You, on your own or with your REALTOR®, have decided what price to ask for your home. Now what? How do you get the word out? How do you reach people? How do your neighbors, the people around the corner, those who live across town, people in Timbuktu find out about your home. How do you get the greatest audience to know that your wonderful home, the place you raised your kids, remodeled with your own hands, landscaped, painted and kept immaculate is on the market? In other words, how do you get buyers to the door?
OK, I am going to skip listing all of the things you could do, which sometimes work and sometimes don't work. I am going to cut right to the chase and give you another question. Who should you be targeting in order to get that parade of buyers started? The answer is simple, REALTOR's® and real estate agents (yes, there is a difference) representing buyers. Well over 90% of all home purchases are by buyers using REALTOR's® and real estate agents. Whether you are selling on your own, using some sales assistance service or using a full service REALTOR®, the main target of your marketing should be those people who are representing the majority of buyers.
That's the secret, like I said, it's simple. To get the most buyers, get the attention of the professionals representing those buyers. But how do you get their attention. That is also simple, use the local Multiple Listing Service, or, MLS. The MLS is major tool of real estate professionals trying to match-up buyers with the homes of their dreams, and that could be your home. Yes, it is true, you cannot place a listing in an MLS on your own. You do need to use either a full service REALTOR® or a limited service help to sell company to get your home into the listing service.
In this area there are two primary MLS services. If you elect to use full service representation your REALTOR® should be placing your listing into both services. This assures the broadest audience of agents for your home. This will usually be at no cost to you the seller until when (and sometimes if) your homes sells. If you use a limited or partial service firm, you will usually pay up front for the listing. This usually averages around from $400 to $500, per MLS. Find out upfront which MLS the limited service firm will be using and for how long the listing will be valid.
But there is still one more thing you need to do to attract those agents. Again, it is no big secret, to attract agents you need to offer co-operation or protection. This can be a percentage of selling price or it could be a flat fee, but, it needs to be clearly stated. If you are using a full service REALTOR®, like me, for instance, this co-operation will be included in my fee for selling your home. I will fully disclose what that co-operation figure is before you sign any papers. Whether you use full or limited service representation to get your house on the MLS, that amount of co-operation will be listed (you will have to inform your limited service listing provider what figure to put into the agents co-operation). Either way, it is a contracted dollar amount or percentage and cannot be renegotiated after a sales contract is in place.
No, I am not trying to direct you into using a full service REALTOR® or even to use a limited service to assist your sale. However, studies continually show that homes sold through a full service REALTOR® sell for more and faster than purely FSBO. And, whether you use full service or limited service, homes sell faster when listed on local MLS.
To sell your home, you best bet is to attract a REALTOR® or agent representing a buyer. To attract that agent, you need to offer an enticement, the co-operation.
Next time I will address marketing your home, whether on your own or with a full or limited service REALTOR®. Now that agents have been attracted, how do buyers get attracted?
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