Home sellers lose a large portion of their sale proceeds to real estate commission. The industry standard for real estate commission calculation has remained at five to six percent of the sale price (apportioned between selling and buying brokers) for some time now. That can amount to a large amount of money during a housing boom. However, now there is an alternative way to list your home without paying a large real estate commission: flat fee Multiple Listing Services (MLS) broker services.
Imagine a flat rate real estate broker service that offers a seller the full benefit of professional brokerage services without the huge real estate commission. The flat fee is a fraction of the amount of real estate commission for which a seller would be responsible should he choose to list his home with a full service broker. Flat fee MLS allows the seller to list his home on the MLS (which can be done only through a licensed broker) and gain maximum exposure for his home over the Web. This arrangement permits the seller to place a For Sale By Owner sign in his yard, with a broker available to step in for contract negotiations when the seller receives a purchase offer.
With flat fee MLS, you list your home on the same MLS and have access to the same buyer pool as do sellers working under the standard real estate commission arrangement; your listing will also appear on nationwide MLS websites for maximum exposure. Everyone, brokers and buyers alike, will be able to view your home on the Internet.
Once you hire flat fee real estate commission services (and have paid the fee), a broker will be assigned to you to serve as your contact point during the transaction process. The broker will email you the necessary paperwork, which you complete and return. Your home will be placed on the local MLS after you return the completed paperwork and on nationwide real estate websites within a few days thereafter.
Your For Sale By Owner sign may cause some buyers and brokers to shy away from your listing because there is no onsite broker to work with. However, the hesitant ones will be more than offset by the amount of traffic generated by buyers who prefer to work directly with the seller. If you are considering putting your home up for sale, it would be well worth your while to investigate flat fee real estate commission services.

View PDF | Print View
by: sarawilliams
Total views: 20
Word Count: 423

About the Author

For more on no commission real estate, visit www.smithadams.com.

Comments

Add Comment