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Canada Realtors to Decide on Flat Fee MLS

February 12th, 2010

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The Ottawa Citizen reported today that the Canadian Real Estate Association will ask its members to bow to the demands of the Competition Bureau of Canada and allow easier and possibly cheaper access to its Multiple Listing Service (MLS). Association president Dale Ripplinger said Wednesday its 98,000 members will be asked to allow agents to list a home on the MLS for a flat fee without forcing customers to accept a bundle of other real estate-related services, such as the agent presenting all offers.

Earlier this week, the Competition Bureau said the association’s practice “limits consumer choice” and prevents realtors from being more “innovative” in their services. The bureau announced, after a lengthy investigation into the real estate market, it would proceed with its case and haul CREA before the federal Competition Tribunal to force an end to the practices. CREA will ask its members to make changes to rules governing MLS at their annual general meeting March 22 in Ottawa. If accepted by the membership, a home seller would be able to pay a flat fee to a real estate agent for an MLS listing, without having to sign an agreement for further services from the agent.

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Posted in Canada, Flat Fee MLS, Flat Fee MLS Listing, flat fee, flat fee service

Tags: Canada, competition bureau, crea, Flat Fee MLS

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Flat Fee or FSBO Website

February 6th, 2010

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For many home sellers the choice between flat fee MLS listing and for sale by owner website listing is a choice that comes down to dollars and cents. Advertising on FSBO websites is a relatively inexpensive alternative. And it avoids the expense of having to pay a buyer’s agent commission when the property sells. According to Hitwise, an Experian Company, FSBO website and online classified advertising on sites like Craigslist have become the new classified advertising medium of choice for real estate sellers as more and more Internet users have migrated away from the use of traditional newpaper classifieds.

The tradeoff between Flat Fee MLS listing and FSBO website advertising is, of course, exposure. Sellers of property listed on FSBO websites are limited to the traffic and reach of the particular website. Compared with real estate brokerage websites like Realtor.com these FSBO sites pale in comparison in terms of traffic and reach. Realtor.com alone is the number 1 real estate website in the world followed by Yahoo Real Estate and Zillow.com. No FSBO website even ranks in the top 20 real estate websites.

Why is website traffic important to selling property and why should you be concerned about whether your property appears on the top real estate websites? In real estate there’s only one thing more important than location – *exposure*. The more people who know about your property for sale the better chance you have to sell. Realtors know that more exposure means a higher selling price and a afaster selling time. That’s why Realtors have entered into strategic partnerships with each other and numerous websites to display their property listings as widely as possible. Flat Fee MLS listing with bloomkey.com, for instance, includes listing on most if not all of the top 20 real estate websites that display property listings.

Real estate sold using a flat fee MLS listing gives your property the widest possible marketing exposure. For a selection of flat fee MLS and website only advertising packages, visit www.bloomkey.com.

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Flat Fee Real Estate Advertisting

February 1st, 2010

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Flat fee MLS has become the preferred advertising method for by owner real estate sellers. In fact, no other mode of advertising is more effective for home sellers in reaching the largest groupd of home buyers. The math is simple. You can pay a few hundred dollars for flat fee MLS listing with an online real estate company like Bloomkey.com or HouseZooks.com and reach millions of potential buyers. Most flat fee MLS listing packages last for 3 to 9 months – some for up to a year or even ‘until SOLD’. Or you can pay a similar amount to a local newspaper to reach a few thousand people. But newspapers classifieds usually last for just a few days.

As an advertising medium it’s hard to beat the Internet these days. A flat fee MLS listing with Bloomkey not only provides a listing on the Realtor Multiple Listing Service but also includes advertising on the leading real estate sites like Realtor.com, Trulia.com, Zillow.com as well as most of the major real estate franchises’ websites like Century 21, Prudential, Help-U-Sell, etc. When you stop to think about it, it’s really quite astounding how far your marketing dollars will go with a flat fee MLS listing. What just a few years ago would have required a real estate owner to give up 6% times their property’s sales price can now be obtained for less than the cost of a newspaper classified advertising campaign. Chalk it up to the economies of the Internet.

As with so many industries, Travel and Stock Brokerage to name two, the Internet has drastically impacted the costs associated with gaining access to the market for consumers. The efficiency afforded by being able to reach so many people for so little makes the Internet the perfect medium for real estate. Flat fee MLS is the best way to take advantage of the evolution of real estate marketing.