Search Website
It may surprise people to learn that we still get lots of questions about multiple offer situations. While the market has definitely slowed down in the past year or so, listings where two (or more) buyers competing to buy the property still happen. As my friend Pat Crosby, a 35+ year real estate veteran frequently said "a well-priced home that is well presented and in great area can sell...
As you may recall, I was interviewed back in December by a staff reporter for 60 Minutes (off camera, and no, not by Andy Rooney) for a story they were going to be doing on the current state of the real estate industry. I thought the story was going to run as early as February, and I kept watching for it, but I didn't see it. I asked around to others I knew had been interviewed and no one knew...
I spend lots of my time being involved in local, state, and national Realtor Associations, whereas many flat fee brokers do not. The reason I serve on committees, travel to other cities (often Washington, DC), and spend other times working with Realtors is to strengthen my company's reputation. My work and involvement with traditional Realtors quite frankly makes them more likely to sell my...
When I became a Flat Fee MLS Broker one thing I thought I would never do is be interviewed by a team of attorneys from the Competition Bureau of Canada. The Competition Bureau is the Canadian equivalent of our Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice. It was kind of flattering because they weren't in town for anything else but to interview me (granted it may be a few degrees warmer...
I was interviewed by the 60 Minutes CBS News program, which is not something that happens every day. It was an off camera interview, they were asking me questions about my business and the current state of the real estate industry. I appreciated that they came to me and it was a face to face interview. At first I was hoping I might get an on camera interview and maybe even appear in the piece,...
I was surprised when recently a flat fee MLS broker from a neighboring state faxed me the latest issue of the Real Estate Intelligence Report, a prominent industry magazine for real estate industry executives. I read with surprise the front page article all about my leadership in the flat fee MLS broker industry, my picture (oh, not that picture, I have to take that one off my website--...
Every great once and a while a concerned home seller asks us about this: "Do buyer agents boycott flat fee MLS listings?" or "Will an agent refuse to show a flat fee brokers'' listings?" The short answer is no, for the reasons listed below. Often, the only time a seller asks us this question is that they were talking to a traditional agent who wants them to pay a huge commission. The seller...
Over the past year or so I have been recruiting flat fee brokers from all over the United States (including one in Puerto Rico) in the hope of starting an industry organization just for flat fee brokers.
I am proud to announce that my work has come to fruition and the American Real Estate Brokers Alliance has started. I already have more than ten brokers from Washington state in the West to...
Recently I was at a national meeting in Washington, DC of the Executives of Multiple Listing Services. There were hundreds of people at this meeting, and the topic ended up being flat fee MLS listings. I guess it should be no surprise that these MLS leaders, who ranged from the smallest one county MLSs to the largest MLSs in the country (that cover whole states and can have well over 30,000...
This past week the Wall Street Journal had a short article about Flat Fee Listings where Albert Hepp, Lead Broker of BuySelf Realty, was quoted.