This episode details a first-time experiment with flat fee MLS listing on a higher-priced property, revealing the actual commission structure (1.25% listing fee plus standard buyer agent commission), service quality that exceeded expectations, and critical legal requirements around earnest money deposits that even experienced investors miss.
Key Takeaways:
- Total Commission Still 4-5% Flat fee MLS isn’t radically cheaper—you pay roughly 1.25% listing commission plus 3% buyer agent commission, versus typical 6-10% total, with a $350 upfront fee and $1K minimum at closing.
- Contracts Need Nominal EMD Even with option fees, contracts aren’t legally binding until actual earnest money (typically $10) reaches title’s escrow account—a technical requirement that prevents premature pending status.
- Agent Quality Varies by Tier Higher-tier flat fee services provided unusually responsive support with legal review and lead forwarding, potentially making the model viable in areas with questionable traditional agent options.
Listen to the full episode to understand when flat fee MLS actually makes sense for your deals.
(Podcast transcript below)
Hi, welcome to Get Serious. So today I just wanted to go over a few notes on a flat fee MLS listing. So I know a lot of folks have had success using that strategy. So this might be old hat for some of you, but up until this one transaction or not transaction, but rather a property that it seemed like a worthwhile experiment for a number of reasons. I won’t get into for the
the purpose of this video. you know, we hadn’t ever explored that route before. It’s always just been, you know, traditional listing process, you know, expecting a total commission of roughly, six to 10 % depending on the area of the country and what brokerage, you’re, working with. so like the whole purpose of the flat fee listing is to
handle more of the inbound potential buyers directly in-house and kind of the exchange is that you pay less from the listing agent side. But it’s really not that different. So for this particular property that we were working with and it’s a pricier
price your property and figured, okay, if we’re going to do this flat fee thing, like just sign up for the highest level of services, not like much different, right? It’s like, you know, one time fee of 350 versus $300 for a top tier plan. like who, who really cares? I guess if you’re doing like, you know, really tiny properties where that might affect margin more, but you know, for, us, it was no problem. I think it might’ve affected the, uh,
percent the percent paid to over the listing agent is who manages the flat fee listing because I guess that’s how it works. it think, okay, flat fee listings is you’re not, or, know, it’s in a for sale by, by owner and FSBO type, setup, but it’s, it’s actually not because you, because you have to be listed on the MLS. Like there is an agent representing, the listing. So,
At least the one that we found out there was a flat fee just to start the listing, but then there, I want to say it was a point and a quarter, to, get charged as commission with like a minimum of a thousand bucks, to be paid at the point of, closing. So that’s just something to keep in mind. I think the lower tiers, the.
commission percentage went up a little bit higher. I think that was the trade off. I kind of forget here, but either way, like, you know, typically you’d be looking at, you know, three plus percent, three to 5 % from the listing agent side. But the thing is, like, you’re still assuming there’s buyer agents active in the area. You’re still going to be paying a buyer agent too. So you’re basically again, baking in probably at least 3 % on the, you know, exit.
plus whatever point in the quarter or minimum fee associated on the listing agent side. So it’s not that different from a normal listing process, but we’ve got some additional bonuses and extra support based on the tier that we chose. And I’ve actually been quite pleased with the service there.
because first off the listing, I mean, you would think, okay, yeah, flat fee agent, just kind of like, you know, gonna be totally non-responsive. They’re just there as basically a figurehead and you manage the listing, but this is actually one of the better realtors, like even, you know, more responsive than a number of listing agents that we’ve worked with in the past. So, yeah, I don’t know if it’s just.
you know, this person in general or like from the higher level of service that we got, but like, okay. And this guy’s like head of his brokerage and everything too. Like a lot of experience, a lot of legal experience. So it was just pointing things out on contracts, like happy to review, you know, all offers and so forth on how to kind of make sure that you’re not getting screwed over. You know, even us being veterans in the business, like it always helps to have an extra pair of eyes, especially if you’re.
possibly in a new jurisdiction or what have you. So to me, like the trade off is pretty solid there. So really the only thing that’s changed is kind of managing the buyer leads that come in. So I’m actually more open to doing that, like especially in an area, if you have a really solid realtor, especially one you’ve worked with before, or you can already just tell, they’re like super responsive, there’s gonna be no issue. But if you have some,
know, key questions in an area for property that you’re buying. it might be worth exploring more of that flat fee setup where it’s like, I, just, I don’t know if I can trust any of the realtors in this area to be like super responsive here. And you want to manage more of the handling of, of, buyer leads. but the way that it’s oriented is that it’s typically an agent remarks that you are listing, you know, whatever your company’s.
phone number is or what have you. like that’s supposed to be directing agents who are looking at the MLS to reach out to you directly instead of whoever is managing the listing for you. But in practice, like the leads that we already have been getting on this, know, most of them are still going directly to the agent managing the listing because like that’s the most publicly available and you know.
People are lazy, right? So they’re just gonna go after what is most visible there. But the kind of game plan is, okay, then that listing agent, just automatically text or email to whoever these leads are directly to us, as soon as they come in and we just deal with them. So it’s kind of a handoff there from that perspective. they might say, handle a couple of questions going back. So again, like the difference in service is not…
too different from just the full listing agent process. Cause then we’re like paying fairly similar dollars from a commission side. And you know, they’re still doing a decent amount of work here. So I thought it was going to be much more hands off from like the listing agent side compared to what we’ve experienced so far, but that might just be this particular platform, this particular tier. So.
Uh, you know, either way, like, even if you think, oh yeah, flat feet, you’re just gonna be managing everything. Uh, you know, you still are kind of reliant on that listing agent to be responsive to at least send you leads. So you’re still kind of stuck with that being a, um, hurdle to get over. Uh, even if your info is kind of directly included within the agent remarks there. So.
Yeah, we did get a couple folks reach out directly to us. But for the most part, people were going to the listing agent that had forward over to us. But yeah, just something to keep in mind. Like I’m pleased with the experience so far. I was kind of confused on how it worked when I saw why is there an agent assigned to us? I thought like my info is just going to be on that. But, you got got clarified once we already committed to doing it this route.
So just something to bear in mind if you haven’t tried that scenario again to summarize like yeah, if you’re in an area where you think the realtors are more questionable or not like a lot of land focused realtor options, then yeah, consider a flat fee arrangement to go after. you if you just have a solid listing agents, a lot of land being traded, you you probably just use the typical route.
unless you really want to handle a lot more Dispo related calls internally within your business, which isn’t a bad idea in a market like this when you’re going to be super, super incentivized to get a deal done in a difficult market. But something else to note too, just on contracts, because we had another contract that had
an EMD and an option fee. Well, actually it just had an option fee set up on it. Not an EMD, but the, again, the listing agent for this flat fee was just like super legally minded and was just helping us. And he’s like, hey, there actually does need to be a nominal EMD at least to like, can’t just be a pure option fee. So we had to switch that around to where.
you know, what’s the general nominal amount like $10. So we just swap that and like, okay, that’s the only way to make it legally binding. And I was just not aware before either that, you know, even if we execute a contract, like if the EMD or option fee is not. Received by title and you know, in their escrow account, like the contract is not legally binding.
either and so you can’t legally update a live listing to pending until that is done. So this might just be a know, jurisdictional thing depending on what state that you’re in here but I was not aware that we’d been doing this a long time here too which is again, you learn something new every day and you know, usually we’re not like too deep into the particulars of
you know, contract nuance and so forth. And again, we tend to work, you know, pretty much all the time with, with, agents, who are handling kind of, make, making sure we’re addressing everything, properly going back to title companies and so forth. And, know, some folks are going to be looser than, than others here, but I’m glad to always have somebody, on our side, who is just like to the letter of the law that this is what makes things legally binding or not.
And hey We’re here to kind of look out for you. You signed up for the service is what you’re paying for So might as well use it properly because yeah, I was just you know, sending out a contract With you understand with the Belief that it was going to be binding even if it was signed in and so forth, but you know, it just wasn’t without that money coming in so Just something to to note there
If you’ve ever been in that situation and like, yeah, you might be missing some nuance, so that just helps to have another professional take a look at what you are doing and whether you can be potentially more legally protected or not in case something goes wrong with a particular deal at hand. So just wanted to share that extra little tidbit there.
but, yeah, been a pretty interesting experience going through this flat fee. I would probably repeat it again, based on what I said earlier. So, let me know if you have any other thoughts or suggestions, in the comments here, you can always message me directly. but hopefully this one was helpful today, SeriousLand.Capital. Any of your funding needs, Land Daily Diligence Facebook group just, had a good session yesterday, crazy property in California that,
Uh, very tough nut to crack for valuation side. We saw a property that’s listed for, think, $117 million. I’ve never seen a property listed for nine figures before. I mean, it’s been sitting for 400 some odd days on them. Like who buys that? Right. There’s maybe a handful of institutional buyers in the world that can purchase something like that. Um, it’s, it’s, I, I’ve never seen, I don’t even know if I’ve seen anything more than like half that amount. Those are usually like.
you know, 20,000 square foot billionaire homes on, you know, a ski slope or something like that. You just don’t see real estate of any kind that reaches those type of numbers there, or maybe some like these data center plays, but even that, you know, nine figure raw land purchase, like it’s just wild. So that one was kind of interesting. Again, learning new stuff, we’ve seen a lot, but I’ve never seen that before.
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