Flat Fee MLS, For Sale By Owner, Home Buyer Rebates

Rory H. Hawkins writes about real estate appraisal and other interesting topics.

When you have the perfect home picked out and you know this is the home you want, your lender will require you to have an appraisal upon the request to use the home as security for a loan. A real estate appraisal will help in establishing a property’s market value, the sales price it would probably bring the seller, if offered in an open and competitive real estate market.

The reason the lender requires the real estate appraisal is because they want to ensure that the property would sell for at least the amount of money you require for your loan. Simply put, if the lender should ever have to foreclose, they want to ensure they would be able to get their moneys worth.

A real estate appraisal is not to be confused with a comparative market analysis (CMA). Real estate agents commonly use a CMA as a tool to determine a realistic asking price for home sellers. Although, an experienced agent may come extremely close to an appraisal price with the CMA, an real estate appraisal’s report include a lot more detailed information, not to mention the fact that it is the only evaluation report a bank will accept when making the decision of whether or not to loan money.

When having a home appraised for this purpose you should have an appraiser that is an objective third party. The appraiser should have no financial or any other connection with either party involved. If you have never experienced a real estate appraisal before, here are a few things that are included in the report.

There will be many details about the property in question as well as side-by-side comparisons of three different properties like it. There will be an evaluation of the areas overall real estate market. Any issues an appraiser feels can be harmful to the value of the property. Notations about any serious flaws will also be made; these are all coupled with many other items on the detailed appraisal report.

Real estate appraisals come in two different methods for appraising homes. There is the sales comparison method where the market value is estimated by comparing the property to other similar properties that has been sold in the same area. This method uses the similar properties to make several estimates of what they would have sold for if they had the same feature as the property in question.

Then there is the cost method, this is generally used for new properties when the costs of building is known. In this method, the appraiser estimates the costs involved in replacement of the structure if it were to be destroyed.

It is important to note that you should not depend on an appraisal to help you determine if the home is in satisfactory condition. This is a job for a home inspector. During a real estate appraisal, the appraise may take notes about obvious issues, however they will not test appliances, inspect the chimney or roof. For more information on real estate appraisals visit us today

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How we began

Most real estate companies want to sell you a bundle of services for a relatively high commission rate. Whether you want or need all of their services, you still pay 5%, 6% or more to the traditional real estate broker. Now, with IHS Realty, you choose just the services you want for a price that makes sense. (If you ever had a house sell in one week using a traditional real estate agent and paid over $12,000 for the privilege, you know what we mean.)

For many years, by virtue of their control of the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and through it, access to information about available properties for sale, traditional agents have long denied home sellers an alternative to the commission brokerage model. With IHS, no longer are are home buyers and sellers held captive to real estate agents position as gatekeepers to the real estate transaction.

"An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come." –Victor Hugo–

While it may have seemed appropriate to charge 6% or more to sell your home when house prices average $100,000 or less, today’s market has a new set of realities. Consumers now have unprecedented access to information through the Internet. The economies of the Internet have allowed real estate information and services to be delivered cost efficiently.

The basic problem with the way real estate services have been delivered in the past is the antiquated and overpriced real estate brokerage system that has been in place in the U.S. for over 60 years. The way it worked was that real estate firms hired as many agents as possible as "independent contractors" (responsible for their own expenses) who worked entirely on commission. For every home sold by an agent, the company would take their share.

Unfortunately, under this scenario, it costs the real estate agent a lot of money just to be in the business. With such high expenses and so much competition, for the agent to make a living, they are forced to charge you more than their services are worth. Under the traditional real estate brokerage system you gave up a large chunk of your home’s equity to your real estate agent for selling your home (often more money than you yourself net from the sale as the homeowner!).

The typical real estate agent spent most of their time "prospecting" and "competing" for new business, while only a small portion of their day was actually spent trying to sell your home. According to economic research, regardless of what they charge, at least half of the agent’s time is wasted as far as being of any value to you. That’s because there are too many real estate agents (over 2.0 million at last count). And, not surprisingly, the more house prices continue to rise, the more new agents flock into the real estate market in hopes of cashing in on the huge commissions being paid by home sellers.

FACT: Real Estate Commissions in the United States are, by far, the highest of all industrialized countries. (Money Magazine - October 26, 2005)

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Hitwise shows how the real estate market is reflected in search engine traffic

On Wednesday, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their existing homes sales figures for July. Headlines covering the release talked about the surprising drop in this economic indicator. Once again, leveraging the power of our search term data (as we did here in our post about the monthly unemployment number, we weren’t surprised by the news; we actually anticipated this drop over a month ago.

In the chart below, I’ve superimposed the monthly data from the NAR on a Hitwise search term volume chart for the search query "homes for sale."

Click here to see the chart

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FACT: The REALTOR® Multiple Listing Service (MLS) gives your home the highest exposure possible.

If you have ever listed your a home the old fashioned way, you know you had to pay a commission of 5-7%* of your home’s value to a to a real estate agent. Under this traditional model you had to pay the same high commission whether the listing agent sold the home, another agent sold it for them or even when you found the buyer on your own!

While 5-7% may not seem like a lot compared to your home’s value, it usually translates into a much larger portion of your home’s equity. Equity is the amount of money you keep after all of the expenses of the sale are made. It’s the bottom line!

So what’s stopping everyone from selling their own homes without having to pay a huge listing commission?

Reason #1:"Exposure" - With just one home to sell, most sellers are simply unable to afford to the type of marketing exposure necessary to obtain a sale at the highest possible price in the least amount of time.

Reason # 2: "Know How" - Not being "in the real estate business" on a day to day basis, most home sellers don’t have the expertise and knowledge they need to avoid the potential pitfalls of a real estate transaction.

Nationwide, 75%-85% of all homes sold sell through the MLS system. If you do nothing else but list in the MLS, you’ve got an excellent chance of selling your home. That’s because the MLS gives your home direct exposure to the largest group of home buyers available - those working with REALTORS®.

FACT: IHS gives you all the support you need for thousands of dollars less than traditional real estate brokers.

With thousands of homes already sold all over the country, IHS’s homeselling plans help you sell your home for top dollar in any market.

With IHS you have access to all of the tools, support, forms and services you need to sell your home all at a price that makes sense.

IHS’s exclusive Member’s Only Area contains tons of usefuls tools, links and checklists to help you sell on your own and save the listing commission. Depending on the plan you choose, we even offer real estate broker consultation and support throughout the transaction, for any questions or professional assistance you may need with selling your home.

There is no Better Way to Sell Your Home! Click here to learn more about selling your home with Flat Fee MLS from IHS Realty.

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Earn up to 15%

Our program is free to join, it’s easy to sign-up and requires no technical knowledge.  

Affiliate programs are common throughout the Internet and offer website owners and referral affiliates a means of profiting from sending customers to IHSRealty.com.  

Affiliates generate sales for commercial websites and in return receive a percentage of the value of those sales.

Even if you don’t own a website, you can still participate by simply referring customers to IHS. 

How Does It Work?
When you join the Internet Home Services affiliate program, you will be supplied with a range of banners and textual links that you place within your site.

You’ll also receive a special PROMO code for any print or word of mouth advertising.  

When a user clicks on one of your links or enters your promo code to Internet Home Services, their activity will be tracked by our affiliate software. 

You will earn a commission based on your commission type automatically.

Click Here to Learn More!

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Flat Fee Mls:: The Money Saver

Selling a house by yourself will save you a substantial amount of money compared to selling your house with a realtor. A realtor will take a larger percent of what your house will cost to sell to someone.

If you want to sell your house yourself, you will be at a large disadvantage because you do not have the marketing tools IHS Realty has to offer.

Your answer is flat fee MLS. Statistics show that the first place that people go to find a home to purchase is the Internet. You can save money by listing with a Flat Free MLS and reach more people wanting to purchase a home.

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• IHS Realty
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