Home owners in Rockland County, New York have more options today for selling their homes themselves without the assistance of a traditional real estate agent charging 6% in commission.
We’ll teach you in this article how to list your property on your local Rockland County MLS, otherwise known as the OneKey MLS, without having to pay full commission to a traditional listing agent.
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Selling your home For Sale By Owner in Rockland County NY has historically been a very poor choice. The primary reason that selling FSBO Rockland County NY doesn’t work is because of lack of exposure.
This lack of exposure unfortunately hasn’t changed with the advent of the internet.
Before consumer facing real estate search portals became popular, For Sale By Owner sellers could only put a sign on their front yard and perhaps buy some ad space in their local newspaper. This left their property completely off market as most buyers would enlist the assistance of a local real estate agent who knew the area and market. These buyers’ Realtors would exclusively look for listings in their local Multiple Listing Service database for ideas to show their clients. The MLS at the time consisted of books of local property listings aggregated from all participating brokerages in the region.
When you list your home FSBO on a traditional real estate search website, you’re only exposing your listing to a very small segment of buyers who are searching without a real estate agent.
However, according to the NAR and many other statistical sources, well over 75% of all home buyers today work with the assistance of a buyer’s agent. So even though well over 90% of all buyers begin their home search on the internet, most eventually enlist the help of a local Realtor.
Furthermore, keep in mind that many buyers may search on public facing real estate search websites only to send links of interesting properties to their buyer’s agent. The buyer’s agent will then check to see whether the listings are actually available and schedule showings if appropriate.
The dominance of buyers’ agents in Rockland County NY is accentuated by the fact that most properties on the MLS can only be accessed through a lock-box.
For security purposes, these lockboxes can only be accessed by a Realtor with a one time access code (if they are legitimately out of area) or through a Supra eKey app available only to HGAR Member Realtors.
Keep in mind that only 4.3%* of all listings in Rockland County are sold For Sale By Owner. That means the vast majority of listings are on the MLS, and if a buyer wants to see those listings they’ll need a buyer’s Realtor with eKey access to get past the lockbox on these properties.
The necessity of a buyer’s agent to access property lockboxes combined with the fact that most Realtors in Rockland County NY will require buyers to sign an Exclusive Right To Represent Agreement means that buyers’ Realtors have more control than ever over the home buyer market in Rockland County NY. This is precisely why selling your home For Sale By Owner is not advisable in Rockland County New York.
*From a Hauseit study conducted on November 6, 2017. There were a total of 1,371 listings in Rockland County NY of which only 59 were listed For Sale By Owner on a major real estate portal.
A Full Service Listing for 1%
Sell your home with a traditional full service listing for just one percent commission.
Utilizing a Flat Fee MLS Listing Service (such as Hauseit Agent Assisted FSBO) to list your home in the Rockland County MLS (which is called the OneKey MLS) is a very effective means of marketing your home to represented buyers.
In fact, your home will receive the same level of exposure through a Flat Fee MLS Listing as it would being marketed by a traditional (full commission) listing agent.
However, be wary of most flat fee MLS listing services that you’ll find from a cursory internet search. Many national flat fee MLS companies will list your home on the wrong Multiple Listing Service (such as the New York State MLS instead of the OneKey MLS). Many flat fee MLS listing providers may also nickel and dime you with hidden fees for things like adding extra photos or making changes to your listing.
Disclosure: Hauseit® and its affiliates do not provide tax, legal, financial or accounting advice. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, tax, legal, financial or accounting advice. No representation, guarantee or warranty of any kind is made regarding the completeness or accuracy of information provided.
