Posts Tagged ‘by owner’

Orlando By Owners Learn how Flat Fee MLS works by watching our videos

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

Orlando by-owners are using flat fee listings to gain a competitive advantage.

ADDvantage® now makes it simple to understand how flat fee listing works by watching our flat fee MLS videos.

In today’s price driven real estate market, every penny counts these days and ADDvantage® is leading the way on this cost saving campaign by offering the best by-owner flat fee MLS listing service.

ADDvantage® holds direct MLS membership with 28 Florida Realtor Associations from Ft. Myers, Ft. Lauderdale,  Orlando, Florida Keys, Marco Island,  Ocala, Jacksonville, Tallahassee, The Pan Handle, Bradenton, Tampa, St. Pete, Clearwater, Gainesville, Naples, Boca and just about every small Florida city in between.

Listing Flat fee in the MLS has grown in popularity because sellers save 50% in commissions without sacrificing marketing or service. We offer the best live phone support and superior Internet marketing so selling your Florida home is easy and cost effective. ADDvantage® has been working overtime for years earning the respect of fellow Realtors and by-owners throughout Florida.

In today’s price driven buyer’s market, sellers must sell and compete along side short sales and bank owned properties. Lower sales commissions are an excellent starting point to get noticed and sold faster. ADDvantage® has done a great job in Florida for by-owners…Just take a look at our flat fee MLS sales statistics!

When listing flat fee MLS, in Orlando, by-owners only pay a commission to buyer’s agents. If you sell without a Realtor, no commission is due. Our basic 9 month flat fee listing is just $349 which includes a listing in Mid-Florida Regional.

With flat fee MLS, there is no binding listing agreement (view flat fee MLS listing agreement) and you can cancel anytime, with a moments notice and without a fee or penalty.

Our Internet marketing is superior and we will list your home, condo, commercial property or vacant land on hundreds of sites such as MSN, homes.com, Craigslist, AOL, Realtor.com, getmoreoffers, Bargain Network, Yahoo and many more.

Our service commitment to our Orlando by owners makes ADDvantage® your best partner in Florida to list flat fee in the MLS. We offer the most reliable live phone support from 8:00am and to 8:00pm every day o the week including Saturday and Sunday.

We are the only Florida discount real estate broker or full-service real estate company to do this. We truly understand real estate is a sales business and we understand each call is important and maybe your sale. We have offered this live phone support for six years now and continue to do so. We enjoy the best reputation in Florida among fellow Realtors because of it. When Realtors see our name in the MLS, they know what to expect when they call. Real-time live support 7 days a week!

We also give every seller more control over your MLS listing because each seller has their own seller control panel to change price, commission, view who has viewed your listing and all seamless, 100% on-line and electronic. No faxes, or emails, just clicks.

Even Realtors trust ADDvantage® to list their own listings when they need marketing outside their local MLS coverage. Homeowners, builders and investors all trust ADDvantage®.

Contact ADDvantage 727-942-2929

Should you trust your Orlando home sale to any flat fee MLS broker?

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

Orlando home owners who are considering using flat fee MLS to sell their property often face the dilemma of trust. Everyone wants to save 50% in real estate commissions, or possibly pay zero. That’s why flat fee MLS listings in Orlando are popular. But, can you trust that you are going to receive everything as promised?

Most Orlando home owners do not fully trust Realtors®. For whatever their reasons, this remains a fact. I am Keith Gordon, broker for flat fee MLS Orlando listing service ADDvantage®.

I belong to 26 Florida MLS Realtor Associations, including the Mid Florida Regional MLS. I have been a licensed Florida real estate broker since 1984. My honest real estate brokerage dealings for the past 25 years has earned me a reputation as being forthright, respected and as a result, zero complaints with the Division of Real Estate in my 25 years of brokerage activity.

Trust will always be an issue when money is involved, especially big real estate commissions. Because 6% represents huge money, Orlando by owners have turned to an alternative way to list and sell real estate in Florida…Flat Fee MLS.

I have found that many of our clients even doubt our honesty and sincerity until they have listed and dealt personally with our staff. Once they see our professionalism and have experienced our easy to use MLS listing software, the trust barrier comes down. We are timely with our MLS edits once you are a client and our overall customer satisfaction is unapproachable.

I believe there are three areas that Orlando, Florida owners have trust issues with:

1) Buyer leads are one area that flat fee MLS home sellers do not fully understand. At ADDvantage®, our policy with regard to buyer leads has been effective and honest since we started ADDvantage® back in 2005. Once a buyer lead is received by us from any source such as Realtor.com or Homes.com, we promptly forward it to our seller in real time 7 days a week from 8:00am-8:00pm. This level of service is unheard of in the real estate. Between these hours, all emails and calls are answered “live” by our staff and forwarded to our Orlando flat fee MLS sellers…Either by phone and/or email. Our relentless attention to all details has earned ADDvantage ® the best reputation in all Florida for delivering the most reliable and trusted flat fee MLS service. As well, all leads and Realtor® calls for showings are stored in the sellers account in their easy reference and retrieval.

2) The next point of trust or dis-trust is how Realtor.com and IDX works. Most Orlando by owners do not fully understand the nuances of Realtor.com and why should they. Fact is, no seller contact information is allowed, by rule of Realtor.com, to be published in Realtor.com. ONLY the listing broker’s phone number and name may appear. All Realtor® websites such as Coldwell Banker and remax.com receive their MLS listing data directly from Realtor.com through a feed called IDX. This means all websites that display MLS listings contain the listing brokers contact information, not the sellers. So, sellers must implicitly trust the flat fee MLS broker to professionally handle buyer leads. The sellers contact information is displayed on our site http://www.getmoreoffers.com and sites such as Homes.com.

3) Offers from Realtors® are another big trust issue. Sellers do want the marketing and cost saving offered by flat fee MLS listing services but, “don’t touch my offers.” Sellers would prefer their offers going directly to them and not through the flat fee broker. At ADDvantage®, we facilitate our seller’s deals and would never impede the sale. We forward all offers directly to our sellers (8:00am-8:00pm 7 days) and call notifying of the offer being forwarded by email. We have never mishandled an offer in 5 years. Most offers do come through ADDvantage® as Realtors® prefer the “listing broker” to initially receive the offer and then forward the offer to the “self-represented” seller. From there, the buyer’s agent and seller negotiate the offer. As a note, it is clearly stated in the MLS to call seller directly for all showings and includes the seller’s phone number. But, it has been Realtor® protocol for 80 years to deal only with the listing broker. This also assists ADDvantage® with timely updating the MLS listing status from “active” to “contract pending” an MLS board requirement.

 

Trust will remain an issue when big money is involved. Orlando by owners that do choose ADDvantage will soon believe it is possible to trust a flat rate MLS service with your home sale and still 50% off the cost of a traditional listing….Or, possibly pay no commission if you sell without a Realtor®. At ADDvantage®, we have earned our reputation as Orlando’s most trusted and hardest working flat fee MLS broker. We consistently deliver more offers, more buyer leads and Realtor® feedback on all showings. We do this 7 days a week from 8:00am-8:00pm for 5 years in a row.

Cal us anytime 1-877-232-9695 

 

 
 
 

 

 

 
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Is an ADDvantage Flat Fee MLS Listing in Orlando worth $349?

Thursday, November 6th, 2008
Orlando flat fee MLS sellers get what they pay for at ADDvantage…Live 7 day 8:00am-8:00pm guaranteed buyer lead forwarding, proactive flat fee MLS listing plans, faster customer edits and an overall better flat fee MLS listing experience.
Because you are reading this blog you are aware that the Internet is packed full of flat fee MLS websites that offer MLS listings from $99, $159, $199, $249, $299 and then there’s an ADDvantage flat fee MLS listing which costs $349. Why the difference in price?
The difference is the same as Becks v. Miller, Mercedes v Ford and so on. Even at our higher price, we have twice as many flat fee MLS listings in Florida than our closest competitor offering anything similar to what we offer.
Why do so many Florida by owner with MLS sellers choose ADDvantage? The reason is ADDvantage goes the extra mile to ensure 100% reliability to their flat fee seller clients. This is not the case with cheaper flat fee offers. Many flat fee websites claim they are national and therefore better. The opposite is the truth…they are not even licensed in Florida! They simply refer the listing to a local brokerage in the state where the property is located.

5 reasons why Orlando FSBO sellers believe ADDvantage is worth the extra money:

1) We are the only Orlando flat fee MLS service that guarantees (it is actually in our listing agreement) 8:00am-8:00pm 7 days a week live buyer lead and Realtor assistance. Our live phone support is one reason why we are a more expensive flat fee MLS service. The common belief is that all calls go directly to the seller so why would anyone pay for extra live phone support of 8:00am-8:00pm? The fact is ADDvantage has answered over 2,900 calls live over the past 12 months from Realtors and buyers needing assistance. Flat fee MLS websites all say they same thing: that “Buyers and Realtors call the seller directly.” This is absolutely FALSE; we put the same remarks in the MLS as all flat fee services do which states “call the seller directly for all showings and offers.” The reason we have received over 2,900 calls is because Realtors are a busy bunch of people and often fail to slow down and read the Realtor remarks. Some read them and can’t find the seller, and some couldn’t care less what the remarks say and call the listing broker as protocol. Also, NO seller contact information is allowed in Realtor.com. These are the reasons why Orlando flat fee MLS sellers need reliable phone support. Is losing one buyer lead or missing one Realtor showing worth tying to save $150 and list with an unreliable cheaper flat fee service?

2) We are the only flat fee MLS service in Orlando, Miami, Tampa or Jacksonville that spends so much time making sure our flat fee sellers are ready for an offer. Just yesterday at 6:45pm, a Saturday evening, I received a call from an Orlando Realtor that was making an offer on a property she had shown earlier in the day. She reached me at 6:45 pm Saturday and received the advice she needed which was where to send the offer. I asked her if she needed the seller’s disclosure statement she said yes. I simply went to our “user docs” area of our seller’s control panel and emailed it to her. She got what she needed, the flat fee seller received excellent service as their offer wasn’t delayed and this was all made possible because our MLS Administrators did their job to ensure all clients have completed their seller’s disclosure. I believe that we are the only flat fee service in Florida that spends the needed resources to follow up with clients and mail “welcome letters” to inform sellers of what their responsibilities are. The list goes on about other success stories that flat fee sellers have experienced at ADDvantage. It all starts with excellent phone ethic and we take the time to get the details right. We help Realtors and buyers today, not tomorrow or Monday.

3) Another point about paying more for an ADDvantage flat fee listing is buyer leads. In our listing agreement we state that all buyer leads belong to the seller, not us. This is not the case with many flat fee MLS listing services in Florida who take the leads for their own purposes.

4) Another point is the listing agreement. Our flat fee listing agreement states that we answer the phone 8:00am-8:00pm 7 days and that a seller can “unconditionally” withdraw a MLS listing at anytime with no fee or penalty. By the way, “suspend” is not the same as unconditionally withdraw. Many other terms can be used that don’t mean you have the right to permanently cancel your listing with no penalties. Listing flat fee isn’t always cut and dry unless you’re dealing with ADDvantage.

5) Lastly, our flat fee MLS listing plans have more proactive features such as Street Smart ADDvantage Realtor eblast and ADDvantage Plus contract-to-close.

Cheap is cheap and with ADDvantage you simply get more.

Call us anytime, we are here 1-877-232-9695 or visit our flat fee MLS listing website getmoreoffers.com

 

 

 

 

Orlando Flat Fee MLS By Owners Can Make a Big Splash by Offering 4%

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

 

One significant benefit of listing flat fee in the MLS is that there are no listing commissions being paid by the seller. Therefore, offering more commission to the buyer’s agent does help get more Realtor showings. While this strategy is not for everyone, flat fee MLS seller’s in Orlando benefit in many ways by offering a higher than average incentive to the buyer’s agent.

ADDvantage, an Orlando flat fee MLS listing service, designed a special software program in 2005 that delivers an email to all Realtors in Orlando within a 35 mile radius of a Street Smart ADDvantage flat fee MLS listed property. Our Realtor-to-Realtor Street Smart email has become the best read email that Realtor receives of any kind in Florida.

To get in the Street Smart ADDvantage email, an Orlando seller must offer a 4% or greater commission to the buyer’s agent and be listed in the Street Smart program offered only through ADDvantage. Realtors from other companies call ADDvantage all the time requesting that we include their listings in the Street Smart ADDvantage email.

The Street Smart ADDvantage Realtor eblast program has been a huge success for the Orlando Realtors and the flat fee MLS sellers that have used this plan in Florida.

Over 1,000,000 emails have been delivered to Florida Realtors each year. Our flat fee MLS website, getmoreoffers.com, tracts the number of hits that each Street Smart ADDvantage listing receives so sellers can see their results.

Before we launched Street Smart ADDvantage in 2005, we researched the concept of paying higher buyer agent incentives and made the following conclusions.

Our Street Smart ADDvantage properties would get shown more by Realtors and sell better than other standard MLS listing. That would be only logical since a Realtor that sees a 4% or 5% commission offer will likely not pass up a chance to show that property and possibly sell that home.

Another interesting point about offering a higher buyer’s agent commission is how attached Realtors become to the prospect of earning that commission. When I negotiate a contract with another Realtor for one of our contract-to-close flat fee clients (ADDvantage Plus

I have had the opportunity on numerous occasions to attempt a commission reduction from the advertised Street Smart commission of 4%. This strategy can be effective when all other negotiation attempts have been exhausted. But, even when I try, 90% of the time the other Realtor says “no.”  They all reply, I like the 4% commission. Let me see what I can do with my buyers. This is exactly the intent and purpose of offering a higher than average buyer’s agent commission. Let the Realtor work as hard as possibly can for the “deal.”Another compelling reason to offer a higher than average buyer’s agent commission is that it garners more Realtor showings. Realtors will likely not pass up on an opportunity to show a 4% commissioned property when there are multiple properties in a neighborhood.

In summary, the theory that supports the concept of Street Smart ADDvantage is higher commissions are often cheaper than price reductions. For example, a 1% commission on a $500,000 home is $5,000. When negotiating with a buyer or Realtor, price increments do not move in $5,000 clips but more like $10,000-$15,000. The extra $5,000 in commission pales in comparison to dropping $15,000 off the ask price.

The cost of Street Smart ADDvantage is $599 which includes Realtor.com showcase and World Properties International.

Call us anytime, if you have questions about listing flat fee in Orlando MLS

1-877-232-9695 or visit our site getmoreoffers.com.