We had three listings close this week, a new listing going into the MLS, we’re both showing quite a bit, and we had our usual meta-projects — plus The Carnival of Real Estate. It’s been a busy week…
On top of all that, we took one of Cathy’s listings “private”. The house had been MLS-listed, but it wasn’t getting good traction, so Cathy and seller agreed to take it to the kind of hybrid listing we’ve been talking about: Cathy will continue to market the home as an “exclusive” listing, except that the 3% that had been offered as a co-broke through the MLS is now offered directly to the buyer, to be used at the buyer’s discretion.
This is the text from the flyer and the web page:
THE BUYER RULES!
The seller has set aside 3% of the purchase price to be used at the Buyer’s discretion. Use it to pay for a Buyer’s Agent, to reduce your down payment or to defray your closing costs.
I have an idea that there is a certain kind of buyer who likes the idea of going into a transaction without representation as a sort of fetish, the counterpart to the hard-line recidivist FSBO seller. Our challenge now is to find those buyers. Goodbye, MLS. Hello, CraigsList.com…
Technorati Tags: arizona, arizona real estate, compensation for buyer representation, disintermediation, phoenix, phoenix real estate, real estate marketing
Jay T. says:
I’m sure you’re already familiar with them, but if not, check out postlets.com…
Very interested to see how it works in our market. Good luck, and keep us posted!
October 12, 2006 — 9:44 am
Greg Swann says:
Thanks. They’re on my list. I’m autofeeding from MLS downloads to the aggregators, but PostLets has some I’m not doing yet.
October 12, 2006 — 9:52 am
Ubertor says:
Hi Greg,
Craigslist works like a charm. We push our agents to load all of their listings there. We have even integrated our system with Craigslist to make it easier for agents to do.
Here is a little email I received a while back from one of our agents about their experience with craigslist – http://blog.ubertor.com/?p=208
October 12, 2006 — 12:06 pm
Kris Berg says:
Greg,
Anxious to see how your experient goes. Trying to keep that open mind that Ardell has been known to accuse me of lacking. Do you expect to act as dual agent, or will the Buyer sign a self-representation doc?
Regarding Postlets, love them! It is an (almost) one-stop shop for free on-line classified posting. We have found that we actually get more response from these vehicles than the traditional marketing opportunities. I personally had two showings last week from Craigslist alone, and one from Backpage. Go figure.
October 12, 2006 — 1:58 pm
Jim the Realtor says:
Great question – will you officially represent both parties, even if the buyer spend the money on closing costs?
I think we’re a dual agent whether we like it or not.
October 12, 2006 — 3:52 pm
Tyler Sookochoff says:
Please keep us posted, Greg, as to your experience/success with craigslist etc. Good luck!
October 13, 2006 — 7:26 am
Randy says:
It never seems to amaze me how “creative” some marketing specialists try to be. Pricing sells homes, not commission. Place your listed home on Craig’s list if you like, but don’t hurt your seller by confusing the Buying Broker Client, and eliminating the Seller’s property from over 80% of the Buyer’s who already have signed an agency agreement with their broker. I can assure you the broker is looking on the mls and not Craig’s list for homes.
Use Craig list if you like, but don’t penalize your seller by taking his home away from over 80 percent of the qualified buyers. Try giving away your 3% from the listing side and leave the 3% for the Buyer Broker. Now that might work. Sounds like another short term gimmick at the expenseof the Seller.
October 13, 2006 — 7:47 am
Greg Swann says:
> Do you expect to act as dual agent, or will the Buyer sign a self-representation doc?
No dual agency, period.
> I think we’re a dual agent whether we like it or not.
I agree that the risks are very high. But that’s the reason for the concession. I fyou feel you need advice, go get it.
> Sounds like another short term gimmick at the expenseof the Seller.
The seller understands the risks. We proposed this to this particular seller because he likes tkaing chances. The benefit to him is a continuing maketing effort without accumulating days on market his floorplan isn’t sellng at all through the MLS. Doing anything else is better than damaging his interests by running up more DOM.
October 13, 2006 — 10:31 pm
Jack Vandervest says:
We tried to use Craigslist Monday. Found 2 things of interest. First, if you mis-type and leave out the “s” between the g and l, you end up at a porn site! Big unwelcome suprise. Second surprise, Southern Utah is not represented on Craigslist.
October 17, 2006 — 7:17 pm
Sue says:
Bouncing here from another recent post, but I have to say I do use craigslist and find it to be worthwhile. Jack..that is an interesting find and scary!
July 21, 2008 — 6:45 pm