What is a flat fee service?
If you’ve ever wondered where all those homes for sale on sites like Zillow and realtor.com come from, they come from the multiple listing service or the MLS. The MLS is where real estate agents and their brokerages put houses that they’re listing for sale so they’re all in one place. They can share those listings with each other through their membership in the MLS. Sites like Zillow and Realtor.com pick those home listings up from the MLS and put them on the internet for all to see. All means potential buyers, and, of course, looky loos.
We’re going to talk about how you can get your house on the MLS as a for sale by owner without paying those high commission listing fees. Hiring a real estate agent to list your house for you is expensive. You can learn to do all of the tasks an agent does for you and use a flat fee service to avoid commissions.
Check out my You Tube channel that will show you what you can do to get your house ready for market, price it right and anything and everything else to sell it on your own.
Flat Fee Service
If you want to put your For Sale By Owner on the MLS, which some people think is super important but I tend to disagree, there’s a way to do that without hiring a listing agent. And that’s by using what’s called a flat fee service. There are a lot of them out there. These are companies that will put your house on the Internet for one fee.
That fee can range anywhere from $300 up to a $1000 and sometimes even more. The price will depend on the service that you want.
Some of the services include;
- How long you’re going to have it on the MLS,
- How many pictures you want to put out.
- If you want to have somebody help you fill out the paperwork
- Some of them will give you fliers that you can print out.
- A sign for the yard
There are more than several of these flat fee type companies to choose from. The original, forsalebyowner.com, founded in 1999, was the one that started it all.
Since then for sale by owner flat fee services have become more and more popular. It’s a much less expensive way to list your home on the mls where not only do consumers find It on sites like Zillow, but Realtors see it on their platform, the MLS, also.
To name a few;
Different flat fee services will work in different states. Some of them are licensed in all states. Google it, flat fee service or how to get my For sale by owner on the MLS. This is a great way to get your house on the MLS. While I don’t believe completely necessary, it will get more attention and it might help it to sell a little bit faster.
Real Estate Agents
Keep in mind that by putting your house on the MLS you’re saying that you’re willing to work with, and pay, a buyers agent. A buyers agent is the agent that is showing the buyer homes. The bonus part is that the agent will then do all the paperwork for you.
Part of a Realtors job is to help you price your house and show you how to get it ready for market. You definitely don’t need to hire a real estate agent to price your house for you or to show you how to get it ready for market. I can show you how to do all that. There are videos here that will show you all you need to know. Using that and a flat fee service you’re doing everything an agent does for you, at a fraction of the cost.
Selling your house is really not that difficult. Everything a real estate agent does for you, you can easily do yourself from pricing, to preparation to listing whether you want to use the MLS or not.