The Inside Scoop on 'Life Of The Listing' Plans

Let's say you're a residential real estate professional with 7 listings and are extremely busy. So, you're considering outsourcing the showing scheduling process so you can focus on all the things you want to do to market your listings.

With all that on your plate, you may feel like you don't have time even to research the various appointment center services available and who offers what, so you may go with what someone else in your office uses. That can be a winning strategy ...
a referral from someone you know.

You'll still need to educate yourself on pricing plans, levels of service, hours of service, reports, seller interaction, etc., but all in all you're ready to get started.

Life of the listing
One common program vendors offer is called 'life of the listing', meaning the showing service will schedule showing appointments on that listing until you sell it. That might sound good vs. a program whose terms indicate the service is for one year. But in reality, 'life of the listing' is really just a play on words. In today's market, with the average number of days on market hovering around 4 months*, you wouldn't be likely to carry a listing very long.

Pay as you go
Another program is to pay for the service month by month until your listing sells. In reality, this is equivalent to a 'life of the listing' plan. And, in many cases, if you do happen to have a listing on the market for more than a year, you'll pay the same with both programs. Also, most programs will allow your total inventory of listings to fluctuate (add two new listings, sell three, etc.), so your price will depend on your listing count on each monthly billing cycle.

Compare apples to apples
When you evaluate different pricing plans, different vendors and what level of service you'll receive (Is feedback included? How late are they open? Can you confirm appointments via text? Do they brand confirmation emails with your photo & your company logo?), be sure to think about the pricing and make time to do a proper comparison. Pay for exactly what you need to sell your listings quickly and efficiently.
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* In its 'Monthly Housing Summary' report released Feb. 14, 2013, Realtor.com surveyed 146 markets in the U.S. to arrive at the 'Median Age of Inventory' of 108 days (down from 111 days in the Jan. 24, 2013 report), or approximately 3.6 months.

** Here is an interesting Q & A between a seller and a Realtor about 'DOM', or days on market (thanks to Trulia for posting this):

Q: What is the average days on market?

A: This TOTALLY depends on the house, condition, price, marketing, current market conditions … AND your Realtor. Homes that are prepared well, priced competitively AND marketed well have a habit of disappearing off the market very quickly, regardless of current market conditions. The better a home is prepared AND the better it is priced, the better a “deal” it appears to be thus more attractive to buyers. In fact, these homes can quickly garner multiple offers and be off the market in a few days.

Sellers always ask me what my DOM ratio is – it’s really a worthless number. I tell my sellers, “Quite frankly, that depends on YOU.” As an example, if I have a non-FHA approved condo in poor condition and a seller who is unwilling to price it correctly … it could be there a long time no matter how aggressively I market it. Using the DOM as an evaluation of my abilities as an agent would be worthless in this case. On the other hand, if I work with an extremely motivated seller who understands the basics, lets me prep the property to the max and prices below the market – I look like a genius with an extremely low DOM number. Again … in light of the overall market – a meaningless number.

IF, however, your home has been sitting on the market a long time, DOM can be used to identify that the property has some issues, could be priced too high … etc. In that case, DOM actually has value – not for the market as whole, but for that particular property.