New system aims to unite independent home sellers

In an effort to preserve more of her equity, Jones was selling her home without a Realtor, but she was disappointed in the lack of visibility she had with the traditional “for-sale-by-owner” method.

Jones decided to create a different way of selling and formed the National Association of Home Sellers, which is now being launched in the Springfield market. It’s aimed at owners who are marketing properties on their own, but there’s a twist: Realtors also were welcome – and in fact, encouraged – to participate.

The National Association of Home Sellers’ key program works much like the multilist system that’s exclusive to Realtors. For a fee of $60, home sellers can post their home on the organization’s Web site, www.ex-ls.com, along with pictures and descriptions. Buyers can then peruse the listings, much like the Web sites of many real estate agencies.

“We noticed that the National Association of Realtors’ strength came from being a united source – everyone came together, put their listings in one source, and that was their portal,” Jones said. “For-sale-by-owner (homes) didn’t have that. The key component they were missing out on was that real estate agents … never knew that these houses were on the market, because they didn’t have an easy access source.”

The system

While there’s naturally some competition between Realtors and owners who are going it alone, one reason Realtors might want to get involved with Jones’ organization is to give clients more choices when it’s time to buy a home.

Jim Todd, co-owner of Family and Friends Realty, has signed on for the program, which costs Realtors $10 a month. He cites the advantage that the site doesn’t actively compete with traditional Realtors.

“Where other sites say, ‘Realtors, get out,’ this site simply recognizes that there are some people who are going to sell their own home. That’s fine,” he said. “This site recognizes that we’re not necessarily at odds with those people.”

John Heitz, a 40-year veteran agent with Re/Max House of Brokers, is not involved with the National Association of Home Sellers, but he said it could be helpful for some people.

“If you were going to sell your house by owner, this would definitely be an advantage over just putting a sign in the yard and trying to sell it yourself,” he said.

Jones said, however, that the site is more than a clearinghouse for home listings. Realtors who join NAHS get the ability to market the homes listed on the site in their own print or Web publications, because sellers sign forms when they join granting permission for their homes to be marketed.

“With all of those enticements, we thought the system would be advantageous for agents, nonthreatening for buyers, and for sellers, they would be the sole focus of the service,” said Jones, who operates the organization from Kansas.

Todd said the site will give him a better feel for homes that aren’t listed; about 3 percent of homes are sold by owners, according to National Association of Realtors research, and he said the NAHS Web site will allow him to glean information from what has generally been an unknown quantity.

“Those homes have not been available to use in comparisons and pricing before,” Todd said. “I think it’s just the next step – it gives us access to the information out of what had been a black hole for Realtors.”

The future

The plan for NAHS is ambitious. Jones said the association hopes to unveil the system to most of the country’s major metropolitan areas within the next 45 days. Springfield was chosen to launch the system because of its large contingent of for-sale-by-owner homes.

“Springfield has, according to our research, one of the largest for-sale-by-owner communities in the nation,” she said.

“We actually started looking in California, because of the population. The for-sale-by-owner community is there, but not as strong as in Springfield.”

The organization’s growth will have to come without major TV or radio marketing; because the site has no advertisements, the budget is limited.

Jones said the idea is to build the site’s notoriety through referrals of satisfied customers.

“We know that we have a big task ahead of us, but thanks to the Internet and our 1,000 members so far, we feel like we’re ready to start working this from the ground up,” she said, noting that members come from across the United States.

Realtor Heitz wasn’t sure that the highly competitive Springfield market is the best place to start a program of this type; he noted that the Springfield area has nearly 3,100 active real estate agents.

“ … I think that’s why something like this needs to be launched somewhere like Los Angeles or Orlando, where there’s a lot more (people) to choose from,” he said.

But Jones is optimistic about her plans for the association.

“If it can work in the Show-Me State, it can work everywhere,” she said.