Since the very beginning of being a flat fee broker, I have been surprised at how many traditional real estate agents use our flat fee listing service to sell their own properties. Yes, I think a flat fee MLS listing is an outstanding and incredible value, but I never really figured that agents who as their job ask people to pay 5%, 6% or more would not make sure they themselves paid that price when they sold their own properties. If for no other reason than to set an example and be able to tell their sellers "I believe so much in the value of the 6% I charge that I pay it myself when I sell my own property."
Although it still surprises me a little every time a licensed real estate agents asks us to list their own property, it shouldn't because it is common--I would estimate a handful of agents do so every month. And then some others don't tell us they were agents until closing or after they have sold.
The biggest takeaway to this fact is the endorsement of the value of our services that these agents actions provide. Yes, I say actions because I assume most of them do not then go out on their listing presentations and tell Mr. and Mrs. Seller that they used BuySelf Realty for a $499 flat fee listing when they sold their property. These agents are full time professionals, who sell property for a living, for other people and presumably know the process inside and out. But for their own situation, they choose a flat fee MLS listing instead of the full priced, one size fits all that most traditional agents provide.
I also think it is significant that these professionals choose BuySelf Realty over other flat fee brokers. Many times there may be others who will put a listing in the MLS for a little cheaper than our service, but these professionals do their research and choose the leading and most established flat fee MLS Broker. They make the rationale choice to go with experience, reputation, and quality instead of risking a listing with someone new to the flat fee listing business (or new to real estate as a whole) who is learning the ropes.
Early on, when an agent would list us, it made me nervous. I wondered, were they trying to catch us doing something wrong? I wasn't worried about getting caught doing something wrong, but I always so curious I made sure I talked to the agents. Turns out most of the agents I talked to owned a property in an area where their company wasn't a member of the MLS, and they felt like all they needed was to get the property on the MLS. This was exactly what most of the non-licensed sellers thought, also. A few of the agents that listed with us were actually members of the MLS, but the cost we charged them was lower than their own company would charge them to sell their own property.
Perhaps I still am more sensitive than I should be, having some old scars from doing flat fee listings in the 1990s when many agents didn't know what flat fee MLS listings were until I explained it to them. To be fair, even in the very beginnings of flat fee MLS listings most agents were professional and understanding when they learned about it. But that tiny handful that reacted negatively and treated me like I was turning their stable real estate world upside down, I always wonder if that agent I am talking to will be like they are. Granted, we are more than a decade into the existence of flat fee MLS listings, and any agent not familiar with flat fee brokers must be both a part time agent and have their head in the sand. I can't remember the last time I had an agent react unprofessionally, but it has to be a few years ago or more.
The other part of agents listing their own properties with us that shouldn't surprise me is that it parallels the popularity with other real estate professionals--attorneys, loan officers, appraisers, and commercial Realtors. We have lots of these professions of people who work with real estate transactions (and agents) on a daily basis that choose our service. At first, having the attorneys made me kind of defensive because they wanted to go over our listing agreement sentence by sentence and ask questions. But then I realized and came to appreciate how having hundreds of attorneys review our listing agreement, it would not only make our listing agreement excellent legally, but also it had the potential to make it communicate our service as clearly as possible (or in other areas where MLS rules in effect mandate that we use the MLS listing agreement clarity probably wasn't going to be possible). In any event it helped me to explain our listing agreement to experts and novices alike.
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