The question arises again and again how many real estate agents one should work with in Florida in order to get a good overview of the available offers. The answer is simple: WITH ONE! This one is completely sufficient, as he has access to ALL properties. Here the brokerage and real estate system differs drastically from that in Germany or other countries. Every estate agent has his own sales orders on offer, which he markets and tries to sell - should he acquire a buyer, the entire commission belongs to him; so far no difference.
In the U.S.A. it is generally the case that a broker can join a brokers' association by paying an annual additional fee. Part of this is to follow a rather strict professional code. By joining and swearing in, the broker then calls himself REALTOR®. This distinguishes him from the "real estate agent", i.e. the normal broker. By joining, they automatically receive access to the so-called MLS - the "Multiple Listing Service", i.e. the listing platform. In the USA, real estate agents undergo a thorough training with the obligation to continue their education in this field every two years. US real estate agents have to pass a state exam.
This listing platform is a complex system that manages all the listings of a region in a database and passes the information on to search engines and other websites. Every Florida real estate agent who receives a sales order from a customer naturally wants to bring it to a conclusion quite quickly in the interest of the customer and also out of his own interest. And here comes the difference: He puts the offer in the database and offers to give a part of the commission (usually half) to the agent who brings a buyer. Since an estate agent would rather sell a property in a short time for half the commission than have you in his portfolio for an indefinite period of time, almost all estate agents decide to put their offers in the database.
Thus, every broker who has access to the MLS system can view the entire inventory at any time, run automated evaluations for his clients and maintain a complete overview of the market. Therefore, it is also advisable to use the automated evaluations of the brokerage system and not to rely on the information from dozens of websites, some of which are incorrect or outdated and, above all, are not updated in a timely manner. As a result, the user is usually not up to date on the market situation; an offer that seems interesting and that one is dealing with may already be under contract; price reductions may be adopted too late and thus one falls behind.
In today's market and with the mass of interested parties, this is the first important step in getting your dream property. Minutes can decide the advantage, mean an accepted or rejected offer. That is why it is important to use the "mother of all systems and websites", the MLS system.
You define the criteria for the evaluations at the beginning and can also change them at any time afterwards. Everything is done conveniently by email on your personal website. Once the evaluation has been saved, the system sends you an email up to twice a day with new offers that have appeared and meet your desired criteria.
You can then simply save or discard them. Saved objects will then continue to be updated in your storage box, e.g. in the event of price reductions or if the house is taken off the market or sold.
This also makes it easier for you to discuss a property with your agent, as both have access to the same data source. Most importantly, you get ALL the information and details that the selling agent has stored in the system, whereas other websites for the most part only show an extract of the data. So all the agents work together to bring sellers and buyers together and are able to find or sell a property far more quickly. The network in Lee County includes about 3,500 active real estate agents, who in turn have potential buyers on their search lists. This means that hundreds of thousands of potential buyers and sellers are virtually in the MLS system.
So choose your estate agent and take into account that they all work exclusively on commission (paid by the seller). Therefore, please remain fair and only work with one. Otherwise, going two or three ways could bring up confusion, resentment and legal differences between the estate agents, as only one can complete the sale. If you don't get along with one agent or doubt their competence, find another.
