What is a Genuine Florida Flat Fee MLS Listing?
I am Keith Gordon, broker for Florida flat fee MLS service ADDvantage. I often blog about flat fee MLS because I have been a Florida flat rate MLS broker since 2000. I am an experienced Florida real estate broker and have been licensed since 1984. I started offering flat fee in the Greater Miami-Dade market working primarily with investors. Shortly thereafter, we had more For Sale By Owner sellers than investors. The flat fee proved to be a viable concept and in 2005 ADDvantage was founded.
Flat fee, flat rate, FSBO with MLS…everyone calls it a different name but the intent of the “seller” is to get listed on a local MLS, not pay a listing commission (3%), retain the right to sell By Owner, get advertised on the Internet to FSBO websites, pay a flat fee, have the right to cancel anytime and receive all buyer leads that happen to come to the flat fee broker.
Loosely defined, the above description is genuine Florida flat fee MLS.
Most, if not all, people I speak with during the day about listing flat fee with ADDvantage ask me the same question…”my number will be in the MLS and I get all calls, right?”
I am not really sure why everyone believes this but the answer is no. No calls go the seller from Realtor.com. The seller is 100% reliant on the flat fee broker to answer the phone, take in coming emails, record the lead (buyer) and send that Realtor.com lead to the flat fee seller. This is the reason why ADDvantage says on our website “Where All Buyer Leads are Yours and We Answer the Phone 8:00am to 8:00pm 7 days a week.”
Realtor.com rules are so strict that not even the words “SELLER”, “FSBO” or “OWNER” are allowed and certainly not a seller’s phone number. Realtor.com will remove or fine anyone violating this rule. They are protecting full-service agents.
When flat fee listed, the listing broker will insert language in the MLS under “Realtor Remarks” section that states “call seller directly for all showings and offers 305-999-0988.” Because it says this you would think that Realtors would call the seller and the flat fee broker is out of the loop. 100% not true.
Even with this obvious remark under showing instructions for all Realtors to see, just under 3,000 Realtor calls were handled by an ADDvantage MLS administratorover the past 12 months. 3,000 appointments to show homes listed “flat fee” through ADDvantage were booked through ADDvantage (not the seller) the past year.
Answering the phone at a flat fee company is a full-time responsibility that we take very seriously at ADDvantage. No Florida full-service or flat fee company does a better job because no company would spend the money needed to actually man-the-phone from 8:00am-8:00pm 7 days.
Our systems at ADDvantage are 100% electronicWe know every statistic about every account. For example, 26.47% of our flat fee sellers in Florida sell themselves saving all commissions. We know that it takes 115 on average to sell a Florida home flat fee listed through ADDvantage, see our Florida flat fee MLS sales statistics.
What is a genuine Florida flat fee MLS service? My definition of flat fee MLS is a service that is 100% transparent and shows its prospective flat fee clients a listing agreement before they pay. And, in that listing agreement, itemize the services that are being “sold” to the flat fee client for that “advance” flat fee payment. A genuine flat fee service will “unconditionally” withdraw a listing from the MLS upon request from seller so another broker can input the listing immediately. Of course, no cancellation fees, all buyer leads go to the flat fee seller, not the listing broker and finally, the hours of phone support are posted on the website and/or in the flat fee listing agreement.
Call us anytime and we would be glad to explain the differences between our Florida flat fee plans. 1-877-232-9695.