Free MLS Listings No Realtor

I’ve written recently about our attempt to sell our home without a realtor using Iggyshouse.com.  We used them because we got a free MLS listing and a place to upload a ton of description and pictures.  Their site was down for a disturbingly long time in June and part of July but is back up for now.  The only reason I’m not blasting them is that our MLS listing stayed up the whole time.  Still, proceed with caution.

There was some confusion about the MLS listings caused mostly by the way MLS operates.  As a member of the general public, you can search MLS to your heart’s content, but you cannot directly contact the sellers.  MLS does not list the contact information on any publicly available view of MLS, only on the version that you have to pay for.  This is how MLS maintains its monopoly position and forces people to use realtors.  In fact, one of the warnings from Iggyshouse is that it is against MLS rules to use pictures that have any contact info on them (because then you wouldn’t need a paying subscriber to get a phone number).  So, your picture can’t have your phone number at the top.  It can’t even show the sign in front of your house if there is a name or number on it.

Part of MLS’s settlement with regulators was to open up some but not all of their information and this is one of the areas where MLS won.  So, if you know a realtor you can have them look at the professional’s view that they get and that will have your contact information. 

List on More Than Just MLS

This is why you have to post on some other sites if you want to get buyers who don’t have a realtor.  Craigslist is popular for this, but if you do use it, make sure and put a watermark on your pictures with the address, the sale price, the words “for sale”, and your phone number.  Keep it simple.  Just something like:

3273 Main St – For Sale – $450,000 – 555-555-2395

Scammers like to take the photos and descriptions from legitimate for sale ads and turn them into bogus for rent ads to trick people out of their money.  The watermark should keep them from bothering, or keep people from falling for it.

Also, update your information on Zillow, and on any other free real estate sites you can find.  I’m experimenting with a site called Postlets which supposedly pushes out what you put on their site to multiple real estate sites.  I’ll let you know how that goes.

Good luck.

 

BuzzNet Tags: real estate,MLS
Technorati Tags: real estate,MLS

1 thought on “Free MLS Listings No Realtor”

  1. The best way to sell your home for free and get the same marketing power as a real estate agent is to use richr.com – Richr.com allows any homeowner to list their home for free on the MLS. Homeowners get to keep more equity when using Richr because it cost nothing to list and the seller dictates the buyer’s commission. Feel free to contact me with any questions.

    Reply

Leave a Comment