Great News but HURRY! 

The home selling market is changing rapidly! Today's buyers are internet savvy and educate themselves about the market before ever contacting a REALTOR®. They report that they are looking on Realtor.com, studying homes with interior photos, driving the neighborhood, taking a flyer from the tube on the sign in front of the home and then making an appointment with our owners to see the home. Don't miss the opportunity to use Realtor.com as your best selling tool. Your home can only be seen on Realtor.com after you have listed with a real estate broker. So even if you are not really anxious to sell your property through a buyer's agent, you must get on Realtor.com. 

See what your buyer will see on Realtor.com: go to Realtor.com, put in search criteria that matches your home and see what the competition to your home looks like. Notice how many homes do not have interior photos! According to the multiple listing service, only 30% of the listings have more than 1 photo. Yet, buyers report they don't spend time looking at listings without interior photos. You must hurry and advertise your home on Realtor.com because obviously there are a lot of homes that are not being marketed properly!

 

The Perfect Selling Strategy

People ask us, “What is the perfect selling strategy to market my home?” Our answer, “Cover all of your bases.” That means getting into the multiple listing service, getting on Realtor.com and most important, keep your costs down so that when an offer comes in, you can actually sell the home without losing your profit by paying high commissions. So, we developed a plan that helps you do just that.

  

It is important to add the multiple listing service & Realtor.com to your marketing strategy, WHILE staying a “For Sale by Owner.” There are only 2 types of buyers in the market place; one who has a buyer’s agent & one who does not. Agents access the MLS database & the majority of home buyers, whether they have an agent or not, accesses Realtor.com to search for a home. The percentage of home buyer’s who found their home through some sort of “For Sale By Owner” media is very small compared to how many found their home through a buyer’s agent and/or on Realtor.com. By only marketing your home through “For Sale by Owner” venues is only attracting a very small percentage of the home buying market. That's why it is important that you have all areas of the market saturated. And, the only way to market your home on MLS & Realtor.com is to list your home with a professional real estate company.

  

With Ray & Kennedy Realty, you are able to accomplish both advertising strategies, thus “covering all your bases” while saving yourself thousands. It is really a no-brainer! Being listed in the Multiple Listing Service (listing with an agent) has always been the #1 way to get your house sold which is why the term “will co-op” or “agents protected” is often used by “For Sale by Owners” to attract agents and their buyers. Unfortunately, the public has rarely had the option of marketing their property on their own and being listed with an agent at the same time. Traditional agencies prohibit this type of real estate which is called an open listing. We have eliminated this roadblock by opening our own company, allowing you to have a profitable and innovative, yet proven way to sell your home with full representation by a real estate company. Our strategy gives home seller’s the best of both worlds; in the best case scenario, sell your home by owner & pay only .75% commission at closing or worst case scenario, sell your home through a buyer’s agent & pay only 3.75% commission at closing (compared to 6-7% with traditional real estate companies).

Why agents don't come to your house with their buyers when you are a For Sale By Owner?

The beginning of my career as a real estate professional, I was a listing and buyer's agent with a traditional real estate firm. We helped thousands of people market their homes. I had a passion for that business. When working as a buyer's agent and looking for properties to show my client, I would access the multiple listing service and pull listings that fit their criteria. I then mapped the listings and called the owner or listing agent to make showing appointments. Then, I showed the listings to my buyer client. I did not comb through the newspaper, or even drive the neighborhoods before hand to see if there were any “For Sale by Owner” properties to show my client. The truth is, the inventory of available homes in the MLS was more than sufficient in finding my clients their dream home, and there was no need to look elsewhere.

When we would run across a home that was a "For Sale by Owner" & my clients expressed interest, I would pull over and call the home owner. If the owner was not home, I would leave a message asking them to call me as soon as they got home so that we could see their home. Sometimes they would call back & unfortunately it was usually after we had already left the area with other scheduled appointments. Rarely did we have time to go back to the "For Sale by Owner" and more importantly, with very few exceptions, most of my clients purchased a home we had found through the MLS.

The other problem that an agent faces when they are attempting to show a "For Sale by Owner" is their own client. Many agents have not had their client sign a Buyer's Agency Agreement, wherein they get paid no matter what house their client buys. The possibility exists that their client, who has no legal obligation to pay their agent, will go behind their back and buy the "For Sale by Owner" leaving the buyer's agent out of the contract.

We think that the concept of For Sale by Owners offering “will co-op” or “agents protected” is great. It just doesn't work as well as listing your home in the MLS. With the MLS, a buyer's agent has a guarantee of compensation because the listing company has a binding agreement with the seller wherein the commission was set.

The Bottom Line

In today's market, the MLS still holds the power to get a home sold. Most likely that power will fade in the future with new technology becoming available to the public. We have already seen a shift in power due to the internet, but for now, the bottom line is, as long as buyer's agents who only search the MLS to find homes are successful (at no cost to their buyer client), the MLS will reign supreme as the best search tool for anyone who purchases a home.

We hope that you are able to sell your home as a "For Sale by Owner", even while using our program, but to be “seriously” on the market, we know that you will need the MLS and all of its internet exposure incorporated into your marketing strategy. Thanks for letting us share our insights on the real estate industry with you. We really love what we do and we hope that it shows…

Sincerely,

Leslee Ray, Principle & Broker

Shann Kennedy, Principle & Affiliate Broker