Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, absolutely. Our clients receive complete, start to finish advisement and support from an experienced, licensed agent. We’ll analyze comparable home sales data to help you determine the optimal list price, arrange professional photos, and market your home through the MLS and dozens of other third-party websites such as Zillow, redfin, homes, and dozens of others plus social media channels. We’ll also work with you and interested buyers / buyer agents to coordinate showings, negotiate offers, and do everything needed to get you through the closing process. Everything you would get from an agent at a Traditional Brokerage – but for a fraction of the cost!
To incentivize other agents to bring their buyers to see your home and to be listed in the MLS, you need to offer a commission to the cooperating “Buyer’s Agent.” Typically, the Buyer’s Agent is offered 3%, but in some areas with higher home prices, 2.5% may be more common. By offering the traditional 3% commission, you will avoid lost traffic to your home and expect a faster home sale for a higher price. Buyer agents typically obtain their buyers through third party website services such as Realtor, Zillow, and others which are really marketing firms that help them find potential buyers. The Agents pay these companies a hefty monthly fee or upwards of 50% of their commission in a referral fees. If you do not offer the buyer agent a cooperating commission, they aren’t motivated to show and promote your home to their buyer over other homes for sale that do offer them an incentive.
We market homes across multiple channels to reach the greatest number of buyers and buyer agents. One of the most important marketing methods we use is to list your home in the MLS! The MLS is the central point that helps us market your home to dozens of national websites, including Realtor, Zillow, Refin, Homes, and dozens of others. This ensures the highest visibility among potential buyers. According to the National Association of Realtors, over 92% of homebuyers search for their home online. Buyers typically find their home online through one of these third-party marketing sites and then get paired with a Buyer Agent, that pay for these services so it’s very important to be listed on the MLS and marketed on the Internet. In addition, we market homes through social channels, including Facebook ads and a dedicated landing page for each listing, which helps drive more home buyers to view your property on the Internet. Last but not the least important, we place a yard sign for each of our clients’ which accounts for roughly 4 % of how homebuyers find their home to purchase. These marketing methods account for over 99% of the traffic sources key to helping us sell your home.
Absolutely Not. Our mission is to help you sell your home to NET more, not the opposite. We provide the exact same level of service you receive from a big, national brokerage. We provide advice, guidance and contract assistance that goes well beyond what you’d receive with a For Sale By Owner service. We include pre-listing consultation, pricing analysis and strategy, ongoing support through-out the listing, coordination of home showings, feedback from buyers, help negotiate offers, advise on inspection issues, help resolve problems, review closing documents for accuracy, etc.
Absolutely Not. Our mission is to help you sell your home to NET more, not the opposite. We provide the exact same level of service you receive from a big, national brokerage. We provide advice, guidance and contract assistance that goes well beyond what you’d receive with a Flat Fee MLS Listing Only Service which just makes you a For Sale By Owner on the MLS. We include pre-listing consultation, pricing analysis and strategy, ongoing support through-out the listing, coordination of home showings, feedback from buyers, help negotiate offers, advise on inspection issues, help resolve problems, review closing documents for accuracy, etc.
Yes, we will meet prospective buyers at the property if they do not have an agent. Typically, if the Buyer has an Agent, they will schedule a showing through our ShowingTime App and gain access via our SentriKey Lock Box that is included in our service. The SentriKey Lock Box is the Realtor preferred electronic box that only provide access to Licensed Realtor with the App approved through one of our local Realtor Boards for a specific date and time. The Buyer Agent will request a showing via text alerts or phone call from the ShowingTime Service which you either approve, decline, or recommend an alternative time. You can rest knowing a buyer and/or buyer agent can’t just get a key out of the lock box with simply having a code.
Our customers get absolutely the best full listing service compared to large national brokerages. The only thing we generally do not provide are a few things that don’t help sell your home such as such as printed flyers for showings, flyer boxes with printed flyers, or giant balloons for open houses. None of these misconceived marketing tools that some agents rave about help you sell your home, so we don’t bother with them. Instead, we focus on all the things that do.
There are absolutely no upfront fees to list your home, to modify or update your listing, or special fees for longer listing durations. Your 1% listing fee is paid at the time of your closing and is deducted from the proceeds from the sale of your home. This is the exact same process when you list and sell through a national brokerage, except for way less.
Absolutely not, there are no upfront fees to list your home with logik. We provide the SentriKey Electronic Lock Box and a Yard Sign at no cost to you.
No, you do not have to use a Lock Box, but the alternative is that you must be available to let in every buyer and/or buyer agent for showings. If you do choose to not use a SentriKey Electronic Lock Box, we strongly recommend you leave the premises during the showing. It’s well documented that Buyers feel uncomfortable when the seller is at the home during the showing and results in lower sales prices.
The SentriKey Electronic Lock Box (ELB) has come a long way in comparison to the simple lockboxes where Agents would give out the codes and you never know when someone was going to use the code and go in your home. The The SentriKey Lock Box is the Realtor preferred electronic box that only provide access to Licensed Realtor with the Mobile App that have been approved through one of our local Realtor Boards. The ELB is synchronized with ShowingTime which only allows the Realtor access via the MobileApp when you approve the showing for that specific date and time. Even if you approved the Realtor, if they come on the wrong day for example and try to access the lockbox it will not allow them to open the lockbox.
No, you do not need to have a Yard Sign. Keep in mind though that the Yard Sign does account for up to 6% of how home buyers find their home to purchase. A potential buyer can call us off the sign and if they end up purchasing the home, you don’t pay a Buyer Agent commission which means you sell your home for 1%! So, for this reason we strongly recommend using one, to help you potentially NET more when you sell.
We provide you with a home value report prior to listing your property. This report will give you an estimate of your home’s value in the current market based on publicly available data for recent home sales and most importantly an outlook on what the current active homes for sale on the market. You may decide that upgrades, special features or finishes merit a price above or below the estimated value we provide. We also review with you a pricing strategy that will help net you more when you decide on your listing price along with how to evaluate price adjustments you may need to make.
The Multiple Listing Service which is commonly referred to as “the MLS” is a private offer of cooperation and compensation by listing brokers to other real estate brokers.
Believe it or not, the first form of the MLS was developed in the late 1800’s where real estate brokers regularly gathered at their local associations to share information about each other’s properties they were trying to sell with an agreement to compensate each other when another broker was able to do so. This arrangement to “Help me sell my Inventory and I’ll Help you sell yours” is unique to real estate in comparison to other markets.
NAR reported there are over 800 MLSs where brokers share information on properties they have listed and invite other brokers to cooperate in their sale in exchange for compensation if they produce the buyer. Sellers benefit by increased exposure of their property which can be maximized by a real estate listing specialist. Buyers benefit by being able to physically access and access information about any property listed in the MLS while working with only one broker of their choice.
The MLS System is ultimately a very unique system of the real estate business that facilitates cooperation in the highly competitive real estate market that ensures successful transactions for both buyers and sellers. Imagine that without such a collaborative tool providing incentive for brokers to participate, the brokers would be creating separate systems that would fragment rather than consolidate property information.
It can’t be reiterated enough just how powerful the force of the MLS is in creating competition in the real estate market. It levels the playing field between the smallest brokerage in town the ability to compete with the largest national firms. It enables buyers and sellers the ability to work with the professional of their choice if they wish and be confident that they have access to the largest pool of properties for sale in the marketplace. There are other much smaller marketplaces for buyers and sellers, but none that can match what is available on the MLS.
The increasing use of the internet including Third Party and/or more recognized National Real Estate platforms such as Zillow, Redfin, Realtor, Homes, Homesnap, and numerous others have led many buyers and sellers to lose this connection to the local real estate brokers and their MLS. Yet it is from these 800 plus MLSs that each of these Third Party and / or National Real Estate Broker Platforms get the listing data from real estate brokers to help sellers sell their property and buyers purchase their property from.
