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St. Louis, Missouri (PRWEB) October 13, 2006 -- The real estate market is predicted to continue its
slowdown, which means tough times for real estate owners who are currently trying to sell their
homes. A surprising number of sellers are turning to a new type of Real Estate Company.
As the real estate market continues to slow across the country, the number of sellers attempting to
handle the selling process themselves is growing. Rather than paying a traditional 6% listing
commission, many sellers are choosing to purchase unbundled services from flat fee brokers.
Flat fee brokers, who charge a flat fee for unbundled services, have become popular with sellers who
want to sell the home themselves without paying the traditional commission.
“Sellers are sick of paying outrageous commissions”, says Donnye Sommerville, of Midwest Eagle,
Realtors, “The unbundling of the real estate industry is important now more than ever, since many
sellers don’t have enough equity in their home to pay a traditional broker. “
Traditionally, brokers have charged sellers six to seven percent of the home’s sales price. A typical
seller can pay up to $14,000 to a real estate broker to sell a $200,000 home. Flat fee brokers on the
other hand offer a menu of individual services. The most popular service with the “For Sale By
Owners” is the flat fee MLS listing. For a few hundred dollars the seller can advertise their home on
MLS, the same place a traditional broker would advertise their home.
The number of flat fee brokers has started to grow rapidly since the FTC began putting pressure on
local MLS boards to allow competition to exist between flat fee and traditional brokers. “There are a
dozen flat fee brokers in almost every major market.” says Frank Van Bree, of soldbyme.com, a
website developed to assist the do-it-yourself home seller. He says “Besides giving sellers a place to
list their home for free, the site provides a directory of flat fee brokers around the country and the list
is growing at an alarming rate”.
Mr. Sommerville says that traditional real estate companies are resisting the changes in the industry.
“They steal our signs and destroy our marketing materials” he says, “They hate that we offer the MLS
for less than what they can offer”. He adds “Most traditional agents provide valuable service and have
nothing to worry about, but if all they can offer a client is the MLS for tens of thousands of dollars, then
they should consider a different career.”