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Beware the Realty Dot also known at www.mlsYourWay.com. In a previous entry I told you what a great option this service was. However I have been bitten royaly on the butt with this company. This company advertises that it will list you on the same MLS as your local agent. This claim is on their website and in their information packet sent with their contract. I had good luck with them in Louisville - though my home was sold without ther help. However, I also was selling a home in Macon, GA and this company did not do what they said they would do. I paid them $499 for 12 months and they listed me in an invisible MLS to our community. Then after 1 month they pulled me off altogether becasue I disputed the charge on my DiscoverCard. They absolutely refused to refund any part of my payment.
If you do use them do your homework and be sure that it states in your contract that they will list you in the specific MLS for your area. DiscoverCard has refused to help me out because the contract is generic. I would hope that you would not use this company because I am furious that they have scammed me and others in my area. There is no telling how many they have cheated that are unaware. Unless I had stumbled onto a conversation by accident, I would not have realized that they listed me inappropriately. Do not rely on their promise to list you in the correct MLS. If you happen to be part of a local MLS you will most likely not be seen at all. This company does a lot of direct calling to get you to sign up for their services. Watch out for them.
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| Posted by Tim Lehmann at | | | |
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The new year has brought quite a change in the activity on our home. We were able to find a flat fee MLS service to list with. I would highly recommend this. We got many calls from realtors wanting to show our home almost immediately. One week held about 15 showings. I felt good about that. Not all were realtors and many realtors told us that the client had actually requested to see the home. I don't know how the realtors felt about showing the home as a, for all intents and purposes, FSBO home. However, for the most part, the realtors seemed very helpful and good to work with. My plan was to list on MLS almost immediately but we were just not able to do so with the KY regulations.
We did receive an offer. It was not everythng I had hoped yet given the market conditions right now it was respectable. I had planned to raise the initial asking price when I listed on MLS but by the time we were able to list were in so deep that it would have been a difficult thing to do. In any case, our home is now pending a sale. Everything appears to be moving smoothly. For those of you that are curious, it did not come from a realtor. The sale was generated from our marketing on the internet. In fact, the buyer looked at the home a couple months previous to the offer and I believe that they saw the home listed on one of the freebie listings that we took advantage of. Good luck to all of you in the selling process.
We are now offering the website for sale. As of today, there were 318 distinct hosts looking at our site in the past 7 days. requesting 477 pages in the past 7 days. As happy as I am about the 15 showings in a week, I am also very happy about 318 distinct hosts viewing our site in a week. We now place on the second page of a Google search for Louisville homes for sale aout of several million results. I am asking $895 for the site which I believe is a bargain. This is a great headstart in selling a home and it sure beats the time we spent paying mortgage payments, home site advertising and Google advertising while building up the organic search results.
Gotta go for now. Happy selling and best wishes!
Tim
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| Posted by Tim Lehmann at | | | |
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I was able to continue the plan as I had hoped. I've found an MLS agent who has agreed to a flat fee listing. We actually signed up with one agency who then contracted with a broker to list us. If you are going this direction I would recommend going directly to the end broker. They are very good to work with and have been very helpful. You can find them at www.MLSyourway.com. Contacts have picked up significantly from realtors with the MLS listing. The other advantage is that with the MLS listing we are now listed on Realtor.com and Yahoo Real Estate. None of these three additional sources link to our website <Http://www.BestHomeLouiville.com> but given the January season, our hits on the website will be the largest page request month yet. So not only has our web traffic increased, our realtor invlovement has increased as well and I am very glad to have realtor involvement.
Don't be fooled. The local realtor has the contact base to move your home. I welcome realtor involvement in selling this home. I guess technically we are not selling by owner anymore since we have listed with a broker but for all intents and purposes we still are. I was slow in getting my FSBO signs out of the yard mainly because I was attempting to customize my large sign in the yard with the realtor's logo (with their permission) however I was not able to work out the process with the local sign company in a timly manner so we ordered a standard sign from RealtyDot (MLSyourway.com) and needed to wait for it to be sent to us.
I hope to move the home soon. Showings are definitely on the increase and it is now just a matter of finding the right person. I had originally intended to increase the price should we invite realtor participation to cover the commission but we have the information on so many websites that it would be difficult to make that change. Although real estate prices have declined nationwide, it appears that Louisville is holding firm and possibly even increasing so this home is a very good buy right now. I'll let you know how it goes.
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| Posted by Tim Lehmann at | | | |
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| So what about selling by owner. Well I've learned a lot in doing this particularly in the Louisville market. One plan I had was to market the house on the internet and with a front yard sign for about a month. After that month I had planned to use a service to list on MLS for a flat fee. I am told by various sources that 70-80% of home buyers look for their home on the internet. I know I would. And apparently a signficant number actually buy from an internet ad. Therefore my primary sources of marketing were a front yard sign and an internet website. I also considered listing with one of a couple 'risk free' agents in Louisville. If you are considering any of these options here's what I found out. |
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| Posted by Tim Lehmann at | | | |
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| The real estate market appears to be slowing not only in Louisville but nationwide. Reuters Real Estate Letter of July 27th notes changes in the real estate market this way. They reported that real estate only rose 14% in the first half of 2006 as compared with 62% in the first half of 2005. |
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| Posted by Tim Lehmann at | | | |
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| The catalyst for this blog is a home I have for sale in Louisville Kentucky. The home has a website at www.BestHomeLouisville.com featuring a full description, several pictures and walk through video tours. This is an incredibly versatile family home with a ton of room. I invite you to take a look at this home and comment. |
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| Posted by Tim Lehmann at | | | |
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