Supply and demand, even if we didn’t take the university course Economics 101, it’s simple.
If you had a six-year-old lemonade stand, you would know that just having a sign on your stand isn’t as good a marketing tool as circulating flyers in yours and the surrounding neighbourhoods. Or, putting a notice on the bulletin board at Safeway. Or, taking out an ad in the newspaper.
You would know after six years that, if you’re going to sell your lemonade, you need to let people know. And that means more people than the ones next door who could see your sign. You had to “market” your product. Keeping it a secret never increases sales!
That’s why major companies spend millions of dollars on media and Internet campaigns — to make sure as many eyes as possible see their offering. Create demand, increase demand and you’ll increase sales and the value of those sales.
With real estate that means not just “mass exposure,” but selective targeted exposure to qualified buyers. Qualified buyers from all segments of the market: local buyers, out-of-town buyers, out-of-province buyers, out-of-country buyers, referrals and investors.
If you are a seller, you are by definition a part of the supply side. It doesn’t matter if you are a For Sale By Owner (FSBO), a builder, the trustee of an estate, listed exclusively or listed on the MLS®, you are the supply.
And to get the very best return on your home, you need the very best exposure. You need to control or influence the demand — in all markets — to drive-by buyers, to buyers working with real estate agents, to transferees, to investors and to Internet surfers. You need to get your property in front of as many eyes as possible.
Well, not quite!
You need to get your property in front of as many qualified eyes as possible!
That is the strength and superiority of the MLS® system. It exposes your home to unlimited qualified buyers, using full, complete co-operation among 1,100 REALTORS® locally, 83,000 REALTORS® in Canada, 1.2 million REALTORS® in the U.S. and untold numbers of professional real estate agents around the world, all of whom turn to mls.ca with their qualified buyers.
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the Canadian government, builders, lawyers, trustees, executors and financial institutions with foreclosures, all use REALTORS® for a reason — exposure and professional representation in a good market, bad market, or a “normal” market.
Economics 101,
supply and demand
Through MLS®, when demand is high (like now), sellers get the best exposure to a targeted market. When supply is high (if and when a correction occurs), the seller still gets maximum exposure to qualified buyers through the network of 1,100 local professionals each working with qualified buyers and the 83,000 REALTORS® across Canada who all working with buyers.
If someone is getting transferred here from Calgary, you can bet they are not coming to look for scattered FSBO signs. They are working with a REALTOR® and looking at professionally represented and insured MLS® listings.
Selling real estate goes beyond the three-Ps of a private sale: Put up a sign, Place an ad and Pray.
Use of Evaluating, marketing, legally-vetted standard forms, insurance, negotiating, post-closing due diligence, referral to experts to ensure parties are protected by all the services a professional real estate agent brings to the table. And, REALTORS® are held to a strict Code of Ethics and Standards of Business Practice that assures consumers of professional representation.
Anyone can put up a sign, place an ad and pray, but REALTORS® perform. And if they don’t, they don’t get paid!
Ask the private sale agents why it is they don’t charge their fee only after you sell your house yourself if it’s so easy? Why do they get paid up front? And when it doesn’t sell itself and you then list on the MLS® and it does sell, why don’t they offer a rebate?
MLS® worked for 24,000 families in Winnipeg last year. It is the best source of exposure for sellers, best source of product — houses for sale — for buyers in Winnipeg, in Manitoba, in Canada and in the world.
Is it working?
mls.ca generated 2.6-billion page-views in 2005, attracting 72-million visitors. On the commercial site, icx.ca had 1.8-million visitors and over 65-million page-views.
MLS® works. Bubble, correction, buyer’s market, seller’s market or balanced market, it doesn’t matter.
REALTORS® know the market.
REALTORS® are connected.
Consumers get maximum exposure in good markets, in bad markets and in normal markets when they get professional representation for buying or selling.
Get with the program.
Get a REALTOR®.
Get on MLS®.