Flat Fee Real Estate Listing Service

[Just Susan]

Has anyone had any experience using a Flat Fee Listing Service to sell their home?

This type of service lists your home using your info and pictures on the local MLS, and depending on which service you choose up to 100+ national sites such as Realtor.com. Coldwell Banker, etc.

They also provide a for sale sign, lockbox, and several other amenities. You may or may not still use a lawyer to close.

Has anyone tried this?

[Just Susan]

This is a little more info on what I am refering to...these Flat Fee services include the following services:

MLS Listings (Realtors Multiple Listing Service)
For Sale By Owner (FSBO) House Listings
Answers to Home Seller Questions
Required Local Real Estate Seller Disclosures
For Sale By Owner Yard Signs
Minnesota (MN) Purchase Agreements
Key lockboxes and more

Examples:
http://flatfeelisting.com/questions.htm

http://lowestpricelisting.com/

These Flat Fee realtors cost about $300 - $800 for 6 mos.
What is the voice of wisdom from the Think Tank of TOTV?

If this works, we could save a bundle. In our market the Listing agent charges 6% - 7% to sell your home. They keep 3.3% to list your home. I am very capabale of doing what the listing agent does...all of it...trust me. What I can't do is get our house on the major internet real estate sites, into MLS, provide a sign and lock box. The selling agent (the one for the buyer) gets 2.7% for bringing us our buyer. We would probably still have to pay all or a portion of this fee + closing costs.

But what do you think?

P,S, Statistically the listing agent only sells their own listings 20% of the time.

[Just Susan]

Admins, I posted a request for advice a couple days ago.

You moved it to the Contractor Services Forum...interesting I guess, but I am not a contractor, or a real estate person, trying to sell anything or recommend any thing or service. The websites were arbitrary choices to be referred to as a description of what the service is...they also only apply to Minnesota residence.

I was asking for the advice and experience of the members on this forum. Nothing more. I merely wanted to ask if anyone had tried Flat Fee Real Estate Listing Services to sell their home.

So let's assume that I worded the post in a way that was misleading for you. How can I re-word my question to get it back on the General or Non Villages Forums where people will see it and be able to give me their advice?

[tony]

I think I may have this straighten out. Let's try it here.

[Just Susan]

Thank you Tony.
You're fast. Hope this placement will draw the wisdom of the members.
Susan

[samhass]

I have no clue about flat fee. I just want you to find a buyer and get here. :-*
Isn't that better than just saying "bump"?

[Just Susan]

Yes it is!

[NJblue]

I'm afraid that I can not provide any real advice or insight either - other than something I recall from a previous post here where a link was provided to an article about how to market your home in today's market. One piece of advice was to seek out the top sales person in the area and list with him/her.

From an outsider's perspective, it is easy to look at the process of listing and selling a house and think that it amounts to nothing more than writing a short paragraph describing the wonders of the house, taking a few pictures and then getting this information up on the internet and MLS. Perhaps in a seller's market this approach makes sense. Perhaps it also makes sense if you have no time pressure to sell your house and don't mind putting off your lifestyle change until you get your price AND save the 3+% (assuming that you still need to pay the buyers agent). Afterall, if the market has not bottomed out yet, selling a house sooner, rather than later, actually results in money saved. If selling through a Realtor makes the job go faster, these savings must be factored in as well. In addition, I imagine that the buyer is not dumb - they will see that you are saving money on the commision and perhaps expect a "piece of the action" by expecting a bigger discount.

Until recently, I would have been tempted to do just this. However, now that time is of the essence and the market is bad, I will be using the most productive Realtor that I can find and probably even sweeten the pot with an additional bonus if he can find a buyer within a month or two.

[downeaster]

The buyer knows you are "saving a bundle on commissions" and he will expect to pay less as a result. He will take that into account when he makes an offer.
I have heard claims of savings by various commission saving plans but are they really savings. Maybe if they had listed through a broker they would have made more.

DC

[ouma1938]

Hi, I am a Realtor in South Carolina and prior to becoming an agent sold and bought my own homes as FSBO's and with an agency. The flat fee service can certainly work, especially in strong market however when there is so much inventory out there the buyer has the upper hand and as others have said they will know, or think they know, what you are saving and want a much bigger reduction in price. If you do want to go that way there are places that you can list your home on your own. www.point2.com is one, zillow. com is another, frontpage.com, craigslist of course and others. They don't give you the full exposure an agency mls listing will but they do get your property out there. The other thing you can do is negotiate with the agency of your choice and see if you can't get a lower commission rate. That however can also cause problems and the agents from other companies tend to show you house only in a pinch as they know that their commission will be greatly lowered. IMHO, and I may be biased of course, but I think that as a general rule a good agent will get you exposure and market creatively into many forums. We tend to work extremly hard for our clients. Going for a flat fee agreement might save you a percentage point or 2 but in the end you will be better off. Again IMHO and from an agents point of view. Good luck whichever way you go. Oh by the way I am trying to sell my house in a terribly tough market here and even though we haven't sold yet, we have had many lookers and a fair amount of interest. Something will come through I know and I also truly believe that if I were not listing my home with an agency, albeit my agency and broker, we would not have had so much traffic. Hope to meet you in TV when we both sell our homes!!

[Just Susan]

This is why I am considering this method.
"The buyer knows you are "saving a bundle on commissions" and he will expect to pay less as a result. He will take that into account when he makes an offer." downeaster

The buyers in our area already think every home is a "fire" sale. By not paying the commission to a listing agent we can get closer to the new expected price.

"After all, if the market has not bottomed out yet, selling a house sooner, rather than later, actually results in money saved."

I totally agree plus TV awaits. However, our possible realtor has told us to expect that selling our home could take a year...with his assisstance and priced right. He is ranked one of the absolute best in our area. If prices keep going down we could handle the loss better without his commission. We have already lost 20-30% of our home's appraised value from last year.

I am thinking that pricing it without his commission allows us to get on the market with a lower price and maybe generate some interest that way.

I am mostly worried about the reliability of these flat fee companies and are they what they seem.

[Just Susan]

Ouma, I think part of my issue is that I agree with you and I don't want you and the others to be right. Do you understand?

The biggest obstacle that I see is that the buyer's agent will assume that the homeowner is more difficult to deal with than a seller's agent and won't want to bring clients even though we are willing to pay their fee. Do you think that would be the case?

I look forward to meeting you when we are both residents also.

[ouma1938]

That might very well be the case. Hopefully though any agent that was showing homes would view all available homes fairly and show their customer everything that was in their required range. I make a point of trying to show my buyer customers everything that fits their range and needs and then negotiate with the seller as I would with another broker. But that's in a perfect world and sadly our world is certainly not perfect. And right now, when its such a struggle, the market conditions don't always follow the rules.

[njgranny]

We're going to use our son-in-law as our realtor. Hopefully, he'll have the incentive to get us to The Villages quickly. ha, ha

[ouma1938]

Very funny NJ. 040 040 :clap2: :clap2:

[Mintjulep]

My brother in law sold his house with a flat fee service a few years ago.
It was in MLS, but he still did most of the showings.
He was happy with his outcome.

We had our house 'for sale by owner' for nearly a year.
We have sold 3 houses FSBO in the past during easier markets.

All my FSBO advertising, flyers, etc., got us lots of lookers,
but the hardest part is trying to find out if they are qualified.
They don't want to share their financial info with the 'homeowner'.
And even if they do, how do you know if they're telling the truth?

Sometimes, they just want to see the inside of your house.
So I did alot of work on alot of showings for nothing.

Don't know if the Flat Fee services offer a way to qualify your lookers,
as I assume you'll still be showing it yourself some.
But that may be worth checking out...

We finally put ours with a realtor and it went under contract in about 6 weeks.
When a realtor brought someone, I felt pretty sure they were qualified.
So felt better about the work to get it ready for the showing.

I admit I HATE to spend 7% on the fee.
Tho I did negotiate to get a really good referral fee as I have a real estate license .

I suspect FSBO's in TV do better, because older buyers have owned other homes with many years of equity, and are usually downsizing and so more easily qualified.

Just MHO

[jadebox]

Jan Ennis of Prestige Properties sold my courtyard villa in two days. Cash and I got about $10000 more then I planned on getting. This was just as prices were starting to fall so not in the real down time. I paid around $2500. The agents showed the house and would have held open houses if it had not sold soon. After on the market for a certain amount of time and not sold you need to lower the price or pay a % of sold price. This is not for everyone but I had met Jan and really liked her so figured I would give her a try before going to a regular office.

[Donna]

We were also going to do FSBO, but changed our minds..Too much work involved, especially since we are not in TV..

I am going to list with TV, any thoughts, or should I list with an outside agent??

[Barefoot]

It has been my experience that most flat-fee real estate companies charge a fee which is non refundable and they do nothing other than list your house on MLS. In tough times, more is required.

Owners often end up listing with a full-commission real estate company when their house doesn't sell. So they end up paying the flat fee plus the commission amount of the new listing broker.

It also depends on how long the owner is willing to wait for a sale. Assuming we're all in our "golden years", moving ahead with plans may be an incentive to "githerdone".

I was an agent for 20 years, but am retired. I certainly have the knowledge to sell my house myself. Even though the real estate market in Canada is healthy right now, I currently have my house listed with a full commission broker because I know I'll get the highest price that way. I received an offer two weeks after listing.

The best suggestion I can make: try to negotiate a lower commission rate with your full-commission real estate broker. Especially if you are trying to sell a "luxury" type home. Many agents are willing to negotiate commission.

[JohnN]

Donna,
My humble opinion. TV does push new homes first and foremost. I'd choose MLS, resales are their business.

Susan&Tom - I've bought and sold real estate without a realtor, FSBO route.
I've not used a flat fee agency, but have read various forums and notes on them.
Seems if you've the interest to personally show and market your property, they will fill the bill. I'd guess you're paying the selling agent (if there is one) their corresponding comission?

Anyway, no reason it can't work, but realtors do a lot of stuff to earn their pay, at least the good ones do. Best of luck.

[Lil Dancer]

We recently sold our home in upstate NY going the FSBO route. To get internet exposure I listed it on Craigslist. We had a lot of interest from Craigslist and ended up with 3 offers within the first 10 days. It is a nice home on a nice piece of property, which helped. Also, we had a good price on it. We had an appraisel done prior to listing to decide what price to put on it. We ended up selling for $3,000 less than the appraised value.. The other thing that helped was that we staged the house prior to selling i.e. got rid of all the personal stuff; redecorated and rearranged furniture to make the most of the features, and to make it look larger. I planted flowers out front, and put in new mulch to help the curb appeal as well.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do!

[gfmucci]

Susan and Tom:

I used Flat Fee 250 (their fee for a one-year listing is $250) when I was selling our house in Destin, FL.* We sold it FSBO within 90 days.* The MLS listing via Flat Fee helped tremendously.* I think this particular outfit is licensed only in Florida and Alabama, though.* I highly recommend this type of service if you have at least a six month listing, you can cancel or change prices at any time without fees, and if you pay no commissions.* The additional exposure is well worth it.* This, plus well prepared yard brochures are a great combination.* Local newspaper ads for me have become a waste of money.

http://flatfee250.com/

[Just Susan]

Thanks for your input everyone. I really do appreciate the combined wisdom of this board. I will be away from my computer for awhile, but will check for any other opinions as I can.

I think at this point that we are going to try the Flat Fee.

We have a nice house. It is big and waterfront property on a lake...we are twenty minutes from either city downtown.

I know how to stage and I know how to sell and so do my sisters who will hold our open houses for us. Our neighbors are looking for buyers as we have offered them a healthy finders fee.

I will produce our flyers and take our pictures myself.

I would rather not do all this, but I just can't get past the amount they want for commission at a time when so much of our profit has evaporated. I think a good realtor earns their fee, but not when the fee is more than most people make in a year.

Worst case, we list with a realtor in the spring.

Wish us luck.
Susan

[tucson]

I used TheVillagesFSBO.com and I had a buyer in less than 3 mos. And they don't charge anything. They advertise on this web site.Check it out and good luck!!

[Barefoot]

I am extremely impressed with how many people have had success with Flat Fee Realty, Craigslist, and other less expensive options.
Guess it is a whole new world out there now that the Internet has brought us all closer together.

[tucson]

My last 2 houses were sold this way with no problems. If you have your house priced competively with other houses like yours in your area, plus staged correctly,willing to spend a little to give it "curb appeal" you'll probably sell it without waiting a long time. I've noticed in TV alot of preowned are priced way too high compared to the new homes that they're competing with. It's just simple logic that buyers will buy the new one instead of a preowned and pay far less also for that new house.