Wondering How To Choose A Flat Fee MLS Listing Florida?
Hi, my name is Matt Buttner. I’m a licensed real estate broker in the state of Florida, and I’m also the owner of List Now Realty. So what I wanted to do in this video is just kind of explain some things about how we are actually a better value than some other cheaper flat fee MLS services out there. So a lot of times, we get this question all the time, why should I pay $299 for your flat fee MLS listing Florida service when there are companies out there doing it for $150, $99, $69? And it really comes down to value. Look at what you’re getting for those other companies, for that $69 or $150. A lot of times what these companies are doing is they’re having different packages listed and they’re actually upselling you between packages. So just look at what you’re getting, and I’m going to go through some bullet points here and show you that we’re actually a better value when it comes to flat fee MLS listing Florida when you actually look at what you’re getting for your money.
Live Receptionist Service
So one of the things that we offer that’s pretty unique to us, and it’s unique to our flat fee MLS listing service Florida, and I didn’t realize this until recently we had a customer who switched over to us from another company, and that is our live receptionist service. So basically what we do is we don’t use voicemail. We have a live receptionist service, and they’re available to take calls pretty much 24/7. I think the only time they don’t answer is between midnight and 6:00 AM. So if we have somebody call in who’s interested in a property, if we have a … Somebody looks at the listing on Zillow and they call in about that listing, we have a live person there to pick up that phone and provide that caller with your contact information as the seller. So if you’re listing with one of the $69 guys or whatever, usually that’s going to go to a voicemail and who knows when they’re going to send that voicemail to you? Who knows when you’re going to get notified about that? Who knows what’s going to happen with that? With us, the caller immediately gets your contact information, whether that’s a buyer, an appraiser, a home inspector, an agent. They’re immediately going to get their phone call picked up, even if they’re calling at 9:00 on a Saturday night. So that’s one thing that makes us and our flat fee MLS listing service a little bit different, and that live receptionist service is not cheap, either, so we pay a pretty penny for that.
Unlimited Photos
The next thing that we have that a lot of other companies aren’t doing, and they choose to put it into these packages, and it is restrict how many photos you get. So they’ll do this thing where they’ll have the, you know, the bronze package has 10 photos, and if you upgrade to the silver package, you get 15 photos, and if you do the gold package, you get 25 photos. Well, the MLS allows 50 photos, so we’re just going to give you the 50 for your flat fee MLS listing Florida. It doesn’t cost us any more to put 50 photos on the MLS, so we’re not going to charge you for that. As I said, everything’s included with us. You don’t have to worry about that.
Unlimited Changes
Another thing I see companies nickel-and-diming people for is the number of changes that they can actually make their flat fee MLS listing Florida. So for example, if you want to change the wording or you want to make a price change, you want to rearrange the pictures, they charge you for that, which is crazy. We let you do unlimited changes. Anything that you need changed, we’ll get in there and change it for you without an additional charge. The other thing that they like to distinguish their packages with is the length of time they’ll list the property for. So usually it’s like three months, six months, nine months, something like that. Well, if you think about it, maybe your property’s going to take six months to sell, but you think you’re going to sell it in three months. Well, maybe it doesn’t turn out that way. So you’ve paid $150 for the three-month listing. Well, now after three months, now you’ve got to pay another $150, and now you’re at our price, $299, and you still don’t have unlimited photos. It doesn’t make any sense.
Access To A Licensed Broker
Another thing that we do that’s pretty unique, we allow you to have access to a broker, so me. If you have any questions or you’ve run into an issue or you need some advice about your flat fee MLS listing Florida, you need us to take a look at something, you can send me an email directly and I’ll respond and help you out with that situation. Some people prefer to talk on the phone, so if you need to schedule a phone call, we can do that. We’ll just set up a time, I’ll get on the phone with you, and I’ll walk through the issue and we’ll try to resolve it for you. I see other companies selling this as some sort of hourly service, where they’ll charge you $100 or even $200 an hour to get on the phone with the real estate broker, which is just crazy. So if you have a question about your flat fee MLS listing, we’re always here for you. We don’t charge for that.
Don’t Pay Fees At Closing!
Let’s see, what else? Oh, fees at closing. This is a new thing that I’ve just recently heard about, because I, one of our customers complained that the company they used before, in the fine print, they would put in there that sure, it’s $100 now or $99 now, but at closing, in the fine print, you owe them another $500 or another $300. There’s an additional fee, and they hide it in the fine print. I didn’t know about that until just recently, but that’s ridiculous. We don’t charge anything more than the fee you pay up front for your flat fee MLS listing Florida. There’s no hidden fees, nothing to pay at closing, nothing like that.
Avoid The Upsells!
Another interesting business model that I’ve seen with several of these companies is they actually pull you in with the flat fee MLS listing in Florida, and then they continuously try to upsell you the full service. So you list it for $69 and then they’ll continuously call you and email and say, “Hey, well you know you could probably sell it faster if you upgrade to full service and pay us a six percent commission,” and this kind of stuff. So basically what they’re doing is they’re using the flat fee MLS listing Florida as a lead source, because obviously if you’re willing to pay the $49 or $69, you want to list your house. You’re interested in selling. So they’re basically just paying that to find somebody who is a good, qualified lead, and then they’re continuously trying to harass you and upsell you to a full-service listing, which is crazy. Smart, though, on their behalf, on their part, but it’s crazy. We don’t do any of that. We don’t try to take your buyer leads and sell them on something else. We’re flat fee MLS listing Florida. We’re not a full-service brokerage. This is all we do.
Unlimited Syndication To Public Websites
I’ve seen companies, another thing, which is crazy, they try to charge for each public website that it goes to, so they’ll say, “Okay, so for the bronze package, you get it on realtor.com, but if you want it on Zillow, you’ve got to go to the silver package.” Stuff like that. Well, by default the MLS automatically sends the flat fee MLS listing Florida out to all of those sites. So basically what they’re doing is they’re charging for different levels and different websites, and it’s actually taking more work on their behalf because they actually have to go in and disable those websites in order to provide you with less service and less coverage, which is crazy, but that’s what some people do. We send it everywhere, we don’t limit it, all for one fee.
Get Access To The Local MLS (Avoid The Middlemen!)
Another thing you have to watch out for with a lot of these national websites, they claim to have national MLS access. There’s no such thing as a national MLS. I’ll show you our MLS right here. If you take a look at this, this is the MLS we use. It was previously My Florida Regional MLS. They just, actually just this week, rebranded to Stellar MLS. We have actual access to this. I’m logged into the MLS. I can see all of my flat fee MLS listings in Florida here. I can get in, I can edit stuff, I can put listings in, I can make changes.
These guys that advertise national MLS coverage, they’re basically middlemen. They don’t have access to every single MLS. What they’re doing is they’re taking your money, they’re taking a cut of it, and then they’re paying an even lower fee to a local broker who will actually put it on the MLS. So what does that do? Well, if you need to make a price change, if you need anything done with the Florida flat fee MLS listing, well now you have to go through the national company, then they have to contact the local broker, and it just gets in the way and slows things down. It’s crazy. Also, the national company’s not going to have any idea how the local MLS works. They’re probably not going to know how the local laws work regarding real estate, so it just creates a mess. I always hate to see when people do that.
Free Blank Forms
Another thing that’s not a big deal, but I do see people charging for it, is access to blank forms, and a lot of companies really tout this as a feature that they provide, unlimited access to blank forms. You’re probably not even going to need any of those forms, and let me tell you why. So when you get an offer on your property, most of the time that offer’s going to come over from a buyer’s agent, and the offer’s going to be presented on the form that you need. So you’re not even going to have to get a form from anywhere. Rarely will you ever have to actually go in and get your own form. And I flip houses. We sell properties quite a bit, sell our own properties, and I rarely have to get a form for myself. Usually, it all comes from the buyer’s agent. It’s going to have their offer on it. I’ll sign it, make changes or negotiate, whatever, and send it back, and that’s the end of it. I rarely have to get my own forms, so you shouldn’t be concerned about that. If you do need forms, we provide them free on our website. You can go up to the top right to the existing clients tab and you can actually download the blank forms right here. They’re all there for you. We don’t charge for it.
Quality Of Service
The very last thing and this is very important, actually, is service and response time. We have a little bit better service, actually a lot better service than some of these guys. If you … Before I started this flat fee MLS company before I got my real estate license, we used to use the $69 guy, the $149 guy, and they would make it very difficult to get in touch with them, comically difficult. You would send an email on a Wednesday hoping to have a price change done before the weekend. Well, they’d get back to you on the following Tuesday. Phone calls went to voicemail. They’d want you to sign papers and fax it to them. It was a mess. And this is something where we’ve really stepped up and made it easy for you to actually get in touch with us regarding your flat fee MLS listing Florida. Most of the time, if you send us an email, we’re going to respond and take care of what you need taken care of within one business day. If you send it at like 4:30, 5:00, probably going to be the next business day, but we always try to make sure everything’s done before the weekend. We know how important that is in real estate, and you’re just not going to have the difficulty getting in touch with us like you are these other guys.
I don’t know, these other guys, they’ll go on vacation and just leave the business to run itself, and it doesn’t work. You have to be there. You have to have somebody there that’s watching for emails coming in, taking care of customer requests, and handling things, or it just falls apart. And that’s typically what you get, in our experience, with the $69 guys. So hopefully this answers your questions, gives you a little bit more clarity about how we are actually a value when it comes to flat fee MLS listing Florida, and you need to look at more than just the price when you’re looking at these things. Look at what you’re actually getting. Look at our reviews. Look at our Better Business Bureau reviews. Look at our reviews on Google. We have five-star reviews on Google.
Ready For A Flat Fee MLS Listing Florida?
So if you have any questions about this, if you want to go ahead and list your property with us, go on the website, give us a call. You can either send us an email through the website, or there’s a little bubble down in the bottom right of the website, or actually, it’s the bottom right for you, and if you click that you can send a message right through to us and we’ll get right back to you. Thanks for watching. Have a great day.