What is real estate for a connected world?

At Select Realty we believe in the power of the web to help sell your home. The vast majority of home buyers will begin their search for a home online, often typing a phrase like “homes for sale in southern Atlanta” or similar into a Google, Yahoo or AOL search box. This will lead them down a path to eventually find their home online, research it online, find a Realtor online, sign documents online etc. This is the connected world that is used to sell your home.

What is the MLS?

This simply means ‘Multiple Listing Service’ – an online database of homes for sale, listed by Realtors, in a particular market. These are often linked to the major online real estate sites like Zillow.com and Realtor.com, so your home gets lots of online selling exposure.

What is a flat fee real estate broker?

Some real estate brokerages will offer a flat-fee listing service. For example, $350 to list a home. Often they will put the selling ‘pressure’ on you, the seller, to handle the showing appointments and the showings themselves. Unless you have bought and sold a lot of homes, this is highly unadvisable. You are putting yourself at risk for potentially a law suit for something you failed to disclose to a buyer, or costing yourself a sale by disclosing something you didn’t need to! Always use a Realtor if you can.

What is a flat fee MLS listing?

It’s worth a quick clarification here – all listings actually ‘belong’ to the listing broker, not the Realtor who you deal with and who does the listing work & co-ordinates the whole deal through to closing. The real estate commissions all go to the listing broker. He/she will then pay the co-operating broker (the boss of the selling agent), and your Realtor (the listing agent) out of this sales commission.

So – a flat-fee MLS listing really means the same thing as a flat-fee real estate broker – the broker is charging you one fixed amount to get your home on the MLS. But check the small print!

Discount Realtor reviews

All the reviews online are great tools for you, whether buying or selling a home. What did the agents previous customers think of them? Check out the brokerage website, but also their Facebook page and Google to see if reviews are on there. Zillow.com carries lots of agent profiles with reviews also.

Discount real estate brokers near me

In and around Northeast Florida you’ll find over 4000 Realtors across hundreds of real estate brokerages. How to find a good discount real estate brokerage? Well it will depend on what kind of service you want. Use caution, and be prepared to hear a listing presentation from 3 or 4 different agents before making a choice. Don’t get ‘sold’ on a fancy listing presentation with lots of graphs showing you how ‘big’ a real estate company is, or how many agents they have. This does not help you to sell your home! But it does mean they’ll have big expenses, which you’ll need to pay for out of the sales commission they’ll want to charge you.

Keep more of your cash instead with Select Realty’s full service 1% listing fee model.

What is discount real estate commission

At Select Realty we offer full service with everything you’d expect, but we don’t carry the same huge office expense burden of the ‘big box’ brokerages. So we pass the savings along to the seller – max 4% total fees, no additional fees from our brokerage. The 4% is made up of a full 2% to 3% paid to the buyer’s agent side and 1% on the Select Realty listing side: 2% to 3% + 1% = 3% to 4% total.

What is a 1% real estate broker

The 1% is what the listing brokerage will charge, just the same as Select Realty. However, you’ll still need to pay a buyer’s agent (the one who brings a buyer to the table) another 2% to 3%, for the total commission. Use caution – 1% brokerages can also charge ‘brokerage fees’, ‘doc prep fees’, ‘file storage fees’ etc. But NOT at Select Realty.

Check all the small print!

1 percent commission Realtor

First of all, just to clarify, the ‘selling agent’ is the buyer’s agent. The ‘listing agent’ is selling the home for the seller. This similar terminology often gets mixed up. But not to worry. The real estate commission for a home for sale will ultimately be paid to the listing broker. He/she will pay the selling agent’s broker the selling-side commission split. That broker in turn will pay the selling agent’s commission. So a 1% commission Realtor is really referring to the 1% that the listing broker will charge for the listing service, but excludes commissions that will be owed to the selling broker. We know – it’s confusing! – But we’re here to help, feel free to call or text us for clarification on any of your real estate questions (904)-717-2000.

Can you negotiate commission on real estate sales?

Absolutely! However, many, if not most agents will have the price that they charge set by the brokerage they work for. Now if you have a million dollar+ home to sell, the big-box guys will have a little more wriggle room for your listing fees. Select Realty starts at a 1% listing fee – for most homes out there. If yours is a multi-million dollar property then a discount on the selling agent side is more commonly seen and may be appropriate for your listing – contact us for a no-obligation meeting to discuss the best approach to listing your home.

What is a buyer’s agent?

The vast majority of buyers will find the home they’re looking for online. Then they will often contact a Realtor to show them the home, answer questions, and handle contract paperwork to write up an offer to buy. This Realtor is the buyer’s agent. Many larger ‘big box’ real estate brokerages will charge the buyer a fee at closing (in addition to collecting a sales commission from the seller!) Use extreme caution when choosing a Realtor to work with. We at Select Realty do not charge these fees to buyers.

How much is a Realtor’s fee?

Great question! Many larger brokerages will charge 6% or 7% plus some kind of ‘brokerage fee’ on top to sell a home. This is because the market is driving the price, and that’s about as low as they can go and still support the expensive offices that they occupy. See more on this here.

What are the average Realtor fees?

This is tricky to answer, since the answer may imply some kind of agreement between various ‘big box’ real estate brokerages to fix a certain price in a given market. This is not the case (at least to our knowledge), and we’re pretty sure would violate anti-trust laws, which would require a lot more lawyer-speak than we have space for here! But the fact remains that you should expect to pay somewhere in the 6% to 7% range, plus other fees, to a ‘big box’ brokerage for them to list your home in a competitive market like Northeast Florida. But not if you list with Select Realty. With us it’s just 3% to 4% – 1% to Select Realty, and 2% to 3% to the buyer’s agency. No gimmicks, no hidden fees, no cutting corners on the services that will get your home sold. Find out more here.