How Do Buyers Contact Sellers on a Flat Fee MLS Listing?

1. Licensed Buyer Agents (Realtors)

Buyer agents search the MLS for homes matching their clients' needs. When they find your listing, they use the contact information provided in the MLS private remarks to call, text, or email you directly to schedule a showing or discuss an offer.

If your plan includes ShowingTime, agents can also request and schedule showings seamlessly through that system. This is the most direct and common path for serious buyers, since roughly 90% of buyers work with an agent.

2. Public Buyers on Portals (Non-Realtors)

When your MLS listing appears on Zillow, Realtor.com, Redfin, and other consumer real estate sites, the listing broker's phone number is typically displayed rather than the owner's phone number.

• Calling the broker phone number is the most direct path. For most residential listings, a buyer can use our automated phone system to enter the property's house number and be routed directly to you, the seller. For land listings, calls are typically routed using the ZIP code or MLS number.
• Using a portal's contact form or button—such as Zillow's "Schedule a Tour" feature—is different. Those forms and buttons are controlled entirely by the third-party site. Portals typically use them to generate and route buyer leads through their own networks, which often means directing the inquiry to a local buyer's agent rather than to you or the listing broker.

Third-party sites control their own page layouts, so the exact display and lead-routing features can vary.