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Fizbomap.com Makes Idaho Statesman Headlines!
Posted by Matt Newbill in For Sale by Owner, News on October 1st, 2006
Fizbomap.com made it’s official debut in Saturday’s (9/30/06) Idaho Statesman. Check it out below…(courtesy of Idaho Statesman).
Online realty service adds homeowners looking to sell
Web site for homebuyers now allows homesellers to post their offerings
Six months ago, Genius Realty co-founders Heinrich Wiebe and Matt Newbill unveiled geniusrealty.com, a local Web site that gives potential Treasure Valley homebuyers access to information that historically has only been available to real estate agents. This week, they launched fizbomap.com for homeowners who want the help of an agent, without paying traditional real estate commissions.
Geniusrealty.com gives people looking to buy a home access to data on the Intermountain Multiple Listing Service. What does Fizbomap.com offer?
Wiebe: It’s a for-sale-by-owner service. Real estate people can be helpful in selling those homes. Most of the sellers realize that and would pay a commission to an agent if the agent brought them a buyer. Fizbomap.com opens the way for them to communicate that to all real estate agents in the Treasure Valley by placing the seller’s information on the MLS.
Can’t a seller post their own information on the MLS?
Newbill: No. The only way you can get a property listed on the MLS is through a real estate brokerage. Fizbomap.com can do it, because it’s a division of Genius Realty.
So what happens when Fizbomap.com posts a seller’s information?
Newbill: All area brokerages are members of MLS, which is the central database that holds all the information about area homes for sale. Every brokerage gets an updated list every day. So a real estate agent with a client that’s looking for a house like yours will see it.
Is there any commitment if the agent contacts the seller?
Wiebe: The seller is still representing themselves, but they’re offering a commission to real estate agents to bring them a buyer. But the the commission is 100 percent negotiable. Agents generally earn 2 to 3 percent (of the sale price). But with fizbomap.com, you get to pick the commission you would pay that agent. It could be $1, or 1 percent, or a dollar amount.
What if you only offer 1 percent — where is the inducement for the agent to bring you a buyer?
Wiebe: There isn’t much inducement to the agent. But the benefit for the seller is that now their property is being distributed through the Multiple Listing Service. It’s full market exposure, while leaving you in control of the sale of your home.
How else do you advertise a for-sale-by-owner?
Wiebe: It’s also going to land on all of the Web sites that display real estate data, like geniusrealty.com and realtor.com. We will post your information on all these site automatically, so that you’re communicating your message about your property to all those people, instead of having to go to all of those sites individually, plus paying to be on the MLS, plus paying for print magazine ads.
All you have to do is decide what you want to offer an agent to bring you a buyer. If you’re looking for a home, and you’re looking at these sites and see this home that looks like the home you’re looking for, then buyer and seller come together.
Whether or not a real estate agent is in the middle depends on the need of the buyer. If the buyer wants to have an agent represent him, he says, ‘Hey, Mr. agent, I want to go buy that house.’ The agent may say, ‘I don’t work for 1 percent, I work for 3 percent.’ You can go find another agent, or go to the seller directly.
Right now you could go to craigslist.org you could look under real estate and probably find 20 homes in the Boise area that has been posted by an agent or a seller. There is also propsmart.com, edgeio.com and oodle.com and googlebase.com. So this technology enables you to get some traction with potential buyers.
Agents can’t be thrilled about a service that potentially takes then out of the middle of a transaction?
Wiebe: They should be. This was a for-sale-by-owner to begin with, which means agents wouldn’t have known about it anyway. They wouldn’t have known that they could earn a fee if they have a buyer for that property. It’s a product they previously were not entitled to sell and make money off. Now, all of a sudden, it’s gone into the inventory of homes they can sell.
We used this process to post a $650,000 for-sale-by-owner. An agent that had a buyer didn’t know about it until it showed up on the MLS. That agent, who had been struggling to find the right home for a buyer, made 3 percent on the sale.
What does the service cost?
Newbill: There a one-time setup fee of $399 and a monthly fee of $99, which involves putting the home on the MLS, getting it posted on all those other sites, yard sign with flyers, a phone rider on the yard sign with your phone number so that people who might want to buy the house will call you, not us.
Or for $899, your home is included in our monthly Fizbomap Magazine that’s going to start appearing in 20 Albertsons in the Treasure Valley. beginning Nov. 1.
You also get a standard industry electronic lockbox, and an e-mail campaign where we send a monthly e-mail to agents in the Valley that says ‘here are some new properties to take a look at. If you have a buyer, call the owner.’
Fizbomap.com also will have its own virtual tour product like you find on a real estate company’s Web site. But you can’t obtain a virtual tour of your home, unless you’re working with an agent. There are no services out there that will supply a virtual tour to a for-sale-by-owner. The site will also eventually have a map feature.
Are you seeing more people trying to sell their own own home? And why?
Wiebe: I think we’re seeing it more, yes. I think it’s because of the frustration related to the runup in housing prices and the amount of service they get from a realtor. They feel like they pay too much in real estate fees to get the job done. As the market slows, and prices begin to come down, I think we’ll see more homes for sale by the owner.
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