Listing agreement
A listing agreement is the agreement between the listing brokerage and the owner (seller of a property) giving the Realtor, on behalf of the Brokerage, the authority to market the property for sale.
There are two common types of listing contract these would be, an exclusive agreement and a multiple listing service (MLS) agreement. Before deciding which is right for you there are some factors to consider.
An exclusive listing gives the right to the agent to to sell the property exclusively to their clients.This may be of interest if the seller is no rush to sell the property and wishes to keep the sale 'quiet'. As no other agents are involved in the selling process This limits the number of potential buyers from the clients of over 3,000 agents (at the end of 2009) to one agent. Marketing a property under this type of agreement is challenging as you can only target those buyers who are unrepresented. An exclusive listing will not be placed on the MLS system, this being the place where most buyers and their agents look for and find properties.
MLS or multiple listing agreement will allow your home to be placed on the multiple listing service or MLS. This is a listing service that is used by Realtors and the public to find properties for sale. It is maintained by the Edmonton Realtors association and provides information on all sales and listings. This in turn provides Realtors with up to date information needed to give clients the best advice.The statistics derived from this service provide us with the numbers that the Realtors association publishes every month. Because there are no hard and fast statistics for the sales of exclusive listings, the ratio of MLS to exclusive listings is hard to pinpoint however I suspect the the number to be very high.
The competitive market place means that buyers and sellers benefit from from the advantages of the MLS system. The advantage of an exclusive listing are that the sale can be kept quiet. Some home based businesses can be adversely effected if clients of the business are aware of the sale and feel unsure of it's future. There can also personal reasons for not wanting to put the sale of a home in the public arena.
While the use of either approach to listing your property benefits from the skill, knowledge and expertise of a professional Realtor, without the use every tool to gain every advantage in a very competitive market place you are limiting your ability to reach the full financial potential of your property.