More than 90% of all homes in Utah are sold using the Realtor's Multiple Listing Service or MLS. To get your home listed on the MLS, you have to hire a Realtor who is a member of your local MLS. You can either hire a traditional Realtor and pay them 6% of your purchase price, or you can hire a flat fee realtor and pay a low flat fee no matter what your house sells for.
Traditional Service
The advantages of a traditional service listing is that you pay nothing upfront and the realtor offers you their full assistance, expertise and services to sell your home. The downside is you pay a full 6% commission, which can be a lot of money.
When your house sells, your Realtor will normally take 3% or half the commission you agreed to pay and give that to the Realtor who brought you a buyer. Once in a while, you can find a Realtor who will only charge you 4% or 5%. They almost always give the buyer's realtor 3% and your Realtor takes the difference, but not always. That's where you need to be careful if you hire a traditional realtor. If he or she does not offer the buyer's Realtor at least 2.5% -3% (especially in a buyers market), your chances of selling your house just dropped dramatically. Always demand they offer at least 2.5% - 3%.
Most traditional Realtors will help you price your home. They will take and manage all the appointments. They will list your house on the MLS and put a sign in your yard. They will advertise your home on the internet. Some still advertise in a newspaper or a magazine, but these types of advertising are no longer very effective since most everyone uses the internet to search for homes these days. Most importantly, full service realtors help assess the condition of your home, neighborhood, amenities and are able to help you adequately price your home which is critical. These are the normal services that all traditional realtor services offer.
Utah Flat Fee MLS Service
If you don't mind doing much of the work it takes to sell your house, you can save a lot of money by using a flat fee mls service. The MLS sells most of the homes in Utah, so it is definitely worth it to get your home listed on the MLS.
Because the listing agent is doing the listing for so little, be prepared to pay a fee upfront, take your own photos, price your home, manage your own appointments, perform your own followup, negotiate your own deals, fill out your own contracts, etc. Also, it's important to remember you are only saving the listing commission, you will still need to pay a buyer's agent a commission.
Because you don't get the same care and expertise from most flat fee companies, your chances of successfully selling your house diminish. In fact, Utah Home Central took a sample of flat fee companies and found an average sell rate of 30% which means they only sell about 30% of the homes they list. Compare this against a sample of full service companies who had an average sell rate of 55%.
Utah Home Central - Hybrid Service
Utah Home Central offers a hybrid of these two types of services, where we offer all the same necessary services of a traditional utah real estate brokerage, but we do it for a flat fee. This way, wether you are experienced or inexperienced, you can feel confident in selling your home and still save a very large commission.
Flat Fee MLS companies charge a very low fee. The only way they can stay in business is by listing as many homes as they can. Because they list such large volumes of homes, they hardly have the manpower to give any one of those homes much attention.
In an effort to ensure Utah Home Central is able to give it's customers the care and expertise needed to sell their home, but still save them money over traditional real estate firms, Utah Home Central has created a flat fee pricing structure that is a bit higher than other flat fee MLS companies, but dramatically lower than traditional. Utah Home Central has a sell rate of 61%.
