Tampa Home Owners Save on Average 65% in Real Estate Commissions when using our Flat fee MLS Listing Service

If 2,900 Realtor calls or buyers requests for showings went unanswered over a period of 12 months would that hurt your chances of selling your Tampa home?

At ADDvantage, we have answered 2,900 calls live over the past year for our Florida flat fee MLS clients. 1,000 of these calls have come after-hours. Every single call was handled professionally, recorded in our seller’s account, an email sent to our seller, a link sent to the interested party to your Tampa MLS listing at ADDvantage and a detailed description of the call was included in that email.

If the caller was a Realtor, we get their Florida real estate license number confirming they are truly Realtors and send them permission by email to deal directly with you. We include your phone numbers just in case they miss place them. If a seller chooses ADDvantage Plus, our contract-to-close plan, we do not send permission to Realtors to deal with the seller because we represent sellers in this hybrid-full-service flat fee plan.

This 8:00am-8:00pm 7 days a week phone concierge service at ADDvantage is guaranteed in our ADDvantage flat fee MLS Listing Agreement. It is a part of our service commitment to all our flat fee MLS sellers. This is also one of the reasons why we charge a bit more for a listing in the MLS with ADDvantage.

Paying attention to the phone ethic is a critical detail to being successful selling by owner MLS in Florida. The flat fee MLS broker is the gatekeeper of sales leads for the by owner MLS seller. I know that most flat fee websites say all leads and calls comes right to you so having great phone support is unnecessary. Well, they are misleading the public because they can’t and won’t commit to any posted or guaranteed hours of phone support. Truth…flat fee MLS seller’s phone numbers are published in the MLS under Realtor remarks. But, the listing broker of record (ADDvantage or whoever is listing the property in the MLS) phone number is also listed in the MLS. Since 1913, Realtors, by a code of ethics, have always called this listing broker to get showing instructions and negotiate all offers. Realtors, by this same code, cannot deal directly with the seller without the expressed permission from the listing broker. This is why the listing broker receives so many calls from Realtors. It is also the reason why ADDvantage gives Realtors our expressed permission in an email that they can deal directly with our seller clients.

In Realtor.com, the biggest real estate website in the word, the sellers contact information is not permitted. All these buyer leads go to the listing broker. Make sure the listing agreement that you sign with a flat fee broker clearly states that all buyer leads belong to the seller, not the broker.

When you list flat rate MLS through ADDvantage, all buyer leads are yours to work so you can sell ‘by owner’ and not pay any commission. If a Realtor sells your home, you pay just that Realtor a commission which you establish during the sign up process. Typically, flat fee MLS sellers offer between 2-3%.

Some by owner MLS sellers offer more commissions to Realtors (buyer agents) to garner more attention. We offer a flat fee listing program called Street Smart ADDvantage that sends 12,000 emails to all Tampa Bay Realtors twice a month informing them of your higher than average commission. The Street Smart ADDvantage eblast is Florida best-read Realtor-to-Realtor email.

Our basic flat fee MLS listing program is $349 for a 9 month listing in any Florida MLS. Street Smart ADDvantage at $599 and ADDvantage Plus cost $799 and $500 at close. ADDvantage Plus, our contract-to-close plan, includes Street Smart Eblast marketing as long as you offer a 4% buyer’s agent commission.

Call us anytime, 1-877-232-9695

ADDvantage® flat fee MLS metal sign with your phone # and MLS # professionally vinyled onto it. It costs just $39.98. (includes shipping)

Selling a Tampa home in today’s competitive buyer’s market places extra demands on packaging your listing as perfectly as possible. Realtors in in Greater Tampa Bay sell 70% of ADDvantage listed properties. Using an ADDvantage yard sign will improve your changes of selling Buy Owner or through a licensed Realtor.
We offer our metal sign to you at OUR COST… $24.99 (plus $14.99 shipping & handling).�
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Why it is important to use an ADDvantage® Sign?

• Realtors® recognize our yard sign as professional.
• FSBO sign is not professional and raise red flags for Tampa Realtors.
• FSBO signs are a dead give-away that you listed your Tampa property using flat rate MLS. Realtors aren’t thrilled that you didn’t list full-service. So why advertise with a bright red and white FSBO yard sign that you listed flat fee…FSBO (For Sale By Owner) give that exact message.
• FSBO signs create calls to ADDvantage like the one we received a few Sundays ago from a Tampa Realtor who wondered whether he was at the right house. He said,

“I think I’m at the right house…it looks a bit different than the picture…but, there is no ADDvantage sign…there is a FSBO sign, though…I don’t know what kind of deal Keith has with this seller, maybe he did some kind of FLAT FEE LISTING WITH THEM…”

Not the kind of message you want to send! Yet we get calls like this frequently from agents who come across one of our Tampa flat fee listings with a FSBO sign.

FSBO yard signs are not synonymous with being listed in the Greater Tampa Association of Realtors (GTAR) MLS. A regular real estate signs promotes the fact that the seller is offering a commission.

Had the seller used an ADDvantage yard sign, this Realtor would never have called Sunday. He would
ADDvantage Flat Fee MLS Yard Signnever have questioned the listing as being “flat fee” or “full-service.” We gave him the lock code and he was happy right up to the point of seeing that FSBO sign. Why identify your property as a flat rate listing and inform the Realtor in advance that you are a self-represented seller before he even steps inside your home with his buyer?

Unless your are deed restricted and can’t use a yard sign, please consider ordering a metal ADDvantage yard sign. It will help your sale

looks professional

The answer is no. There are hundreds of flat fee websites in Florida and only 2 or 3 of these services are Tampa based. 80% of them are not even licensed in Florida to offer flat fee MLS…the just refer you to a Tampa flat fee MLS service such as ADDvantage. Some of the Florida based For Sale By Owner (FSBO) MLS companies are not genuine flat fee MLS services. They are hanging the shingle “flat fee” on their websites to garner attention from the public but what they are offering is NOT flat fee MLS.

The definition of a genuine flat fee MLS service would be one that allows their client seller to cancel their flat fee listing at anytime for “free” and the flat fee broker would comply and “unconditionally” withdraw the listing from GTAR (MLS) allowing another broker immediate access to re-list the property. A genuine flat fee listing also sends all buyer leads from Realtor.com and other Internet sources directly to the seller…not to the flat fee MLS broker. A genuine flat fee listing service pubishes their listing agreemnet online so the public can review it before paying for a listings. And lastly, a genuine flat rate service offers great phone support.

Without going into great detail about all the crappy flat fee MLS tricks, ploys and schemes…remember “caveat emptor” when listing in the MLS.

Only list flat fee with a local Tampa MLS broker and make sure they offer a genuine flat fee product and not some look-a-like website that benefits the flat fee broker and not the flat fee seller.

Have a question about listing flat fee MLS in Tampa? Call us 727-942-2929.

Flat fee MLS is defined as receiving a bundle of specific real estate services for an advance payment. These services are further defined by the language contained in the listing agreement. This listing agreement will bind the seller and the listing broker to do certain things during the listing period and possibly afterwards.

The listing agreement is the single most important document to review and understand before listing your home with any broker. There are several reasons why flat fee MLS services in Tampa do not present their listing agreements to sellers before they request payment for such services.

Many flat fee MLS websites on the Internet are not licensed real estate brokers in Florida. Therefore, they have no listing agreement to offer.

Tampa sellers have a choice between listing with a local Tampa Flat Fee MLS broker or with a national flat fee MLS “website.” If the seller chooses the national flat fee MLS “website” to list their property, that “websites” sole function is to take your payment and refer you to a Florida broker. The number one reason why sellers choose a national flat fee “website” over a company such as ADDvantage is because they have not researched the differences between the flat fee services.

If you list with a national “website”, you are stuck with the “unknown” listing broker’s operation (hours that they answer the phone, professionalism, marketing) and his/her listing agreement that will soon be presented to you by the “unknown” Tampa flat fee broker.”

To avoid this situation, simply make sure you review the listing agreement before paying. A simple way to differentiate between a “national referrer” broker and a local broker would be to call them and ask. As well, if you do not see a listing agreement clearly published on their website then you can assume they don’t want you to see it.

Another indication of a “national website” is their reference to terminology such as “we are the largest national flat fee MLS website in America.” The word “referral website” would mean the same thing.

“The 4 greatest concerns when scrutinizing a flat fee MLS listing agreement are…Buyer Leads, Cancellation fee, the right to cancel at will and hours they answer their phone

One concern a seller would have with a flat fee service would be the right to cancel their listing and re-list with another broker. Some flat fee companies have cancellation fees written into their listing agreement or have language that traps the seller into listing with their “predetermined” full-service broker that is (of course) affiliated with the flat fee broker enabling a referral kickback commission. A convoluted scheme but it happens everyday. The language below would prevent this from happening…

“Seller can cancel their MLS anytime by providing broker with written request. Broker will “unconditionally” withdraw listing from MLS within 24 hours. There is no cancellation fee.”

The term “unconditional” is the language that gives the seller the right to cancel and re-list with another broker at any time.

Many full-service and flat fee companies have language in their listing agreement that references the word “conditional withdrawal.”

If the words “conditional withdrawal” are found anywhere in your listing agreement then presume your broker is trapping you to pay a fee. If these words are anywhere in your listing agreement, the listing broker will not remove the listing from the MLS as “unconditional” but rather “suspend it” until the remainder of the listing period expires. During this “suspended period”, no other broker can take your listing.

A closing fee is not as common as a “cancellation fee” but all the same it would be quite a surprise at closing if your HUD settlement statement had a 1% commission going to the flat fee broker.

Buyer leads from Realtor.com are another reason to have an articulate listing agreement.

The flat fee MLS listing agreement must clearly state if the seller receives all buyer leads from Realtor.com and other Internet sources.

Some flat fee services in Tampa actually say in their listing agreement (and proudly display it) that they TAKE all buyer leads. Other flat fee companies just don’t specify who gets these leads.

ADDvantage flat fee MLS (a Florida flat fee MLS broker) fielded just under 3,000 leads during the past 12 months from Realtors and buyers requesting showing instructions. 1000 of these calls were answered after-hours…that is the reason why Tampa flat fee MLS sellers need to know what hours their flat fee broker answers the phone.

Read more about listing flat fee in the MLS

There are 2 MLS board choices when listing flat fee MLS in Hillsborough County. A seller can list through the Greater Tampa Association of Realtors (GTAR) or Mid-Florida Regional MLS (MFRMLS). If your listing broker is a member of both,  inform the listing broker to use GTAR because your MLS listing will start off with a “T” and not a confusing “O” like “oscar” that can easily be confused with a “0” zero.

This confusion can decrease the number of buyer leads and slow down your sale. The problem arises when buyers view results from Internet searches such as Realtor.com or see your yard sign with the MLS number written on it. If they write a zero instead of an “O” like “oscar”, the buyer will not find your flat fee MLS listing.

Most flat fee MLS brokers in Florida do not belong to GTAR, instead they belong to Mid-Florida Regional MLS. Either MLS boards would be effective from the geographic search point of view but Tampa sellers would get a better MLS number if they list with a flat fee MLS broker that belongs to GTAR.

Tampa flat fee MLS listings that are imputed through MFRMLS will look like this O776326. GTAR listings look like this T663636.

The solution is to list flat fee MLS in Tampa using a broker that is a “direct” member of GTAR.

Details are important and getting your Tampa flat fee MLS listing looking perfect is our buisness….getmoreoffers.com.