Flat fee MLS Listing 101 keeps you safe when you list your Florida

 

Call us anytime 727 942 2929 or 1-877-232-9695 or visit our site GetMoreOffers.comFlat fee MLS Listing 101 keeps you safe when you list your Florida home-Ft Lauderdale, Miami, Orlando and Jacksonville get the real facts before you list

 

Who are you going to believe about how the flat fee MLS industry works? I am Keith Gordon, broker for ADDvantage®, a state of Florida flat fee MLS listing service and members of 27 Florida MLS boards.

My credentials are: Florida real estate broker for 24 years; Recognized as an advocate for flat fee MLS Sellers Rights (publishing the Florida Flat Fee MLS Bill of Rights); Received the 2008 Realtor.com award for marketing excellence; Negotiates all ADDvantage Plus™ contracts for our Florida flat rate MLS sellers; Co-founded of ADDvantage® with my partner Erin Knorr…We are Florida’s most innovative flat fee MLS listing service offering our legionary 8:00-8:00, 7 days a week live support. Read of client testimonial and listen to what they have to say about ADDvantage by visiting “getmoreoffers.”There are four flat fee MLS “business models” offering listings in Florida

1) National Website:2) Florida part-time amateur flat fee website:3) Florida flat fee broker that is masquerading as flat fee:4) Florida licensed flat fee MLS broker that is established, trusted, transparent, paperless, Internet specialists and offer real customer support, such as ADDvantage®.

(Note: There are more than one trusted MLS flat fee firms in Florida but there are also plenty of the firms that do fall into the # 2 and #3 categories above as well. They seem like flat fee but their business model is not consumer friendly and I see their business practices as questionable. They may or do take your buyer leads from Realtor.com and other sources for their own agents; or possibly charge a cancellation fee as high as $500; or hold your listing hostage until you pay up ($500) by only “conditionally” withdrawing your listing from the MLS if you attempt to cancel and move to a full-service agent – your listing will be trapped in this “conditional” status until you pay the ransom of $500.There must be 70 or so of these pieced together “websites” in Florida. They are licensed real estate brokers that do flat fee MLS part-time or are testing the waters to see if they can make a few bucks at flat fee.Flat fee MLS is not just inputting a listing into a local MLSFlat Fee MLS brokers must be prepared to dedicate their time and energy

1) Taking $200 bucks and throwing a listing into the MLS is not what flat fee is. There are more moving parts that make up a “real” flat fee MLS company than one can imagine. For example: Last week, Orlando Regional MLS just took over Venice Board of Realtors. When they did this conversion, it knocked out 53 Realtor.com “showcased” properties of ours at Mid-Florida Regional (Orlando). It occurred on a Thursday evening and took the resources of the vice-president of Mid-Florida Regional and the Director of Operations; and our head MLS administrator, Erin Knorr about 5 hours to straighten out their debacle.

2) Amateur or part-time flat fee MLS “website” operators might not have the resources or experience to deal with such matters.

3) The flat rate MLS broker must be prepared to back-up the customer with support and market effectively on the Internet.

4) If the MLS discount broker requests that you print out forms, fill them out and fax back, this means they have put no thought or investment into on-line automation. This means listing changes, edit, status changes will all be fax this-fax that….back to caveman days. At ADDvantage®, all changes are on-line and a confirmation is sent to seller by email.What to look out for before you list flat fee

Flat fee seller should think about contract representation. ADDvantage Plus™, our contract-to-close flat fee program, does help get the deal done faster. Having a seasoned real estate professional handle the contract negotiations results in a smoother transaction for the seller, as well, possibly netting a higher sale. As well, one of the trickiest parts of negotiations is the possible subsequent re-negotiations. I find this part easy because I have been involved in construction projects since 1985. I will not recommend re-roofing the house because some inspector or Realtor says the roof is at the end of its “useful” life. There is an art to getting the buyer’s agent, the buyer and the seller on the same page and ADDvantage Plus™ is a real value at $799 plus $799 at close.1) If the flat fee MLS “website” does display the “listing agreement”, that should be a warning.

2) Carefully read the listing agreement “end-to-end” before you give any flat fee company money; whether a National or a Florida based service.

3) Understand the process and policy about how buyer leads from Realtor.com and other sources get to you, the seller.

4) Realize that calls do go to the flat fee broker. ADDvantage® fields about 70 calls a day. If we miss one, that could be your sale.

5) Consider and verify what the hours are for the flat fee MLS service.

6) Flat fee websites that offer just one marketing option are really just a “website.” There are many marketing approaches besides just a MLS listing. What about marketing directly to Realtors®. For example, if a seller wishes to offer a 4% buyer’s agent commission, does the flat fee service provide a way to promote this higher than average commission? ADDvantage® offers Street Smart ADDvantage Realtor eblast which will send 12,000 or so emails to all Ft Lauderdale, Miami, Orlando and Jacksonville real estate agents every 15 days. We spent 4 months building the software for the eblast, it’s an effective marketing approach and is recognized as the most popular Realtor-to-Realtor email in the industry.1) Flat fee MLS in sellers Florida are 100% driven by control. They want their MLS listing correct at all times.

2) Third party websites such as Realtor.com, local MLS systems and IDX feeds to local real estate brokerage firms must be monitored constantly because listings do fall out of these systems.

3) Sellers make adjustments to their listing such as pictures, price, commission and their property descriptions. There are needed forms such as mold, lead-based paint and property disclosures.

4) The Florida Flat fee MLS broker is charged with the responsibility of buyer lead capture, Realtor showing requests, real estate broker duties, Internet specialist, trouble shooter, customer service, negotiator, editor and peace maker.

They are not licensed in Florida but refer you to a Florida discount real estate broker. National websites are competent business enterprises that usually have a real estate broker’s license in one state but not in all states. ADDvantage® does accept MLS listing referrals from National Websites and we have a good relationship with many of them.

Call us anytime 727 942 2929 or 1-877-232-9695 or visit our site GetMoreOffers.com