Selling your home for sale by owner in Brooklyn has never been easier. Brooklyn used to be a nightmare for NYC home sellers trying to figure out the extremely opaque real estate industry and sell their homes without a traditional broker.
The difficulty in selling FSBO in Brooklyn was compounded by the fact that there were multiple, competing multiple listing services and inter-brokerage databases in the borough. However, the various inter-brokerage listings databases have consolidated in recent years. Depending on which part of Brooklyn you live in, your home will be covered by the RLS (REBNY Listing Service), the Brooklyn MLS or both.
REBNY is the largest broker trade association in the New York City area with over 16,000 members. It is headquartered in Manhattan and completely dominates that borough and has expanded to cover significant parts of Brooklyn, Queens and even the Bronx. The largest NYC brokerages headquartered in Manhattan are all REBNY members and as they expand deeper into other boroughs, it's only natural that they start to overlap with the smaller multiple listing services like the Brooklyn MLS.
The Brooklyn MLS is still relevant for deeper, south-eastern areas of Brooklyn. However, since both REBNY and the Brooklyn MLS automatically syndicate their listings to StreetEasy, the listings of both associations have become much more mutually accessible.
Here are a couple of the most important tips for selling your home for sale by owner in Brooklyn:
Don’t save money on photographs for your home
As a For Sale By Owner seller in Brooklyn the last thing you want to do is be frugal when it comes to home photography. Photographs will be the first thing most buyers see and grainy, low quality photographs taken from your cell phone camera will only turn away buyers to skip to the next listing. High quality, professional real estate photography is the smallest and simplest investment you can make to spruce up your listing. Keep in mind that the 96% of professionally marketed for sale by agent listings in NYC which you’ll be competing against will all have beautiful professional photos.
Make sure your home is listed in RLS and StreetEasy
In NYC, the largest real estate broker association is REBNY (Real Estate Board of New York). They operate an inter-broker database similar to the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) in other regions of the US. This NYC broker database is called RLS (REBNY Listing Service) and is widely used by most brokerages in Manhattan, Brooklyn and even Queens. While it is true that there is a separate Brooklyn MLS just like there is a Manhattan MLS, most large NYC brokerage firms only subscribe to REBNY in order to keep their costs down. Moreover, the Manhattan MLS has failed to gain traction because most of the large brokerages in NYC have declined to sign up.
The difficulty in selling FSBO in Brooklyn was compounded by the fact that there were multiple, competing multiple listing services and inter-brokerage databases in the borough. However, the various inter-brokerage listings databases have consolidated in recent years. Depending on which part of Brooklyn you live in, your home will be covered by the RLS (REBNY Listing Service), the Brooklyn MLS or both.
REBNY is the largest broker trade association in the New York City area with over 16,000 members. It is headquartered in Manhattan and completely dominates that borough and has expanded to cover significant parts of Brooklyn, Queens and even the Bronx. The largest NYC brokerages headquartered in Manhattan are all REBNY members and as they expand deeper into other boroughs, it's only natural that they start to overlap with the smaller multiple listing services like the Brooklyn MLS.
The Brooklyn MLS is still relevant for deeper, south-eastern areas of Brooklyn. However, since both REBNY and the Brooklyn MLS automatically syndicate their listings to StreetEasy, the listings of both associations have become much more mutually accessible.
Here are a couple of the most important tips for selling your home for sale by owner in Brooklyn:
Don’t save money on photographs for your home
As a For Sale By Owner seller in Brooklyn the last thing you want to do is be frugal when it comes to home photography. Photographs will be the first thing most buyers see and grainy, low quality photographs taken from your cell phone camera will only turn away buyers to skip to the next listing. High quality, professional real estate photography is the smallest and simplest investment you can make to spruce up your listing. Keep in mind that the 96% of professionally marketed for sale by agent listings in NYC which you’ll be competing against will all have beautiful professional photos.
Make sure your home is listed in RLS and StreetEasy
In NYC, the largest real estate broker association is REBNY (Real Estate Board of New York). They operate an inter-broker database similar to the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) in other regions of the US. This NYC broker database is called RLS (REBNY Listing Service) and is widely used by most brokerages in Manhattan, Brooklyn and even Queens. While it is true that there is a separate Brooklyn MLS just like there is a Manhattan MLS, most large NYC brokerage firms only subscribe to REBNY in order to keep their costs down. Moreover, the Manhattan MLS has failed to gain traction because most of the large brokerages in NYC have declined to sign up.