Looking for advice on a FSBO with a flat-fee MLS service.

[Ricardo Taboada]

Hello all. Thank you in advance for your time and shared knowledge.

I am looking to sell a single-family new construction (which I developed) in Lehigh Acres, FL. This is around Cape Coral/Fort Myers. My strategy is to forgo a listing agent and use a flat-fee MLS listing service. I am a lawyer and developer and am intimately familiar with property law and real estate; however I have never sold realty without a listing agent.

I would appreciate any advice or thoughts you may have about this plan. Some of my specific concerns are:

1. I am considering using beycome.com as the flat-fee service. Any idea on how good their service is? Would you recommend an alternative service?

2. My thought is to offer a 3% buyer's agent commission. Thoughts on this amount? What is typical for the area? I think 3% is reasonable and many of my prior transactions have offered 2.5% to the buyer's agent.

3. If you have an argument that I should reconsider my strategy and instead retain a listing agent, I would like to hear it. 

4. Any other germane thoughts would be appreciated.

Thank you!

[Stetson Miller]

Hi @Ricardo Taboada,

I've worked with Beycome while representing my buying clients before and we didn't have the smoothest transaction. This was largely due to the fact that the seller decided to use their title company, which isn't local. If anything, having a local title company will help your transaction run much smoother. Otherwise, apart from the initial listing, they really don't have any other involvement in the transaction, and it shouldn't really make a difference who you use for that service

Your commission offerings are definitely reasonable in my opinion, I would be happy with that if I were representing a buyer in your transaction

One thing to note is that agent's aren't just there to ensure you're complying with all legal processes and paperwork, they're also ensuring that you get top dollar for the property you're selling, and ensure that you're not giving out unnecessary concessions. It's possible to still meet these goals without using an agent, but it is going to be much more difficult, especially if you don't already have extensive experience in the selling field