Does anyone have experience with FSBO.com MLS program?

We have been trying to sell our house for about a year and it has been nothing but one shit show after another with realtors. I know there are bad apples in every field and for some reason every bad apple realtor has come our way. We have had it.

We found that FSBO.com has a program where you pay a flat fee and it advertises the house on MLS for you. I was wondering if anyone has any feedback on it.

Does anyone have experience with FSBO.com MLS program?

I used it to try to sell my co-op, a few years ago. I had very little traffic from that and wound up using a realtor. I went to contract within 6 weeks of listing with a realtor. I'm sure some of it had to do with timing - used FSBO beginning in November and listed with an agent in May. Good luck!

Message edited 2/25/2013 11:00:42 AM.

Re: Does anyone have experience with FSBO.com MLS program?

I would be happy to meet with you to chat about selling your house

I think my reviews on here and zillow speak for themselves. I have a super agressive marketing plan and I am known to be a bit of pit bull in a good way of course :)

Zillow Reviews

FM me if you are interested- if not best of luck!

Re: Does anyone have experience with FSBO.com MLS program?

There are several companies out there that will list your house on MLS for a flat fee. But keep in mind that if you advertise on MLS, you will have to offer compensation to agents in order to get to bring their buyers and show it. Without compensation, there is no incentive for anyone to show the house. Most listings offer at least 2% to a selling agent. Of course, even if you offer 0%, a buyer's agent (representing a buyer as a client) can come show it, but they are going to build their fee into the sales price so it will come out of your proceeds.

So I would think whether the value is really there - if you go with a flat fee company, you will most likely pay at least 2% of the sales price to a selling agent (because most buyers use agents) AND the flat fee, plus do all of the work yourself of scheduling showings, getting feedback from showings, doing open houses, etc. A good listing agent should do a lot more for you than just list the house on MLS... they should be a project manager for your sale, guiding you through the process and advocating for you each step of the way.

You won't be avoiding real estate agents (I know you said you've been seeing some "bad apples" and getting turned off by agents) by listing with a flat fee company. But you will be setting yourself up for having to deal with them on your own, instead of having a listing agent of your own choosing to deal with the other agents!

And as the previous poster's experience shows - I don't think houses that are listed with a flat fee service get as much traffic as a house listed with a conventional real estate company and fully marketed. At my company, we market our listings on up to 500 websites, not just MLS, and we create single property websites, run open house promotions on Listingbook, etc. And generally more exposure = more money in your pocket.

I don't know the nature of your bad experiences with your prior agents, and obviously you have to do what you are comfortable doing, but I think you are better off carefully selecting a new traditional agent versus going with one of the flat fee companies, based on what I know about them. Obviously I am biased toward the traditional listing method, but I honestly don't see the value that a seller gets out of using the flat fee service, considering they most likely still have to compensate an agent AND do all of the work themselves!