What is the MLS?
The Multiple Listing Service (MLS) is a list or database of all homes for sale in an area. The MLS is used by Realtors to list properties for sale and find properties for buyers. In most markets, the MLS is used by agents at all large, medium, and most small real estate companies.
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Contrary to the repeated headlines we have read over the past two months, the real estate market isn't dead or dying. Many of our sellers who are currently listed have been pleasantly surprised at the amount of buyer and offer activity they have seen.
Granted, no one will confuse this market with 2004. But there is reason for optimism, many reasons in fact:
Buyer and purchase agreement activity is increasing in many markets.
Mortgage financing is readily available and interest rates are very attractive.
Yes, there are multiple independent websites where our customers have posted flat fee MLS reviews about our service. Call or email us, we can email you a link to these websites. These websites show customers commenting and reviewing our service in their own words. We strongly recommend that you look for independent reviews, not just testimonials posted on a company’s own website.
We recently had a flat fee mls seller send us pictures for their property. The pictures were ok, good but not great, but there was a problem. They showed the home and lot covered with snow. Now normally that is fine but it was August, and this wasn't in one of the few places in the world that have snow in August (no we don't list in the Southern Hemisphere, yet).
Consumer Reports has weighed in on real estate commissions, and the results point directly to using a flat fee listing broker, which is no surprise to me. The articles appear in their September 2008 issue. Consumer Reports is perhaps the best known and longest running consumer advocacy organization, which is described as "No brand is more widely recognized and trusted than Consumer Reports. Since 1936, [it] has delivered thorough consumer product recommendations, while maintaining a reputation for objectivity and accuracy.
BuySelf Realty recently passed a significant milestone--our 15,000th listing. We are honored and feel privileged to be one of the pioneers and survivors of the flat fee MLS movement, if you can call it that.
Many of the questions we get from home sellers haven't changed in the last decade:
Sometimes a person who wants to sell their home but has not listed it in MLS asks me "Why should I list it in the MLS? I offer a comparable buyer agent commission to any agent that brings me a buyer."
Yesterday I was honored to accept an award on behalf of the entire BuySelf Realty team. It was the "Award of Excellence" for online marketing from the world leader in real estate marketing, Realtor.com. It was humbling to be among the handful selected for the great work our team does marketing our sellers properties on the internet.
The past few years our flat fee MLS listing business has seen a huge influx of sellers who first tried to sell their home without any professional help and without a Multiple Listing Service (MLS) listing. Most of these people had put a sign in their yard, and maybe put an ad in a newspaper and maybe a few other things to try to sell their home.