MLS4owners.com is NOT related to Handspring Real Estate and has not taken over Handspring Real Estate. The Handspring URL has been re-directed to this address since December 20, 2009 in order to keep Handspring's customers informed.
Handspring Real Estate shutdown
In December 2009 Handspring Real Estate closed its doors, affecting approximately 200 sellers in the states of Washington and Oregon. These sellers had paid a fee to have listings activated in their local multiple listing service, but now their listing brokerage was gone. On December 11 Handspring called MLS4owners.com and asked if there was a way MLS4owners.com could help. For many reasons, we agreed to offer our services for up to one year to any interested Handspring customer who had an Active listing on the market as of December 20. We offered this service at no cost to anybody who had already paid Handspring for their advertisement. Those who wanted to accept the offer needed to act by December 31 and sign a new listing agreement (as is required by the multiple listing services in order to enter a property into their databases).
Why would we offer free help? That's a complicated question, and one we struggled with before making the offer. Even after spending hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars on the process, we are comfortable with our decision.
The Right Thing to Do
Handspring was not only collecting an upfront fee, but also in many cases saying that properties would be advertised indefinitely, for as long as it took to sell the property. Some properties had already been for sale for two years, and some had been on for just a few days. What they had in common was they had been promised a lifetime of advertising. While we think Handspring's offer was reckless, the fact is that many people signed on and they were left in the lurch. Helping those who wanted help seemed like the right thing to do.
A Disturbing Trend
This is not the first time a company has called us asking for assistance. 2010 is our tenth year of offering our self service realty program, and our customers have closed nearly $1 billion in sales and saved more than $35 million in commissions. Our product and service is tried, true, and transparent. Over the past five years many real estate companies have jumped into the market after witnessing our customers' success. Some have offered sensible programs and good customer service. Some thought they could sign up lots of customers by selling their services for less than it cost to provide the service, while striking it rich with investments by venture capitalists. Others have engaged in questionable tactics and offered irresponsible too-good-to-be-true promises to homesellers. Their behavior reflects poorly on everybody in our industry, and frankly we are tired of it. We don't want to be painted with the same brush. We hope helping the victims of Handspring's shutdown restores their confidence in the type of service companies like ours can offer.
Eliminating Confusion
MLS4owners.com is the actual company that provides the service. We are licensed in Washington and Oregon, and our operations center is in University Place, near Tacoma. We are active in state and local REALTOR associations, and we work closely with the multiple listing services and the Department of Licensing. However, there are other companies charging fees to Pacific Northwest sellers who are NOT the company providing the service, and who are not licensed in our state. They are national referral companies that attract website visitors, collect a fee and then assign the listing to a local real estate agent. In many cases they try to control the activities of those agents. In our experience the sellers are confused about with whom they are dealing. Should they contact the company to whom they paid their fee? Should they contact the agent? Should they contact the agent's broker? In our opinion companies that are not licensed in our state should not operate in our state. Some of Handspring's customers paid national referral companies for their listings, and they are confused and unhappy. We hope to eliminate some that confusion, not only for these sellers but also for those who hear their stories.
Good for Business
Of course, in the end a company stays in business only by doing things that are good for business. Even though Handspring's customers did not originally choose us, we hope they will remember us the next time they sell a home. We hope they will tell their friends and neighbors. We hope future sellers will educate themselves more completely about the options available to them, and we hope they will choose MLS4owners.com. If you are a past customer of a company that did not meet your needs (whether it was an out-of-state referral company or a flat fee company that promised more than it could deliver), you can learn more about the MLS4owners.com flat fee MLS service for Washington and Oregon.
The response of Handspring's former customers, over 100 of which accepted our offer, is gratifying and reminds us why we did what we did.
December 23, 2009
I really appreciate that you took the time to explain the difference to me; while I already knew the difference it shows that you care about your clients.
C.B., Portland OR
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December 24, 2009
Thank you for stepping in to help us out of a situation that [name deleted] knowingly put us into.
F.L., Tulalip WA
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December 26, 2009
Thank you so much for being there for us and taking over Handspring's listings.
M.M., Snoqualmie WA
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December 26, 2009
Thanks again for stepping up and handling this for all the customers like me.
J.A., Sultan WA
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January 4, 2010
Thanks for helping out so tremendously on this.
G.M., Sumner WA
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January 8, 2010
Thank you for doing a wonderful job on the new listing.
D., Olympia WA
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January 12, 2010
Thank you for your great service.
J.B., Rainier OR
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January 13, 2010
I have to tell you that your service is awesome. I have referred someone at my company to you.
C.B. Portland OR
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January 20,2010
Wow, you guys are great. Your help and communication superb. We have you bookmarked for future business. Bless you.
B.F., Carlton OR
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January 20, 2010
I sure appreciate your help on this.
A.T., Vancouver WA
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January 20, 2010
Thank you for contacting me by e-mail and phone. This tells me --you are a good company---and if I decide to sell my home in the future, I will contact you.
S.S., Camano Island WA
Letters from other customers
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