Why Everyone Should Do A Flat Fee Listing!

The home selling market is changing rapidly! A significant number of recent sales have come from buyers who are not working with an agent. They report that they are looking on Realtor.com, studying homes with interior photos, driving the neighborhood, taking a flyer from the tube on the sign in front of the home and then making an appointment with our owners to see the home. Don’t miss the opportunity to use Realtor.com as your best selling tool. Your home can only be seen on Realtor.com after you have listed with a real estate broker. So even if you are not really anxious to sell your property through a buyer’s agent, you must get on Realtor.com We can list your property with a low buyer’s agent commission, and you can change the commission to a higher rate when you are ready and at any time.

See what your buyer will see on Realtor.com. Go to Realtor.com, put in search criteria that matches your home, and see what the competition to your home is, and see what the competition to your home looks like. Notice how many homes do not have interior photos! According to the multiple listing services, only 30% of the listings have more than one photo. Yet, buyer’s report they don’t spend time looking at listings without interior photos. You must hurry and advertise your home at Realtor.com because obviously there are a lot of homes that are not being marketed properly!

People ask me, “What is the perfect selling strategy to market my home?” my answer, “Cover all of your bases.” That means getting into the multiple listing services, advertise as a “For sale by Owner,” and most important, keep your costs down so that when an offer comes in, you can actually sell the home without losing your profit by paying high commissions. So, I developed a plan that helps you do just that.

It is important to add the multiple listing services to your strategy AND stay a “For Sale by Owner.” There are only four types of buyers in the market place: two come from agents and two look for you as a “For Sale by Owner.” The two types of buyer’s that come from agents are usually first-time buyers and out- of- area re-locators. The two types of buyers the look for you without an agent are the local house changers and the investor. If you are marketing as a “For Sale by Owner” only, you are only attracting the first half of the buyer market; and if you “list” with an exclusive agent agreement, you are than only attracting the other half. That’s why it is important that you have all areas of the market covered. It makes sense that if you have your home marketed with all buyers in mind, that if there is a buyer for your home, you will find them.

With HomesByOwner’s Exclusive Flat Fee Program , you are able to accomplish both advertising strategies, thus “covering your bases” while saving yourself thousands. It is really a no-brainer! Being listed in the Multiple Listing Services (listing with a agent) has always been #1 way to get your house sold that is why the term “agents protected” is often used by “ For Sale by Owners” to attract agents and their buyers. Unfortunately, the public has rarely had the option of marketing their property on their own and being listed with an agent at the same time. Traditional agencies prohibit this type of real estate, which is called an open listing, with their “broker rules”. We have eliminated those rules by aligning  ourselves with a Broker company that understands the true future of real estate sales and client services, allowing you to have a profitable and innovative, yet proven way to sell your home.

When I started researching this business after buying and selling several homes “For Sale By Owner”, I happened to talk with one of the top real estate agents in the US. The first half of her career as a real estate professional, she was an agent and then the manager of the largest “For Sale by Owner” franchise in the country, in a large metro area. She helped thousands of people market their homes. She had a passion for people and the business.

In her career for the company, she met the leading Re/Max agent in this metro area and was offered a partnership with her. The agent handled all the listings, and she handled the buyers. In the course of their five year partnership, they still remained number one from their office for their area.

Her intent as exclusive buyer’s agent was to show all of her old client’s homes from her other company. It never happened. Looking for properties to show her buyer, she would go to the multiple listing services and pull the listings that fit the criteria. She then mapped the listings and courtesy-called the owners to tell them when she would be showing the home. Then she went and showed the listings to her buyer client.  She did not have time to look thru the newspaper, or even drive the neighborhoods before hand to see if there were any “For Sale by Owners” to show her clients. The truth is, there were so many houses in the MLS, that her clients would almost always find something in that list to buy, and there was no need to look at other properties.

When she would run across a home that was a “For Sale by Owner” that had a sign out, she would pull over and call the home. If the owner was not home, she would leave a message and then ask them to call her at soon as they got home so that she could see the house. Sometimes they would call: Unfortunately, most of the time it was when she was already in another area with houses to see; and those owners that had already called and told she would be there. Rarely did she have time to go back to the “For Sale by Owner” and more importantly, with very a few exceptions, most of her clients purchased a home they had seen from the MLS.

The other problem that an agent faces when they are attempting to show a “For Sale by Owner,” is their own client. Many agents have not had their client sign a Buyer’s Agency Agreement: wherein, they get paid no matter what house their client buys. They are afraid that their client, who has legal rights not to pay the agent, will go behind their back and buy the “For Sale by Owner” house that they showed them and not paid them for their time.

I think that the concept of “For Sale by Owners” offering “agents Protected” is great. It just doesn’t work as well as listing your home in the MLS AND REALTOR.COM. With the MLS, an agent knows that they are going to get paid because the listing agent has a binding agreement with the seller; wherein, the commission was set.

In today’s market, the MLS AND REALTOR.COM still hold a lot of power to get homes sold. Most likely, that power will fade in the future with a new technology becoming available to the public. We have already seen a shift in power due to the internet; but for now, the bottom line is a long as buyer’s agents who only search the MLS to find homes are successful (at no cost to their buyer client), the MLS AND REALTOR.COM will reign supreme as one of the best search tool for anyone who purchases a home.

We hope that you are able to sell your home as a “For Sale by Owner,” even while using our program; but to be “seriously” on the market, we know that you will need the MLS and all of its internet exposure incorporated into your marketing strategy. Thanks for letting me share my insights on the real estate industry with you. I really love what I do and I hope that it shows.

 

Tim Reed

General Manager

HomesByOwner US, LLC