Listing on the MLS? Say Goodbye to Your Equity!

The real estate industry knows how to sell houses. And it has become very good at making money doing it.
But there’s a question I think homeowners should be asking.
Is the system that’s most profitable for the real estate industry also the system that puts the most money in the seller’s pocket?
Those are two very different objectives.
I recently watched a Knowledge Brokers podcast with Byron Lazine and his colleagues. They were discussing the importance of real estate teams, lead generation, growing market share, and building successful businesses.
And these people are successful. They know how to sell houses. They’ve built businesses around doing exactly that.
I’m not questioning their ability to sell real estate.
I’m questioning whether the business model they’ve become so successful operating within is the best model for the people who own the houses.
Because at the end of the day, the seller wants two things.
Sell the house. Keep as much of the money as possible.
And I think we’ve lost sight of how simple that objective really is.

Let’s look at what happens when somebody decides to sell a house.
Before the property appears on Zillow, before it goes into the MLS, before a brokerage can advertise it, before an agent can generate a lead, there’s a homeowner with a house to sell.
That homeowner created the inventory.
And that inventory becomes the foundation of an enormous economic system.
We have MLS organizations, brokerages, property portals, lead-generation companies, referral businesses, advertising companies, data companies, and technology companies.
And somewhere in that process, the homeowner’s property becomes a source of revenue for a whole collection of businesses.
Now, I’m not suggesting all those businesses are unnecessary. Some provide valuable services.
But I am suggesting that the homeowner should be asking a question.
How much of this am I paying for, and how much of it do I actually need to sell my house?
Because the money supporting those businesses doesn’t simply appear out of nowhere.
Some of it comes directly from commissions and transaction fees. Other costs are absorbed into the economics of operating real estate businesses.
And ultimately, the transaction has to support those expenses.
That’s what I mean when I talk about the money in the middle.

On that Knowledge Brokers podcast, one agent described how five hundred dollars a month once bought her approximately twenty leads from Zillow.
Today, she said, that same amount wouldn’t even buy one.
Now think about what that means.
Real estate agents help supply the property inventory that attracts buyers to these websites.
Buyers go there because they want to look at houses.
And then agents may have to spend substantial amounts of money trying to connect with those buyers.
That’s a business model.
And apparently, a very successful one for some companies.
But is it the most efficient way to sell a house?
Does the seller need all that money changing hands just to connect a potential buyer with the property?
That’s the question I think the industry should be asking.

And it leads to an even bigger question.
Why do we assume that selling a house has to begin with hiring a real estate agent and entering the traditional listing system?
Now, I’m a licensed real estate broker in Florida. I understand what agents do. And I’ve spent much of my professional career helping agents market properties and build their brands.
Good agents provide real value.
They can help with pricing, negotiations, contracts, marketing, and navigating the complexities of a transaction.
But not every homeowner needs the same amount of assistance, and not every homeowner needs it at the same time.
What if the homeowner simply wants to begin by professionally presenting the house?
Why shouldn’t they be able to do that?
That’s one of the reasons I created Rethink Open House.

Imagine you’re a homeowner thinking about selling.
You could hire a media professional to photograph the property, produce a real walkthrough video, and create an online property experience on Rethink Open House.
The property owner controls whether that experience becomes public.
Buyers can see the house, understand the layout, examine the features, and decide whether it’s worth visiting.
That’s what we call the First Showing Online.
And notice what’s different.
The homeowner hasn’t necessarily hired a listing agent.
They haven’t committed to a full-service brokerage arrangement.
They’ve simply hired someone to help professionally present their property.
And now they have choices.
They can continue marketing the property themselves. They can hire an agent for representation. They can decide whether additional marketing or MLS exposure makes sense.
The point isn’t that everybody should sell without an agent.
The point is that the owner should have more control over the process and the services they’re paying for.

And this creates an opportunity for another group of people.
Photographers. Videographers. Creative professionals.
People who may have the ability to produce effective real estate media but don’t currently have a business serving real estate agents.
They could build a business helping homeowners create professional property presentations before those homeowners decide whether they need traditional representation.
That’s an opportunity that isn’t necessarily tied to the existing relationships between real estate agents and media companies.
And it’s also an opportunity for agents.
An agent can become involved when a homeowner wants professional representation. The property experience can help communicate what makes the house worth buying.
Instead of thinking about every property as an opportunity to generate more leads and collect more commissions, we can begin by asking what services actually help that owner sell the house.

Now let’s talk about something sellers deal with that I don’t think gets nearly enough attention.
The physical showing.
We talk about getting more traffic through a house as if that’s automatically a good thing.
More showings. More appointments. More people walking through the property.
But the homeowner has to live with that.
They have to clean the house. Prepare it for visitors. Arrange their schedule. Sometimes leave while strangers walk through their home.
And many of those people may decide within minutes that the house isn’t what they’re looking for.
Why couldn’t they have reached that conclusion before scheduling a physical visit?
That’s the premise behind Rethink Open House.
More money in your pocket. Less people in your house.
The goal isn’t to eliminate physical showings. The goal is to make them more productive.
Let buyers experience the property online first. Then let the people who are genuinely interested take the next step.

Now I know the obvious objection.
The MLS already brings property inventory together, and it has enormous reach.
That’s true.
In fact, I think having inventory in one place is one of the best things about the MLS.
But the MLS has that inventory because sellers and agents keep giving it the inventory.
That’s where its power comes from.
And that’s why I believe the industry could operate under a better model.
A model where the inventory is easy to find, but the presentation and professional relationships don’t have to become opportunities for unrelated businesses to insert themselves into the process.
A model where homeowners have more choice.
A model where professionals control their branding and direct connections.
And a model that doesn’t depend on generating more and more revenue from the businesses surrounding a property.
That’s what we’re building with Rethink Open House.

And I want to make one thing very clear.
We’re not asking every agent to abandon the MLS tomorrow.
Agents can use Rethink Open House alongside their existing marketing.
Homeowners can ask their agents to use it.
Media professionals can introduce homeowners and agents to the platform through the work they already know how to do.
That’s how a different model can begin to grow.
One property at a time.

I don’t believe every seller needs to pay for the same package of services.
And I don’t believe the fact that an industry has found a profitable way to operate means it’s necessarily found the best way to serve the people paying for it.
The seller’s goal is simple.
Sell the house. Keep as much of the money as possible.
Every service should have to justify how it helps achieve that result.
That’s what Rethink Open House is about.
It isn’t a promise that every homeowner will save money. It’s a different way of approaching the entire process.
Start with the property. Start with the owner. Give buyers a meaningful online experience. Let the homeowner decide what professional help is worth paying for.
The MLS has the inventory.
Rethink Open House has the better model.
And I believe it’s time to change where that inventory lives.

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