This post will outline why the 1% listing fees offered by companies like Redfin are too much to pay in Massachusetts. If you want to sell your home and are a genuine do-it-yourself person, then why not use one of the vendors who will put your property into the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) for $300 or less, as an Entry Only Listing? Get your property into the MLS and you will be seen everywhere. But most home sellers don’t know that this is possible and that the 1% fee may not be reality in their transaction.
$300 is a whole lot less than 1% which would be over $6,000 on average, at the selling price Redfin uses in their example. What they don’t tell you is that if a Buyer’s Agent is involved on the buying end, it will cost you 3% instead of 1%. To be charged only 1% means your buyer has to give up their right to representation and protection of a buyer’s agent. Few buyers are going to want to do that if they understand the implications.
The Entry Only option for $300 gives you most of what you would get for the extra thousands of dollars. Few consumers know about this Entry Only opportunity that gives the same, full, wide exposure to your property in the MLS as any listing receives. As a result, it shows up free of charge on all the large aggregators like Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com®. This is because they all take their feed from the MLS as do all other real estate brokers who use an IDX (Internet Data Exchange) on their websites.
As Exclusive Buyer Agents, we are working with listing agents every day, and we tend to know the good ones from the not-so-good ones. Because we cannot provide fiduciary level service to home sellers, we hand you off to experienced, capable agents who do understand their duties to you as a home seller. We can help sellers, but never actually work for sellers.
There are different kinds of help we can offer to home sellers. One is the possibility that we already have a buyer who has engaged our services and that buyer just might be interested in your property if they knew about it. We can also send you some A-Z tips on getting your home ready to market and how to get help for your Open Houses. But to be honest, probably the best help we can give sellers is to put you into the hands of a full-service listing agent who will genuinely look out for your best interest as a home seller.
If you prefer to spend thousands of dollars rather than a few hundred, go ahead and pay the one percent fee to list your property. You may get a significant lack of showings and remember if any Buyer Agents do bring their interested party to your listing, the fee that buyer owes his or her agent will most likely be included in the final purchase price you negotiated. Redfin does offer a 2% buyer broker fee to buyers with their own agent. However, they tell their seller that they will likely have to deduct and average of $12,500 from their purchase price to pay the buyer’s agent. So they encourage the “go direct” approach.
If you want to know more about the $300 package that’s out there or get a referral to a professional Listing Agent, call 800-25 BUYER, or email us at info@buyerschoicerealty.com.
At Buyer’s Choice Realty our difference is your advantage and your interests are our primary interest. The company was founded in 1990 on the principle that home buyers deserve representation and advocacy in a real estate transaction. Our exclusive Buyer Agents are all licensed Realtors® and will never try to persuade you to buy a property. Buyer’s Choice Realty agents are home-buying counselors, consultants and advocates; not salespeople. We do not list property, but focus entirely on the wants and needs of home buyers. As the first Buyer Broker in Boston and North Shore, our agents have saved buyers millions of dollars in home purchases. Our job is to protect the home buyer’s financial interest, so we take on the responsibility of research, investigation, and evaluation on the buyer’s behalf. Take a look at some of the things our previous clients have said about our work by visiting our TESTIMONIALS page.
