A Common Florida Home Seller Marketing Mistake: Not Using the Realtor’s MLS Properly

Florida- This MLS Mistake could cause the right buyer to never look at your home in the first place. The local Multiple Listing Service (MLS) is the first place an agent representing a buyer is going to look for homes for sale.

(The Multiple Listing Service, which I will call MLS for short, is the database of homes for sale that all realtors in a certain area share.)

When an agent has a buyer and their own homes for sale won’t fit that buyer’s needs, then they search the MLS.

If another agent has a home that fits that buyer’s needs, then they can sell the other agent’s listing.

In today’s market agents have a lot of homes to pick from. Ten, twenty, thirty, and sometimes even a hundred homes fit their buyer’s criteria. But, they will usually only show that buyer 5-7 homes at one time.

If these agents don’t pick your home from their MLS search, then you just missed a potential buyer. Here are a few reasons that certain homes get skipped over in the MLS search.

Reason #1: The main picture of the house is ugly or unattractive.

The agents are usually scanning thru lots of listings and don’t have time to look at all the pictures.

If the main picture is unattractive, then they will pass on showing the home.

Reason #2: The property is put into the MLS wrong.

For example, many MLSs have a search function for the size of the lot.

The agent puts in “0” acres for the lot size. The house will not show up when an agent searches for a lot size between “.5” acres and 1 acre.

Nor will it show up in any other search that has a specific lot size. This might not be a big deal if you don’t have a lot with a bigger than normal yard.

But, I can tell you from specific experience that this will hurt your sale if you have a larger than normal lot. There are many other MLS mistakes, but this is a specific example to show you how it can affect you.

Reason #3: You don’t price your home at $25,000 increments. 

Most buyers use $25,000 increments when searching online.

For example, they will search for a home priced between $200,000 and $250,000. If your home is priced at $250,000, then it will show up in multiple searches.

A $250,000 home will show up in a search for homes priced $200,000 – $250,000 and a search for homes priced $250,000 – $300,000.

This increases the likelihood of the right buyer seeing your home in the search results and therefore the likelihood of your home selling.

Thanks as always for reading this, Annett T. Block.

Annett is a Real Estate Broker at Florida Connects Incorporated.

Tallahassee Phone: (850) 364-3946

Fort Lauderdale Phone: (954) 586-3930

info@FloridaConnectsInc.com.

View My homes for sale at www.FloridaConnectsInc.com