When a Kiwi home sells through the traditional model, somewhere between two and four percent of the sale price typically leaves the homeowner’s settlement cheque under the heading commission. Most homeowners never see the breakdown of what that money actually pays for. Once you do see it, the case for a flat fee marketing service like Market My Place becomes pretty hard to ignore. Here is a fair, plain language look at where commission usually goes, and what you are really paying for line by line.

The pieces hidden inside a percentage commission

A typical commission covers a few specific things. There is the time spent listing the home, taking calls, running open homes and presenting offers. There is the franchise fee paid back to the head office. There is a contribution to office overheads and brand advertising. There is sometimes a marketing levy on top, which pays for the photos, signage and online listings. The actual person you deal with usually receives a portion of what is left, sometimes as little as a third of the headline figure.

The result is that a $25,000 commission can be split many different ways before any of it reaches the work that helped sell your home. None of this is hidden, but it is rarely laid out in a way that lets a homeowner compare value clearly. When you take the same home and run the maths against a flat marketing fee, the comparison is suddenly very easy to see. The work that drives buyer interest, photos, listing, signage and online reach, can be packaged for thousands rather than tens of thousands.

What Market My Place actually pays for

Market My Place charges a single, transparent marketing fee. That fee pays for the photographer, the floor plan, the signage, the listing on the major property portals, and the social media campaigns. There is no franchise fee, no percentage commission, and no surprise marketing levy at the end. You see exactly what you are paying for. For most homeowners, the difference between the two models is the deposit on their next home.