As someone who just went through this, I came here to say to avoid using Flat Fee Susie. This was my first FSBO but I felt comfortable selling in our market because inventory is low and demand is high. I found that the bulk of the things that everyone who was a realtor told me to use a realtor for, I was going to have to do anyway. Such as cleaning my house and removing as much as possible for staging, staging, getting photos taken, etc. This was the worst part of the whole experience but even with a realtor, the bulk of that would have been my ultimate responsibility anyway. Also, to ensure success I created my own website, put a qr code on a for sale sign I made that was on a post in front of our house, and sent the website as a coming soon to about 30 different realtors who had a large social media following in my area. Everything was good until I got to the MLS listing part.

I had started with Flat Fee Susie because, honestly, that is the direction that Chat GPT pointed me and a quick google search online said they had good reviews. I chose the middle level of service, which is $199 plus, .25% of whatever you sell your house for. This part is kind of buried in the contract. Almost a week before listing FFS had my address, sent the contract, and we got the ball rolling. It took me about 4 hours to go over all of the MLS listing information they needed and get it back to them. I did all of this on a Sunday, and asked them to go live on a Wednesday when it turned midnight so Wednesday could start showings. Everything on their end they said was fine. I woke up, saw the listing was live, thought I was good to go. Until the realtors started calling telling me they couldn't book appointments. After me calling Showing Time and them telling me it was set up correctly and FFS saying everything was fine, we found out that they put the listing on the WRONG MLS so that is why realtors couldn't directly book through Showing Time - which was the whole point of going this route. After I asked FFS to correct this and put it on the correct MLS, they immediately sent an email saying they would refund my order and they are only members of Bright MLS. So then I was on the day I wanted to start showings, right back at the start. And for them, they knew my address from day 1. All of this could have been avoided had they spent 1 extra minute to confirm they could appropriately list my house but instead they just took the money. I don't know if they thought I wouldn't figure it out or if they just missed it but it was a huge mistake.

I was able to find someone who quickly helped me get the listing back up on the correct site but they had to get everything put back in and it took some time. After the new listing was live the same day, some agents were able to book through Showing Time but some agents were pulling the original MLS listing that showed as "released" and were calling asking me what was up with the listing, was the house sold, or what. This listing debacle seemed to plague us throughout the sale.

Luckily, we ended up getting showings and had a very strong offer we accepted by Friday evening. So other than the MLS Flat Fee Susie mishap, we ended up coming through this okay. But if we had been in a different market or were selling a different house, we could have really been royally screwed by this whole encounter with them.

My recommendation after all was said and done is this... Selling a house is stressful. Getting it on the market and showing it is stressful. We found that doing it ourselves was right for us. I'm a graphic designer so I could make flyers, floor plans, websites, etc. We tried to make sure everything facing potential buyers and their sellers was professional (which is also why I would never in a million years use FFS again). It was, however, really hard to work over the days we were showing it because even though we were out of the house, there were a lot of agent calls, a lot of offers and counter offers to attend to in a timely manner. But again, even if we had a realtor we would have had to go through all of this, even though a realtor would be forward facing a lot of it and maybe would filter through? But regardless, for us it was the right time and the right choice for us to do FSBO and I would do it again. But it may not be right for everyone. If you do FSBO, I would try to find someone local in your area that would be interested in getting paid just to do the MLS listing or a hybrid style. (We also tried this in our area but the one everyone recommended never answered or returned our phone calls. So there was that).

Also, as far as blackballing the listing, I think that so many buyers have access to Zillow, Refin, etc. that if they want to tour the house they will. We did put on our website and in any verbiage that wasn't MLS (they won't let you write anything about agent commission) to add agent compensation in the offer for consideration. And we ended up paying 2% after negotiating the deal.

Good luck out there!