Is there an alternative to selling your home on MLS? Absolutely! Several in fact.

Is there an alternative to selling your home on MLS? Absolutely! Several in fact.

I spoke with a homeowner recently who was interested in a lower commission structure, but still wanted top dollar for his home. Does this sound familiar?

Initially, my instincts told me this was wrong. Not impossible, but fairly difficult at best. This because the commission rate he suggested meant an MLS listing was out, and an "exclusive" listing was in... told him I'd have to think about how I could do this for him effectively.

So I began thinking about how I would go about selling a home without the benefit of the Multiple Listing Service. My memory may not be perfect but it seems to me, in my area anyway, that I read 80% of resale homes were sold via MLS. I also recall a stat that said 93% of people looking for a home, turn to the internet at some point. Whatever the actual stats are, I figured around three quarters or more of home buyers hit the internet to varying degrees in their search.

Well, I've been hooked on Social Media, Online networking, Web 2.0 or whatever you want to call it for several years now. So I started to write down, off the top of my head, the sites I currently use that I felt would also would be good to promote a listing on. In the space of about five minutes I listed Twenty Two. TWEN-TEE-TWO. This without even thinking too hard. So I thought, "ya know, this is doable - VERY doable." And fffline would be the tried and true methods of; lawn signs, just listed flyers, open houses, ads in local papers, etc...

The catch is - of course there's a catch - it is hard work. But what fun it will be, especially in the midst of the CREA and Competition Bureau "MLS fiasco" to market homes without worrying about whether MLS is dead or alive.

This is a great time to be in the real estate profession!