[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