If you're looking into putting your Toronto condominium on the market so you can move to Santa Rosa, you've no doubt heard about the MLS. MLS has become something of a real estate buzz word lately, so you're going to need to be familiar with it if you want to have a hope of maximizing the sale price of your home. If you want your home to join the MLS listings, there are a few things you need to do. We can outline them for you here.
The MLS stands for Multiple Listings Service and it is essentially an online searchable database of all the residential or commercial properties in Ontario that are up for sale by real estate agents at any given moment. MLS databanks are generally limited to listings from a certain region (for example, Ontario) but are available to be searched by real estate agents from anywhere who may be acting on behalf of clients looking for investment properties or who want to move into the city.
As you may have guessed from the above description, MLS databanks are available only to realtors. You cannot post your home among the Toronto condo real estate listings on the MLS if you don't have an agent acting on your behalf. Though you can still search the MLS if you're not a real estate agent, you will need an agent acting on your behalf to contact the seller, arrange a viewing, and enter into negotiations to buy the property, as the seller will be represented by a realtor already.
Some people use the MLS to determine whether Remax Etobicoke or Royal LePage or another company would be best to list or help them buy a home. Others use it to see what their options are or to do research on the market prices of similar homes to their own. Either way, MLS databases are tremendously helpful, which is why many non-realtor agencies, such as Property Guys and Trulia, have created their own similar national internet-based listings databanks that are open to customers and the public.
Your Durham real estate agent should automatically put your home on the MLS as part of your selling strategy. If he or she has not, you should insist upon it to maximize your home's exposure. To list on the MLS, you will need to decide on a price, take a battery of exterior and interior photos, and exhaustively list the features your home has (type of heating system, number of bedrooms, etc) as well as include location and contact info.
|