Technorati
Help us out by making us a favorite.
Technorati Profile
Thursday, June 21, 2007
LIST YOUR HOME FOR FREE! only a few gimmicks, no promises.
As posted in Active Rain there's a new service in town and it aims at taking the discounter services by offerring them for FREE. Iggy's House is a new real estate company that offers free listings in exchange for holding you hostage as a buyer.
It's not without benefits. Iggy will never help you personally, but the fat little comic character will again, put your home on the MLS for free and only keep some of the buyer's agent side commission for themselves. That's not too bad of deal for doing nothing. In exchange for this non-service, you get no representation, hounded by agents looking for a steal on the home and most likely a tough deal on the purchase since, let's face it, no one that does something for free will ever compete with someone who is trying to feed a family.
On the surface, there isn't anything wrong with giving away the service. In fact, although popular opinion is that discounters are new to the marketplace, they have in fact, been around since the beginning. Whether it's through a limited service option or a "hookup" for a friend, commissions have been discounted and there remains a solid place for that. Giving the service away in exchange for the other part of the transaction is just good business sense.
However, leaving the customer high and dry when it comes to negotiations only hurts the market. The average agent in Atlanta nets, their seller 97% while discounters are closer to 92%. So in the end they lose more then they save, in addition, because the homes are recorded on the MLS, these homes are used as comparables and now instead of getting a nice 5% bump on appreciation every year you're likely to end up more like 2 or 3%. Or since Iggy and the rest of the discounters like to inflate our average sales price to $350K (more than 150K over average), around $11,000 is lost.
It's obvious, this writer didn't go to "gramma" school, but in any case, it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out that eventually something's got to give. Either the MLS is open to the public to enter whatever they want - eroding the integrity of the system - or there needs to be minimum standards. Then again, you can represent yourself in court....
As posted in Active Rain there's a new service in town and it aims at taking the discounter services by offerring them for FREE. Iggy's House is a new real estate company that offers free listings in exchange for holding you hostage as a buyer.
It's not without benefits. Iggy will never help you personally, but the fat little comic character will again, put your home on the MLS for free and only keep some of the buyer's agent side commission for themselves. That's not too bad of deal for doing nothing. In exchange for this non-service, you get no representation, hounded by agents looking for a steal on the home and most likely a tough deal on the purchase since, let's face it, no one that does something for free will ever compete with someone who is trying to feed a family.
On the surface, there isn't anything wrong with giving away the service. In fact, although popular opinion is that discounters are new to the marketplace, they have in fact, been around since the beginning. Whether it's through a limited service option or a "hookup" for a friend, commissions have been discounted and there remains a solid place for that. Giving the service away in exchange for the other part of the transaction is just good business sense.
However, leaving the customer high and dry when it comes to negotiations only hurts the market. The average agent in Atlanta nets, their seller 97% while discounters are closer to 92%. So in the end they lose more then they save, in addition, because the homes are recorded on the MLS, these homes are used as comparables and now instead of getting a nice 5% bump on appreciation every year you're likely to end up more like 2 or 3%. Or since Iggy and the rest of the discounters like to inflate our average sales price to $350K (more than 150K over average), around $11,000 is lost.
It's obvious, this writer didn't go to "gramma" school, but in any case, it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out that eventually something's got to give. Either the MLS is open to the public to enter whatever they want - eroding the integrity of the system - or there needs to be minimum standards. Then again, you can represent yourself in court....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
