A Tip To Save Lots Of Money When Selling Real Estate
Written by ama on Thursday, August 26th, 2010 in Uncategorized.
Almost all the homes sold today are sound because they were found on the internet. Now, people looking for homes online are able to view the same homes for sale as are available to real estate agents on the MLS through IDX feeds. The buyers usually direct the Realtor into showing them the homes they want to see, that they found online. The best thing you can do to make sure you have a chance of selling your home is to have it listed on the MLS and all the websites that get IDX feeds from it.
In the past, the only way to get your home listed on the MLS was to hire a Realtor and pay them a 6% sales commission. You have to pay the listing brokerage the selling fee regardless of if who actually finds the buyer. But now, you can get all the advertising available by selling your home as a MLS listing, for a lot less money.
A flat fee MLS service will allow you to sell by owner if you can find a buyer yourself, and have the complete MLS exposure. Most of the time the buyers who will look at your home are already using a buyers agent. You will still need to be prepared and able to pay a buyers agent a 3% commission, if they bring you a buyer. By not paying the listing side of the real estate commission, you can stll save about 3% of the gross sales price. A lot of the time buyers approach for sale by owner sellers first, even if they found your home on an IDX feed Realtor website. Buyers usually try avoid contacting a real estate agent as well, because they want to save on real estate commissions if possible. A lot of the time they go to check out the exterior of the home, and the neighborhood, before they call a real estate agent. In these cases, you will be able to save almost 6% when using a flat fee mls listing.This could bring you a savings of nearly $3,000 for every $100,000 worth of house. This is a pretty hefty savings for most sellers.
While listing your home with a service like Owners.com can save a lot of money when selling real estate, it also has some disadvantages as well. Brokerages that sell flat free MLS listings are not usually very helpful, they receive no extra incentive if the home actually sells. Flat fee mls service is only recommended for people with a good understanding of real estate transactions and contract law.