What is a Flat Fee MLS Listing?
We’ll demystify this topic for sellers in this following video.
I’m Chris at Hauseit, in case you haven’t heard of the platform, Hauseit is the largest
for sale by owner and buyer commission rebate company in New York City since 2014.
So a Flat Fee MLS Listing, you may have searched online, looked around for alternatives selling
without a broker or perhaps paying less than a standard 6% broker commission.
A Flat Fee MLS listing is exactly as it sounds.
A seller pays a flat fee to a broker to list his or her property on the local MLS and the
associated websites that syndicate automatically from the MLS.
Typically what happens is a seller will pay a flat fee of anywhere from several hundred dollars to even a
thousand dollars to a local discount broker and the broker will then do a what’s called
entry only listing and input the listing into the MLS on the seller’s behalf.
Obviously, only brokers are only allowed to input listings into the MLS so the listing
will be under the broker’s name not the seller.
The broker will the co-broke on the seller’s behalf so one of the main point of doing a
flat fee MLS listing is getting access to the MLS so you can offer commission to buyer’s
agents so to effectively do this, your listing needs to be an MLS where it is contractually
co-broked with other agents.
What this means is when a broker lists your property into the MLS, he or she also inputs
commission that is contractually offered to all other broker’s members of the MLS.
For example, let’s say if your listing broker puts two and half percent or 3%. In that case,
if a cooperating broker in other words a buyers broker brings someone, brings a costumer which
ends up purchasing your property, then he or she will be owned that 2.5% or
3% regardless of whether you end up paying or not.
In other words, your listing broker is on the hook contractually.
This is why co-broking or putting listings into the MLS is so effective because buyer
agents know that they'll get paid.
In a Flat Fee MLS listing, after a flat fee is typically paid upfront, the listing
broker will the ask the seller to sign the Flat Fee MLS listing agreement.
This listing agreement once signed will allow the broker to list the property onto the MLS.
The listing process can take anywhere to two business days for the listing to syndicate
to the MLS and all relevant websites.
Keep in mind that once the listing is entered into a MLS system typically the MLS will
then automatically syndicate the listing to a variety of third party websites.
Many of what you’ve heard of such as Zillow or Realtor.com in New York City it would be
Streeteasy, The New York Times and other sites of what you’ve heard of.
One important thing to know with a Flat Fee MLS listing in a certain areas such as New
York City is that there maybe other names for the defacto MLS in the area.
For example, in New York City where were based, the MLS is actually not technically an MLS
because it is not affiliated with the National Association of Realtors which you have to
be a member of in order to call yourself an MLS so the broker database in New York City
is unaffiliated it’s called the REBNY RLS.
It’s operated by the Real Estate Board of New York or the REBNY, and it operate much
the same way as a MLS. So in New York City the term would be Flat Fee RLS Listing which
we are happy to offer here at Hauseit.
So what’s next after your broker list your property on the MLS or RLS?
Well what typically happens in a flat fee MLS listing is once inquiries come in related
to your property.
The broker will then typically forward to you for you as the seller to handle.
This means any showing requests, any scheduling and negotiations or anything else related
with the property after it’s been listed.
If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below, hit subscribe as
we do have a regular content and if you have any other questions feel free to email us
at team@hauseit.com.
Our website is www.hauseit.com, you can find that below.
Please do check us out if you have any questions about buying or selling real estate and want
to save money in broker’s commission in New York City.
Thank you so much!