Archive for the ‘Flat Fee MLS’ Category
What Does it Cost to Sell a Home?
Whether or not you use a real estate agent, the process of selling a house will involve certain costs.
Please note that some of the figures used in our examples will vary depending on the state or county a house is sold in, as well as the settlement company used and any other unique provisions that may be contained in a contract of sale. Additionally, the real estate broker commission is typically 6 percent of the sales price, but it is not a set amount. It is a sales expense negotiated between individual sellers and brokers. For the purposes of our example, a $250,000 sales price was used.
Transfer taxes
As you might expect, most state and local governments make sure they profit when someone sells a house. In most states, one-time transfer taxes will be due when a sale takes place. It is customary for transfer taxes to be split 50/50 between the buyer and the seller, but there is no set requirement that they be divided in that manner.
Some states, like Alaska, Idaho, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Texas, Utah and Wyoming, have no transfer taxes at all. In other states, Colorado for instance, the transfer tax is nominal – the state charges only one tenth of 1 percent ($40 on a $400,000 house) in transfer taxes. The so called “Free State” of Maryland falls on the other end of the spectrum with some of the highest transfer taxes in the nation.
Commissions
As we stated earlier, real estate commissions are not a set amount. They are a point of negotiation between the seller and the broker. For illustration purposes here, we are using 6 percent, or $15,000 on a $250,000 sale.
Another seller expense you may run across in some area’s is a listing broker administrative brokerage commission. It’s usually adds another $250-$500 expense on top of the 6 percent commission fee. The seller will see it as a separate expense on their closing statement. So, what is this fee for? By law, brokers must keep records of all their real estate transactions for a period of years. And they must produce those records if asked for them. Although it’s a ridiculous added on fee, the listing broker administrative brokerage commission is an expense passed along by some brokers to help defray the cost of this requirement.
Settlement fees
The buyer is responsible for hiring the settlement or title company to perform closing, so the buyer will usually pay most of the fees associated with settlement. But, the seller does have some settlement expense. If the seller has an outstanding loan on the property, the settlement company will take care of paying that loan off out of the sales proceeds. They’ll charge something for the service, plus the cost of overnight fees to quickly get the loan payoff to the mortgage holder. In our example here, we’ll use $250. And, since interest in collected in arrears, the seller will be responsible for any interest charges that accrue after the last payment thru the day of closing.
The Bottom Line
If you sell your house for $250,000, you can probably expect to walk away with around $230,000 after taxes, commissions and fees. If no real estate commissions need to be paid out, the seller could expect to walk away with approximately $245,000. The real number will depend on exactly what it says in the sales contract and where the property is located.
Thank you for visiting Why6Percent.com. We help do-it-yourself home sellers market their home to millions of home shoppers every day. We can help you get the word out about your home, too!!
Hamptons Real Estate Brokers Under Investigation for High Fee’s
May 19, 2010, 12:57 pm
Hamptons Listings Said to Be Under Investigation
If Wall Street denizens thought they could escape the specter of Justice Department inquiries by decamping to the Hamptons, it appears they’re wrong.
Real estate listings in the Hamptons are the subject of a Justice Department inquiry, The New York Times and Bloomberg News reported Wednesday, keying off an earlier article in The New York Post.
Several Hamptons real estate executives told The Times on Tuesday that they had been contacted by Justice Department officials seeking information about a listing service that has been criticized as an effort to keep smaller agencies from having access to the area’s best properties.
The service, known as Realnet, allows members to share their listings with other members. Last year, George Simpson, who runs his own real estate listing company, sued more than two dozen local brokerages and Realnet. Mr. Simpson said that because only larger brokerages could afford the annual fee, which he said ranged from $15,000 to $50,000, those brokerages ultimately controlled “80 percent to 90 percent of the exclusive real estate listings.”
The stakes for brokerages are big, and apparently getting bigger, according to Bloomberg:
Hamptons home sales more than doubled in the first quarter, the biggest annual increase in seven years of record keeping, according an April 22 report by New York-based appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and broker Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate. A shift toward larger, more expensive homes pushed the median price up 35 percent to $908,500.
Three brokerages named in the lawsuit — the Corcoran Group, Brown Harris Stevens and Prudential Douglas Elliman — declined to comment or did not return calls, The Times said. Realnet did not return a call and an e-mail message seeking comment.
“The question I think the Justice Department is asking is: Are they putting their own profits ahead of what they should be doing for the clients?” Jonathan Lerner, a managing director at the Engel & Volker brokerage, told Bloomberg.
Gina Talamona, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, also declined to comment about the inquiry to The Times and Bloomberg.
By August, Mr. Simpson had withdrawn his lawsuit and said that he planned to refile his case under “different circumstances” and continue “moving forward with the crusade.”
But the original case apparently caught the attention of Justice Department officials. Mr. Simpson told The Times that in the past month, he spoke for 90 minutes by telephone with several department employees about the structure of the real estate industry in the Hamptons and which firms dominated the market.
Members of a multiple listing service post their sales listings for other members to see; nonmembers could be at a disadvantage because sellers generally prefer to have their homes placed on listing services and exposed to as many potential buyers as possible.
John Nickles, a broker based in Southold and the chairman of the multiple listing service for the Hamptons and North Fork Realtors Association, told The Times that he was interviewed on May 5 by two Justice Department lawyers, an economist and a paralegal. Mr. Nickles said that his brokerage could not afford the more expensive system; he pays $160 a month for access to the local multiple listing service that he leads.
Joe Kazickas, owner of an East Hampton real estate company that runs a Web site called Hamptonsrentals.com, said he was scheduled to speak to Justice Department officials on May 24. He said that smaller brokerages that could not pay for the costlier listing database would find it “very difficult to compete.”
Source New York Times, Edited by Andrew Ross Sorkin
Thank you for visiting Why6Percent.com. Our job is keeping you informed and helping you market your home. If you do not have a listing on your local MLS or Realtor.com, you are missing millions of home shoppers each month. Visit our site or call 1-800-381-9496 for details!
Flat Fee MLS or Not? Separating Hype from Fact
What is the MLS?
The Multiple Listing Service is a database of homes for sale. Run by the local Board of Realtors®, the MLS is the traditional method agents use to find homes for their buyers or advertise their listings to other agents. MLS listings include detailed information about the property. Besides address and selling price, a listing generally includes the number and size of rooms, annual property taxes, local schools, selling agent and more. Most include photo’s of the home.
Facts about the MLS:
The Multiple Listing Service (MLS) is the fantastic way real estate brokers provide information to one another. MLS allows each agent to see all properties for sale in a given market, greatly expanding the sales force of all properties.
The Internet now provides MLS property information, in real-time, to brokers, agents, home sellers and homebuyers. The MLS is looked at by potentially thousands of real estate agents in your market that might have a prospective buyer for your home. And, it reaches 90 Percent of the Home Buyers who search on the Internet.
- Benefits of MLS Advertisement: There is one very significant benefit to having your home listed in the MLS listing…EXPOSURE! The fact that your home is for sale will now be known to the hundreds, if not thousands of real estate brokers and agents in your market. To maximize your benefit from this exposure, you will need to be willing to “co-op” a real estate agent, if they bring a buyer to purchase your home. Co-op means that you will cooperate in a commission incentive to the real estate agent. Typically buyer’s agents earn between 2 and 3 percent of the sale price of the home.
- Reach Buyers Searching on the Internet: Another key benefit to listing your home on the MLS is in most areas of the United States, the property appears on websites like MSN HomeAdvisor, Yahoo! Real Estate, Realtor.com, Google.com, Zillow.com, etc. and local state websites. Many of the multiple listing services send their inventory directly to these sites to enable even more exposure for homeowners. Millions of people from all over the U.S. use these various websites to search for homes daily. Recent data shows that the first thing homebuyers do is search the internet, often far in advance of their actual move.
- Global Reach: MLS also reaches the transferee’s moving to your town. In today’s transient society, people relocating from all over the U.S. first find the homes they would like to see on the internet. They supply their “must see” list to the buyer’s agent located in the area they are moving to. When relocating buyers are in town searching for a home, time is limited and every minute counts. Buyer’s agents quickly become critical to the transferee’s home search and relocating homebuyers rely heavily on assistance from a buyer’s agent. Therefore, the MLS can be key to exposing your home to relocating buyers.
Considerations: The MLS is a wonderful way to expand your advertising reach and certainly has value. If your goal is maximum exposure, then MLS is an answer. Contact Why6Percent.com and get started Today!
Thank you for visiting Why6Percent.com. Remember, you can sell your home! You have the ability and there is a buyer for your home. Stay optimistic and remember, the money you save will justify the time, energy and emotion that you will expend!
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10 Towns for Real Estate Steals and Deals
It’s our job at Why6Percent.com to have our finger on the pulse of real estate from coast-to-coast. Recently, we have been telling you to get ready for a big home selling season this spring.
Why? Interest rates are rising. Job losses have slowed to a trickle. Factory and Industrial output is up for the first time in years. And, we feel that the Fed is holding back information, for now, on the job creation that is happening as we speak.
So, where are the best real estate deals in the country?? We have identified 10 cities that are offering up Trump-type deals of a lifetime. CLICK HERE to see where the action will start first.
If you haven’t placed your property listing on the MLS, Realtor.com, Zillow, Google, MSN, Military.com and all the other major real estate websites…you are missing buyers. Go to the Why6Percent.com website and sign up NOW!!Don’t wait a minute longer. Tax Credits, Rising Rates and Gutted Home Prices are creating a stir among buyers early this spring. You snooze…you lose… And, we certainly don’t want that.
Pent Up Demand for Housing Explodes This Spring
Depending on where you live, you may have never experienced a winter like this one. I know I haven’t. Week after week, snow, rain, mudslides and/or freezing temperatures have pounded the country. With only 1 state out of 50 snowless, it’s easy to see why no one is attending Open Houses… Fortunately, with February nearly over, the crocus will soon appear and we predict that homebuyers will hit the streets enmass.
Home Sellers Get Ready. The nasty, record setting winter certainly put a halt to home sales, but the upside is the pent up demand it created. People who expected some typical, nice days to tour homes after the holidays, have found themselves stuck inside with nothing to do but watch HGTV and dream about buying a home. We predict these stir crazy buyers will hit the streets at the first opportunity.
$8000 Reasons to Motivate this Spring. The $8000 tax credit for homebuyers expires in 43 Days. To cash in on the lucrative tax credit, buyers must be under contract for a home before April 1st or they forfeit $8000 grand!! That’s a lot of motivation to get serious in a hurry.
Cheap Money. The Fed and Mortgage Bankers all acknowledge that interest rates will increase this spring and continue moving upward through 2010. Buyers know that if they snooze they lose the chance to lock in a cheap, fixed rate loan and risk pricing themselves out of their dream home, entirely.
Get Ready. Get Set. Sell. Home sellers should prepare for a surge in buying activity this spring that has not been seen in several years. Make every second count now by deciding on your selling strategy. Agent? FSBO? FSBO, combined with the power of the MLS? Whichever you chose or want to pay for, make sure you use the internet for all it’s worth. And, get to know your local home market like the back of your hand.
Why6Percent.com will make sure you are ready when the buyers show up. Place your property on InfoTube.net for FREE exposure to thousands of buyers each week. Advertise your home listing to every buyers agent and on every real estate website with our cheap, flat fee MLS listing, and keep the commission. Either way you chose, act now. You can’t afford to wait until the buyers are looking. This is what you’ve been waiting for.
Sellers Market 1st Quarter 2010…then ?
The Federal government leads us to believe that housing sales (number of units, not prices)will be up at least until April of 2010. But, the Fed, along with other experts, have expressed fear that home sales will dry up after early spring, when the homebuyer tax credits expire and the Federal Reserve ends their policies that are keeping loan rates cheap for borrowers. (Click here to Read the short article.)
What can you Learn from Foresight vs Hindsight this Year?
- To make the most money in 2010…Get your house clean, cleaned out, staged and priced to sell NOW.
- Do not wait until Spring is here to put your home on the market. Do it NOW!
- 90 percent of all home buyers shop on the internet, not newspapers, local or otherwise. If you aren’t marketing your property on all major websites for real estate, buyers will not find your home. There are simply too many homes for sale and buyer’s will not any waste time ferretting out information or for obscurely advertised property.
- Use photographs and video’s to show and sell your home. Add in video or snapshots of the neighborhood, nearby shopping, parks or attractions. Pictures, and especially video, create interest and a glimpse of lifestyle that buyers crave.
- Sell it yourself, but enlist the help of buyers agents. Buyer’s agents use the MLS to find property for their clients. Advertise on the MLS and offer up some commission to them, if they bring you their buyers! Bonus: If you list your home on the MLS, it will immediately stop all annoying listing calls, too.
Why 6 Percent is in the business of helping sellers market their homes on every major real estate website, search engine and the MLS with one click of your mouse. Visit our website or phone 1-800-381-9496 for details. We can put your property in front of millions of home buyers within 24 hours. Don’t delay. Act Today!!
Hope Springs for Housing in 2010
If you are serious about selling your home, then 2010 is the year for you.
- The decimated housing market is showing signs of stabilization in price and demand. Prices have actually risen for the past 6 months, through October, and overall demand has increased.
- Interest rates are at historical lows, but they have risen a half percent in the last month. Higher interest rates are a big motivator to buy now, as no one expects rates to stay this low going forward.
- The Fed extended the $8000 first-time buyer tax credit and expanded $6500 credit which includes non-first timers. This program certainly helps lure ready-buyers into the marketplace. To qualify all sales must close by June 2010.
- Homes are affordable. In markets like Phoenix, you can buy a home for $800 a month, which makes owning cheaper than renting.
While the news on real estate in 2010 is mixed, and no one is predicting a rebound in housing until 2013, the bear market is definitely in its last innings.
If you have a home to sell, there hasn’t been a better time in years. To succeed, contact Why6Percent.com to advertise your property on the MLS and real estate websites where 90 percent of the buyers are looking. It’s really that simple.
4 Good Signs for Real Estate in 2010
It’s beginning to look like 2010 is the year to buy a home.
- Cheap Prices: After a decade of steep home price appreciation, the recent crash pummeled home prices back to levels last seen in 2003.
- Low Interest Rates: 5 percent or less for a 30 year fixed rate loan mean rates are at historical lows, at least for now. Rates are expected to rise the next 4 quarters…so if you snooze, you may loose the chance to lock in at once in a lifetime rates.
- Foreclosures: Although losing a home is a life changing, tramatic experience…large numbers of foreclosures have created wonderful opportunities for buyers and investors.
- Uncle Sam: Uncle Sam is sweetening great deals on homes by handing out thousands of dollars to first time and existing homeowners who close on a home before June.
Thank you for visiting Why6Percent.com. If you have a home to sell, we can put your listing in front of millions of serious home buyers with the click of your mouse. Why Pay 6 Percent??? Visit the website for details and free marketing services.