These days it seems most buy owners are considering using a flat fee MLS listing to save ½ the commission, but are there are other benefits as well.
Tampa based flat fee MLS service ADDvantage®, which I am the broker, reported its six month sales results on January 30, 2009 which revealed that 26% of its by owner MLS listed sellers in Florida sold with ADDvantage® after being listed an average of 117 days.
The other interesting fact was that 23% of the "solds" in Florida were done so by the seller going directly to a buyer and paying zero commission.
The other 77% of the "solds" occured through a Realtor® and the seller paid the buyer's agent commission averaging 2.85%.
Since 2002, the discount MLS listing industry, or flat fee MLS as it is also called, has grown 600% from a 2% market share to a 14% market share.
In the right hands, a by owner MLS seller can benefit greatly using flat rate MLS v. full service.
The 3 biggest benefits to a Florida by owner are:
•1) Better Internet marketing, as a flat fee company often has existing RSS feeds going to most real estate websites such as MSN, Yahoo, google, AOL, Trulia, Vast, Homes.com and of course, Realtor.com. A full-service Realtor typically has no time, nor the expertise to keep up with the technology to expand their Internet reach.
•2) Flat fee MLS means the seller can still sell by owner and pay no commission or sell through an agent and pay just the buyer's agent a commission.
•3) With proper phone support and if you list through an ethical discount MLS broker, all buyer leads belong to the seller. This equates to possible huge savings and a faster sell time. ADDvantage® offers 8:00am-8:00pm 7 day a week "live" phone support for flat fee MLS sellers in Tampa, Miami, Jacksonville and other Florida cities . Because of this extraordinary phone support that we offer as standard service, we schedule more showings for our flat fee MLS listed sellers during the week and over the weekends.
While 26% "sold" might seem like a low success rate for flat fee MLS in Florida, I believe this number is higher than most, if not all real estate companies in Florida...Full-service and discount. There is no company that converts as many calls into showings as ADDvantage® and our Internet reach, Street Smart ADDvantage eblast and effective branding gives by owners in Florida better odds of selling if they list through ADDvantage®.
Call us anytime 1-877-232-9695 or visit our flat fee MLS listing plans.
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