Australian Real Estate Sell/Rent your Perfect Home

Multi-listing, or a multiple-listing agreement, is an option open to sellers instead of the usual exclusive contract with a single agency.

Under an exclusive agreement, one agency handles the entirety of the sales process from start to finish – from marketing and open houses to auctions and/or negotiations with potential buyers.

A multiple-listing agreement sees you sign up with a single agent – (Multi Listing Real Estate Australia) but rather than the property being sold by just that agent, the listing is shared with other agents who are members of the multiple-listing network. Those agents can then market it to their databases, with (Multi Listing Real Estate Australia)the agent you sign with and the agent who sells the property sharing the commission. A BONUS incentive commission is applied if the property is sold above the listing price..

 A sole mandate per sé neither adequately serves the interests of the seller nor all the other parties involved. One of the major downsides of the sole mandate is the very fact that it is "exclusive" and lacks the MLS (Multi-Listing) element widely in use in the rest of the world.
 

The purpose of the MLS is to enable the efficient distribution of information so that, when a potential home buyer is introduced to a real estate agent, he or she (the agent) may be able to search the local MLS system and retrieve information about all homes for sale in a given area or price range, irrespective of whether under a listing contract by that agency or by all participating agencies. 

 A common practice, sometimes erroneously referred to as "multi-listing", is for sellers to offer an "Open Listing" of their property to a number of selected agencies. The objective being to "use" the estate agencies services and resources but without giving a written commitment to any one of them. In my opinion, the prevalence of what I refer to as the selected agency "Open Listing" strategy has, unfortunately, arisen due mainly to:
 

a) Overtrading in the Real Estate Industry, with the resultant profusion of agents and agencies. This situation led many agencies, desperate to build up adequate levels of saleable stock, to adopt the less professional approach of accepting and working "open listings".
 

b) Sellers taking advantage of this situation.
 

c) The failure of the Industry itself to establish effective MLS systems on a regional or national basis.

 A MLS "Multi-Listing" mandate, which is generally considered to be essential to the practice of real estate and is something very different to a selected agency "Open Listing". It is a written contract with one agency (Multi Listing Real Estate Australia) to market the home in terms of a marketing agreement, including listing the property on a national or regional database. This component allows "cooperative" selling by other agencies that are members of the MLS. Applied in this manner, multi-listing becomes an important value added component of the marketing plan.
 

The "listing" agency (Multi Listing Real Estate Australia) still has a written obligation to implement the other aspects of the marketing plan (exactly as it would in a sole mandate). In other words they (the listing agency) (Multi Listing Real Estate Australia) are contractually obliged to advertise, hold show days etc. The listing agency (Multi Listing Real Estate Australia) is also obligated to hold at least one MLS agency "open hour", where participating agencies are invited to view the property.
 

However, the difference between the MLS and sole mandate is that a participating member of the MLS may introduce a buyer to the property. If this results in a successful sale, the listing agency (Multi Listing Real Estate Australia) and the selling agency share the commission on a prearranged basis. If implemented widely and effectively in Australia, MLS would, in my opinion, have the effect of "levelling the playing fields" and ensuring that not only every property for sale is entered on a national or regional data base, but every agency had an equal opportunity to participate in the selling process by endeavouring to procure a suitably qualified buyer, thus fully harnessing the power of cooperative selling.

 

The right approach for both seller and professional agent is the Multi-Listing mandate. This will ensure that (Multi Listing Real Estate Australia) the (listing agent) will be responsible for guidance and counselling as to setting the asking price, preparing the home for sale, implementing and coordinating the marketing plan, weekly progress reports, "show house" host and visitor feedback, ensuring only financially "qualified" buyers are introduced to the property and scrutinising offers. Together with the written commitment and marketing plan is a "service guarantee" ensuring that the promised professional procedures are implemented and followed.