Happy Holidays from GetMoreOffers.com

Happy Holidays from all of us at ADDvantage Real Estate and GetMoreOffers.com!

We have two holiday specials going on right now. In the spirit of the Holiday Season, you can sign up for Professional ADDvantage before December 31 and pay only $399 up front and 1/2% at closing. Offers expires December 31, 2011 at midnight. Use promo code at checkout: holidaypro$399 - valid for new clients only!

And...

As a thank you for choosing GetMoreOffers for your Real Estate services, you can upgrade your current GetMoreOffers.com listing to our exclusive contract representation program, Professional ADDvantage, before December 31 and receive $50 off your upgrade price. Offers expires December 31, 2011 at midnight. Use promo code at checkout: holidaypro50 - valid for upgrades only!

Read an article on how Professional ADDvantage works for another client. To view our other program options go to MLS-Program-Lineup. 

Sign up or Upgrade Today!

Selling Your Home With a Flat Fee Company

Is selling a home using flat fee MLS just a matter of finding the cheapest flat fee MLS website and off you go?

Did you know that 90% of the websites that you see are NOT even members of GTAR (Greater Tampa Association of Realtors) or MFR (Mid-Florida Regional MLS).

Do you know that 99% of all flat fee MLS services in Florida do not offer live 8:00am-8:00pm phone support? You might say, “who needs this type of service anyway because all calls come to me!”

I am Keith Gordon, broker for GetMoreOffers – a flat fee MLS service offering impeccable service all across Florida. There’s a reason why we are the most respected and trusted flat fee MLS listing firm in Tampa and it starts with three things we do better than anyone else.　

1) Buyer leads and how they are handled is one area that Tampa sellers do not fully understand. Our policy with regard to buyer leads from Realtor.com and other sites has been effective since we started GetMoreOffers in 2005. Once a buyer lead finds its way to GetMoreOffers, it is promptly forwarded to our sellers, in real time, 7 days a week from 8 AM –8 PM. During a typical week, we handle over 300 calls from buyers and Realtors. On a typical weekend, we handle over 40 calls. 

This level of service is unheard of in the real estate industry. Between these hours, all calls and emails are handled “live” by one of our GetMoreOffers staff members. Each email or call is transcribed into an email and forwarded to you. Our relentless attention to this and other important details has earned GetMoreOffers the best reputation in all Florida for delivering the most reliable and trusted flat fee MLS service.

2) The next often misunderstood part of listing flat fee in the MLS is Realtor.com and IDX. Most Tampa by owners do not fully understand Realtor.com and IDX feeds (Internet Data Exchange) and why should they? The fact is Realtor.com does not allow any seller contact information or the word “FSBO” to be published. Only the listing broker’s phone number and name can appear. Every Realtor website such as, Century21.com, ColdwellBanker.com and Remax.com, receive their MLS listing data directly from Realtor.com through the IDX feed. Sellers, therefore, must implicitly trust their flat fee MLS broker to professionally handle buyer leads and calls that come to the broker.

3) Another area that concerns many sellers is “Offers.” Sellers would prefer their offers from Realtors to going directly to them and not through the flat fee broker. At GetMoreOffers, we facilitate all offers by forwarding them directly to our sellers from 8:00am-8:00pm 7 days a week. We then call and notify each seller when an offer has been forwarded by email. In our years of being in business we have never mishandled an offer or lost a deal because of our incompetence. 

Most offers do come through GetMoreOffers as Realtors often stand by industry protocol and prefer that the “listing broker” initially receive the offer and then forward the offer to the “self-represented” seller. Once the seller has the offer, the buyer’s agent and seller negotiate the offer to its conclusion. By the way, it is clearly stated in the MLS to call seller directly for all showings and the seller’s phone number is published.

Trust remains an issue when money is involved. Tampa home owners that do choose GetMoreOffers to sell using flat fee MLS will soon believe it is possible to trust a flat rate MLS service, receive excellent service and still save 50% on the cost of selling a home vs. a traditional listing. Many of our sellers (27%) pay no commission at all because they have sold without a Realtor. GetMoreOffers® has earned our reputation as Tampa’s most trusted and hardest working flat fee MLS broker because we consistently deliver more offers, more buyer leads and Realtor feedback on each showings.

We offer seven flat fee MLS plans. This blog was focused on our standard “self-representation” flat fee MLS plan called MLS GetMoreOffers. 

We also offer 2 flat fee plans that are very similar to full-service in that we handle all calls and negotiate all offers right through closing. These 2 plans are called GetMoreOffers Professional ADDvantage and GetMoreOffers Short Sale ADDvantage and our 5-4-3 Full Service plan. Our local agents have the right to sell your home using the buyer leads that come our way and these plans are a “contract-to-close representation” while the seller retains all buyer leads. If you have questions about which flat rate plan is best suited for you, call us anytime 1-877-232-9695 or visit our website at getmoreoffers.com.

Calling all Realtors - Answer your Phone!

If 2,900 Realtor calls or buyers’ requests for showings went unanswered over this period of 12 months, would that hurt your chances of selling your Florida home? Yes!

At GetMoreOffers.com, we have answered 2,900 live calls, over the past year for our Florida Flat Fee MLS clients. Many of these calls 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, 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 an agent misplaces them. If a seller chooses Professional ADDvantage, 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 MLS plan.

This 8:00 AM – 8:00 PM (EST), 7 days a week phone concierge service at GetMoreOffers.com is guaranteed in our GetMoreOffers.com Flat Fee MLS Listing Agreement. It is a part of our service commitment to all of 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 GetMoreOffers.com.

Paying attention to the phone support you will be receiving is a critical detail to being a successful Flat Fee MLS seller in Florida. The Flat Fee MLS broker is the gatekeeper for sales’ leads for the Flat Fee MLS seller. Many Flat Fee websites will advertise that all leads and calls come directly to you, so having great phone support is unnecessary. This is misleading to 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’s (of record – GetMoreOffers.com 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 the 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 GetMoreOffers.com 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 world, the sellers contact information is not permitted. All these buyer leads come 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, and not the broker.  Also make sure that the listing agreement states that those leads coming from third party websites, such as Realtor.com or Homes.com, are forwarded directly to you.

When you Sign up with a Flat Fee MLS listing through GetMoreOffers.com, 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 Flat Fee MLS sellers offer higher commissions to Realtors (buyer agents) to garner more attention. We offer a flat fee listing program called Street Smart GetMoreOffers.com that sends 12,000 emails to all Realtors, within a 30 mile radius of your property, twice a month, informing them of your higher than average commission. The Street Smart GetMoreOffers.com e-Blast is Florida’s best-read Realtor-to-Realtor email.

Here at GetMoreOffers.com, our basic Flat Fee MLS listing program is $199 for a 6 month listing in any Florida MLS. Street Smart ADDvantage is $349 for a 12 month listing and e-Blast with a 4% commission or higher, and Professional ADDvantage is $499 and ½% at close (with a $699 minimum). ProfessionalADDvantage, our contract-to-close plan, includes Street Smart e-Blast marketing as long as you offer a 4% buyer’s agent commission, no expiration date, our office takes and records all calls for your property, and the broker negotiates all offers and contracts for you.

Make sure to know what you are getting in a Flat Fee MLS company before spending more money than necessary.  GetMoreOffers.com is Florida’s best Flat Fee MLS listing service.  Call us anytime, 1-877-232-9695.

Let ADDvantage Help You Buy a House!

Selling a home is tough draw in today’s market.  Sellers are looking for the cash buyers who are a no fuss, no mess kind of deal.  Short Sales are happening more often and in many areas, foreclosures are still on the rise.  In Tampa Bay, the numbers don’t lie.  One and 600 homes are being foreclosed on each day.  Just recently, Florida’s Real Estate professionals published the summer marketing trends.  The market is fluid but it is a Buyer’s market.  Investors are picking up many of the REO and Short Sales properties as quickly as they go on the market.  Buyers are finding homes well below the market value from a few years ago.  At ADDvantage® Real Estate Service, we make a point to watch these trends looking for every elevation, deflation and change in the market.

Are you looking for an investment property or something to give you rental income?  Are you looking for a retirement or vacation home?  When it is time to make that choice to purchase a new property, you want a Buyer’s agent who is going to be there for you – not just out for his or her own commission. At ADDvantage® Real Estate Services we do just that.  We have a knowledgeable staff with over 50 years of combined experience to find you the property you have dreamed of.  Tired of the Real Estate companies that never answer the phone?  ADDvantage® Real Estate Services answers the phones from 8:00 AM – 8:00 PM, 7 days a week.  You will find the perfect home with ADDvantage® Real Estate Services.  Give us a call today!