Author: Mayur Arora

So, you’re selling your home using the “For Sale By Owner” (FSBO) method to save a few bucks on Realtor® commissions. Great idea, but how do you advertise your home? MLS is the most effective and popular way to advertise a home for sale, whether it be a For Sale By Owner home or if you have a traditional Realtor®. The MLS is a database of properties currently on the real estate market. Real estate agents or brokers participating in the MLS are able to list homes for sale.

Until recently, For Sale By Owner sellers trying to sell homes by owner were not able to create MLS listings for their homes, putting these sellers in the awkward position of having to plan a sales strategy without one of the standard tools used by Realtors® and home sellers.

Recently however, there have been clarifications within the Real Estate industry, whereby the rules have been essentially rewritten with amendments giving consumers the choice to pick and choose which real estate services they wish to use, providing they choose a discount or flat fee Realtor® over a traditional Realtor®.

While traditional Realtors® don’t typically care to portion out their services, Flat Fee Realtors® provide a Flat Fee MLS® listing service as an alternative to the traditional way of selling For Sale by Owner home. This is an innovative approach that allows sellers to list their property without being locked in a contract with a traditional Realtor®. Because the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) allows only licensed Realtors® to post listings for numerous reasons, including liability, authenticity, legal, and practical, Flat Fee Realtors are able to provide that licensed Realtor® service that For Sale by Owner home sellers require.

Additionally, many traditional Realtors® do not provide listings on MLXchange and realtor.ca, which is an essential step to expose your For Sale By Owner home to attract up to 75% more potential buyers. To sell your home in the most efficient way possible, the services of MLXchange and realtor.ca must be employed.

Through realtor.ca, the national property website, participating local real estate boards can also advertise listings to potential buyers across Canada and around the world, which is clearly an essential step to increasing exposure.

MLS and MLXchange both have the same property listings on their sites; however only licensed Realtors® can access MLXchange, which offers very detailed information on each property listing, while the public can only access MLS and view a fraction of the information available to a Realtor®.

One Flat Fee specializes in providing Flat Fee MLS listings to clients with homes For Sale by Owner in Vancouver, the lower mainland, and remote regions of BC. Moreover, there is absolutely no obligation to purchase a house through us or sign a buyer’s agreement to use this service. Please see our FAQ for more details. We offer packages allowing clients to choose the tools they need to sell their For Sale By Owner home, helping to ensure the quick sale of their home while saving Realtor® costs.