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Iggy's House- Free MLS Listings

I just learned about Iggy's House today, an online site that lists homes on the various MLS' for free.

Have any of you seen this in action? I had heard of BuySide Realty, but never Iggy's House. It appears that no one is using this in my area, yet. When I do a search, I get no results.

Have you seen buyers start demanding a portion of the commission yet in your area? I'm under the belief that CA is usually the leader in "new strategies" and then it eventually spreads across the US.

Care to share your experiences?

Posted by Amy Bergquist, ABR, GRI on 04/16/2007 04:44 PM

Comments (36)

36 Comments on Iggy's House- Free MLS Listings

APR

2007

I don't know about California regulations, but buyers cannot receive portions of my commissions here in Colorado. If you are giving them anything outside of closing make sure you 1099 them so you do not have the tax burden.

If California has "leaders" in this concept, perhaps they can be shot. A true professional Realtor does not need to negotiate the commission. Every Cent is earned. Some agents have a problem with communicating that fact.

Hmm -- never new of this one! Wonder about procuring cause issues as well as states prohibiting commissions to the buyer/sellers.

Hmmmm....interesting..the only house on there in my area is a FSBO I am mailing too...they are ahead of me on this one...

This doesn't have anything to do with a Realtor negotiating a commission. If a buyer uses BuySide Realty, I believe they are searching on their own, and not using a Realtor. BuySide provides guidance, so they are somewhat acting like a dual agent. I think it's like Redfin. But I could be wrong.

Interesting. I believe more and more websites will try and make it as easy as possible to help out buyers and sellers WITHOUT becoming licensed. As long as there is a dollar to make of course.

My concern with both sides not being represented by a professional is that one of the party's in the transaction is going to take a bath. In my market, we see this all the time. I met a woman 2 weeks ago that purchased her current home through a private sale. She paid too much, now wants to move, and can't because she won't be able to get enough equity out of a sale. She'll have to stay put for at least 2 more years in order to cover her all of her selling costs. If she had consulted a REALTOR, she most likely wouldn't have overpaid.

Sorry, my commission is not negotiable with buyers. It just plain won't happen.

The point of this service is that the buyer's don't use a REALTOR.

The world is changing and we do have to be on guard against all of those web marketers and banks who look on our commsions with greed in the eye... there is some rebating here in NC, and there are several things local Realtors can do...

1) each develop a Unique Selling Proposition that helps separate you (this is the frontal attack)

2) petition your State house for several regulations... one we have here says if there is a commsion rebate, it must be stated on the HUD - this discourages rebating... and the other might be that we petition oir statehouse for the broadest definitions of Agency (the flank attack) to help keep these web guys out. This is how the big boys do it! :)

Site is down! Thanks for the great post and info!!!

APR

2007

As a real estate investor, I'm very excited about the prospects of being able to list my houses in MLS for free on Iggy's, however, it does not seem to be functional at this time. I filled in the information for one of my houses to list it and it will not send it to the MLS. Repeated emails sent to them for information do not get replies. Keeping my fingers crossed this works!

MAY

2007

Sellers and buyers should have a choice whether or not to use a Realtor to represent them in a transaction. It is totally reasonable for a buyer to get a large chunk of the commission if buyer does all the work.

I read a post above about a woman making a purchase mistake, however I heard just as many stories about conflict of interest for a Realtor:

1. Realtor providing a house inspector that will not "kill the deal". The don't kill the deal agreement is almost implicit nowdays when a realtor is the one providing an inspector

2. Realtor pushing clients into bad deals (just like the one described above)

There is a sense of entitlement in realtor community to having the "Profession" preserved, however the monopoly on access Real Estate information is no more and MLS is accessible to the masses. It will take them few years to figure out how to use it, but then the use of Real Estate agents in traditional sense will become minimal.

MAY

2007

I think a realtor can provide a great service ,especially if you are not familiar with an area.The only problem is finding a true Agent ,most of them sell a house a year and have a regular job and lets face it they just want to earn a commission. I think rebating should be against the law if these brokers want to do this the difference in commission should be deducted from the sales price of the home so banks do not get stuck with a house going back and now the buyer did a 100% loan no money down and walk away with $5000.00 to go and spend. Something is just not right about this industry anymore.

OCT

2007

Amy,

Have you heard any more about Iggyshouse? I had someone recently tell me that they could list their house free in the MLS and I was doubtful. I ran a search and came across your blog -small world.

I'll check into this. I have not heard about it, but I've got a pretty good nose for investigation. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. GBY!

Hi Jessica- I haven't heard anything more about Iggy's House at this point, but it does look like it's available in CT now.

I honestly don't understand how they make money on this business model, unless they are just using BuySide Realty as the revenue driver. I haven't seen any MLS listing (in my area) with Iggys House Realty as the broker. I just did a quick search in CT MLS and don't see them listed. Maybe they are only in Fairfield County?

A house on my street started using Iggy's House. Guess he actually wanted to sell his house, but he later hired a realtor.

FYI- Iggy's house is preparing for a public offering. They are planning on offering 3,000,000 shares and expect the price to out between $5.00-$6.00 per share. They plans to list on the NASDAQ under the symbol "IGGY".

OCT

2007

noticed a home for sale by owner,now i see a iggy sign. thought i would look it up, if they offer free mls service how come it is not listed on our local mls system?

NOV

2007

I recenty came across a buyer who came in and said they are using buysiderealty. They researched everything and now he is getting 75% buyer agent commission. I think buyside or iggy is a niche, designed to benefit truly analytical seasoned buyers. Not for first time buyer or buyer who are simply too busy to get involved. Therefore, experience Realtor are not at risk. As for the search engine with buyside, I don't think is all that special. I have try to do research and came up with less than other popular search engine.

NOV

2007

This concept is nothing new. I don't work for free but these people seem to like to give away services for free. Horrible concept.

Sincerely;
Jonathan Osman
The Charlotte House Hunter
Charlotte NC Homes, Charlotte Real Estate

Amy,

I didn not know about this, so thank you.

I will take a look and let you know my thought's....another marketing tool is always a good thing.

JAN

2008

I just got my first request for a FREE HOME EVALUATION today from someone that already had their home in MLS for FREE! I can't believe that our local MLS is allowing this to happen, it is ridiculous that they allow this company access to our database whether they pay or not!

FEB

2008

BEWARE! I just spend HOURS putting a property into Iggy's House for a friend, and when we hit the button to get the MLS, we were faced with what was basically an agreement making their sister buy-side site our agent. In other words, this is NOT a way to get your FSBO onto MLS and still preserve your right to sell the property yourself. Their advertizing is very cleverly worded so you don't know that until the end of the process. The other thing is that you cannot talk to anyone at Iggys about the process to better understand it. I tried. A third negative: if you send anyone to the Iggy's site to look at your info, they are soon tempted by the hook to their buy side site with the promise to rebate 75% of their commission. YOUR money.

My advice to you (as a person who has been successful with FSBO's quite a few times) is to go to owners.com (whick isn't as fancy as Iggys as a site but it's still a good one), load your stuff, then use their flat fee MLS process. You actually talk to a very knowledgable human being who gets you to a flat fee agent who then loads you into the MLS of your area - which in turn gets you onto REALTOR.com, which is the end result you need. We paid under $400. It was a very good experience.

PS We learned there are lots of flat fee MLS offers out there that say they get you MLS for under $400. We tried one - the screen you enter your credit card into said we would be told the "shipping and paperwork" charges after we completed the transaction.

No shortage of scams in the real estate industry.

MAR

2008

Saw Iggy's web site and unfortunately I've wasted one whole week to get things processed and it's still not done yet.

They don't answer calls; they don't call you back, and they don't reply any emails that I sent. Impossible to communicate. And they don't get the job done. They even sent the wrong item out when I ordered from the IGGYS Store.

MAR

2008

I ran in to a huge problem with Iggys house. I had been trying to reach them and the owner for well over 2 weeks.,.No response at all...I just pulled up to the home today. Well the selling agent was there and told me she sold the home on Feb 28th!! They never put the home UAG and they Never listed it sold as of today 3-12-08!! If this was me MLS would have had my hide!! Along with my office manager. No phone calls back no e-mails back to tell me the house was UAG or Sold! Great company... Sellers and Buyers be carefull...

MAR

2008

Hi Amy. I hadn't heard of that one. Thanks for sharing the great tip! Keep them coming.

JUN

2008

we used iggy house to sell our home in february 2008 and shortly after closing, they were suspended in the state of SC. I do not tknow what happenned but we sold for free!!!!!!

JUN

2008

Looks like iggys house may have closed up shop.

http://rentbits.com/blog/real-estate-news/iggys-house-down-for-the-count

JUN

2008

I listed and sold my house through Iggyshouse.com this spring and it worked beautifully. I had no trouble whatsoever and did not pay any real estate commissions as I found the buyer. I found iggyshouse to be honest, upfront, and there were no hidden fees. Of course they do require you to sign a contract, but the contract specifically states that it is for the purpose of putting the house on the MLS only. I referred a friend to this site. They were able to get on it last week, but now it has been down for 4-5 days. I have no idea what happened, but if they still exist I very highly recommend.

MAR

http://www.antiquesbeijing.com sell chinese antique furniture

JUN

I heard about this web sight called Iggy's house. Does anybody know the email address for Iggy's house so that I can list my house on mls for free? I am currently selling my house " for sale by owner ".

Thank You

I just heard that Iggy's house web sight is down or taken off, is that true or is their another email address for free mls listing?

Thank You

JUN

Does anyone have any updated comments on Iggy's House?

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