Can a Flat Fee MLS Listing Service Save You Money?

Selling your home? You should do everything you can to find out how to get more money when you sell, or how to make your home more competitive in the market. Instead of just listing your home with listing agents, though, as people traditionally do, you should consider other options that might help you more.

Many savvy homeowners are now opting for a flat fee MLS service when selling their homes. MLS means mulitiple listing service, which is a database of houses for sale. Only real estate agents and people in the real estate industry can access it in most cases.

The MLS is primarily used by real estate agents to search houses for sale. This is how they find houses in certain price ranges, areas, and with specific numbers of bedrooms and baths to show their clients. When listing your house the traditional way with a listing agent, the number one most important thing they do is put your house on the MLS. The MLS can only be accessed by real estate professionals, so they are the only ones who can put your house on it. This is the way listing agents have maintained a monopoly for decades. The disgusting thing is that the traditional real estate contract awards the agent 6%, and it's an ironclad agreement in their favor. Many agents do little more than list the house on the MLS, put up a sign in the front yard, and that's about it. For listing your home on the MLS, your listing agent is guaranteed $6000 on a $100,000 house.

The listing agent splits that 6% with any buyer's agent who actually shows the house to people and gets them interested in buying it. That's 3% for the buyer's agent and 3% for the listing agent. But the listing agent got 3% for just listing your house on the MLS, which is how the buyer's agent found you. What if you could cut out the listing agent and keep that 3% for yourself? If you need to sell fast, you could also just offer your home for sale at 3% less than you would have before - because you don't have to give that 3% to the listing agent anymore!

There are more foreclosures, inventory, and short sale deals available than ever before. If you really want to sell your house, you need to price it as attractively as possible. Considering how tough the market it is, if you can shave $3000 off your $100,000 home, you will have a substantial advantage over other houses in your market.

A flat fee multiple listing service allows you to cut out the listing agent. You get to list your home on the MLS for a low fee, allowing you to not have to pay thousands of dollars to your listing agent.

In fact, if YOU find the buyers instead of a buyer's agent, then that's another 3% you can save on the final price of your home! If you sell your home for $200,000 and found the buyers, as well as did a flat fee MLS service, you could save up to $12,000!