Slowing Real Estate Market Causes Sellers to Choose Flat Fee Brokers

As the real estate market continues to slow across the country, the number of sellers attempting to handle the selling process themselves is growing. Rather than paying a traditional 6% listing commission, many sellers are choosing to purchase unbundled services from flat fee brokers.

St. Louis, Missouri (PRWEB) October 13, 2006 -- The real estate market is predicted to continue its slowdown, which means tough times for real estate owners who are currently trying to sell their homes. A surprising number of sellers are turning to a new type of Real Estate Company.

Flat fee brokers, who charge a flat fee for unbundled services, have become popular with sellers who want to sell the home themselves without paying the traditional commission.

Traditionally, brokers have charged sellers six to seven percent of the home’s sales price. A typical seller can pay up to $14,000 to a real estate broker to sell a $200,000 home. Flat fee brokers on the other hand offer a menu of individual services. The most popular service with the “For Sale By Owners” is the flat fee MLS listing. For a few hundred dollars the seller can advertise their home on MLS, the same place a traditional broker would advertise their home.

“Sellers are sick of paying outrageous commissions”, says Donnye Sommerville, of Midwest Eagle, Realtors, “The unbundling of the real estate industry is important now more than ever, since many sellers don’t have enough equity in their home to pay a traditional broker. “

Mr. Sommerville says that traditional real estate companies are resisting the changes in the industry. “They steal our signs and destroy our marketing materials” he says, “They hate that we offer the MLS for less than what they can offer”. He adds “Most traditional agents provide valuable service and have nothing to worry about, but if all they can offer a client is the MLS for tens of thousands of dollars, then they should consider a different career.”

The number of flat fee brokers has started to grow rapidly since the FTC began putting pressure on local MLS boards to allow competition to exist between flat fee and traditional brokers. “There are a dozen flat fee brokers in almost every major market.” says Frank Van Bree, of soldbyme.com, a website developed to assist the do-it-yourself home seller. He says “Besides giving sellers a place to list their home for free, the site provides a directory of flat fee brokers around the country and the list is growing at an alarming rate”.

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