Realtor vs MLS service (RE market, Realtors, listing, percentage)
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Can someone tell me how a realtor benefits the home selling process versus using an MLS service? I have my house listed with an MLS service and have had 6 showings in 4 weeks. My house price is 500k and it is in the Preserve. Should I be having more showings than this? My house has no quirks, great lot, and has a cottage style.
Agency law and ethics means that all agents must refer you back to your Realtor.
Your Realtor can answer this for you.
You do have a Realtor already.
Membership is a requirement for MLS access.
Realtors own the MLS.
FWIW:
The MLS listing is only one tool in marketing a home.
While it is a good tool, a Realtor has many other tools.
With the internet playing such an important part in house hunting these days (I've heard realtors say that "80% of homes are found on the internet"), what does a realtor do, other than list on MLS, to actively help sell the home?
Vicki - you say, "Selling a home in this area requires more than just listing it in MLS."
One thing they could do is keep those little container things in front of the house full of pamphlets - and with the price of the house on it :P Yesterday we were walking by some tiny little single families that looked like they might be in our price range up here in Northern Virginia and we casually said we'd pick up a pamphlet and out of like 8 houses for sale on that street, maybe 2 had pamphlet containers, and of those only one had pamphlets in it, and there was no price on it so we left it there mostly out of annoyance What if that could have been the impetus to compel us to stay in Northern Virginia?
Similarly, a few weekends ago we drove around the triangle scouting out the area, sans realtor, and stopped by many houses that looked interesting to pick up their pamphlets. Some of them weren't in our search criteria (they may have been 10k over our comfortable range, or whatever other reason), but we then went to look at them when we did go back with a realtor b/c we had found them that way. If we had depended entirely on mls we would never have stepped foot inside.
With the internet playing such an important part in house hunting these days (I've heard realtors say that "80% of homes are found on the internet"), what does a realtor do, other than list on MLS, to actively help sell the home?
Vicki - you say, "Selling a home in this area requires more than just listing it in MLS."
Can you elaborate, please?
Thanks.
A good Agent will list your home on mls, market your home within his/her agency, post photos and a virtual tour online, host a Realtor luncheon or tour, track showings and provide feedback, create presentation packets to be placed inside the home for potential buyers, create fliers for the brochure box on the lawn, host an Open House for the general public, advertise in a local Real Estate publication, suggest ways to make your home more presentable through curb appeal or staging and have access to a showing service that can schedule showings for you seven days a week.
Additionally, beyond shepherding the negotiations, transaction and paperwork, a realtor I used twice in California scheduled all needed improvements and repairs with workmen with whom she regularly did business. I didn't even have to leave work to meet them. That being said and as much as I loved her ability and service, when I looked at the amount of time she spent I questioned my value for the exorbitant dollar paid. On the other hand, my home sold at the peak of California's market and others didn't.
We've sold our house (well, at least accepted an offer) using Craigslist. We were very close to placing it on the MLS several times, but were getting 3-6 showings a week, and better than half of those were high quality showings (our house was around $200,000 and we were marketing it to young professionals/grad students/residents at UNC), so we never got around to doing it. At our price point, an agent would have done nothing for us but eat into our equity. The MLS definitely would have likely gotten us a few more showings, although I suspect the percentage of quality showings would have gone down.
However, at your price point you have to ask yourself how internet savy is your target buyer? How unique is your property in its price range? If the answer to both of those questions is not very, you better get an agent. Otherwise, step up your marketing to your target buyer. Maybe at $500,000 all you get is 6 showings a month, but I'd suspect that's real low.
If rmshill is talking about what I think they are, they used an MLS service, and not a realtor, to list the home on MLS. This costs around $500 and just gets your home in the MLS system for agents with buyers to show. So, you don't have your own agent looking for buyers, nor do you have a realtor to tell you at what price to list your home, if you should accept an offer, etc.
I guess you would lose perspective buyers if you didn't specify the amount you're willing to pay the buyers' realtor. We paid a friend a lot less to list our home, and we were able to offer 4% to the buyers' agent. Funny, we had a bidding war and accepted an offer six hours after we listed it.
If rmshill is talking about what I think they are, they used an MLS service, and not a realtor, to list the home on MLS. This costs around $500 and just gets your home in the MLS system for agents with buyers to show. So, you don't have your own agent looking for buyers, nor do you have a realtor to tell you at what price to list your home, if you should accept an offer, etc.
I guess you would lose perspective buyers if you didn't specify the amount you're willing to pay the buyers' realtor. We paid a friend a lot less to list our home, and we were able to offer 4% to the buyers' agent. Funny, we had a bidding war and accepted an offer six hours after we listed it.
There is so much misunderstanding about what the MLS is and who owns it. The MLS is a sharing tool among Realtors, supported by Realtor dues.
I guarantee you that anyone entering a property listing on the Triangle MultiList Service , TMLS, is a card-carrying, dues-paying Realtor.
That someone would deign to call themselves an "MLS service," and fail to mention the fact they are a Realtor doesn't change that.
In the Agent's Full Detail Page on a listing, one will see the Listing Agent's Realtor code.
Every time.
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What if that could have been the impetus to compel us to stay in Northern Virginia? 
