a home. As well, every local real estate company's website is powered by the data from Realtor.com. This is a very important marketing resource.
Besides the power of the MLS and Realtor.com, there are many more benefits to a flat fee MLS listing. Our flat fee MLS listing service will send your listing to 100's more websites such as Homes.com, AOL, MSN, Yahoo, Bargain Network, and GetMoreOffers.com.
In closing, the benefits of a flat fee MLS listing are as follows. The seller can sell by owner at any time and pay no commission. The seller decides on how much to offer ‘buyer's agents’. The seller can cancel at anytime. The seller controls very aspect of their flat fee MLS listing from changing price, changing commission, pictures and property description.
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