By Ben Caballero
If you tuned into the Indy 500 this year, you may not have noticed that all the cars are the same, even though they look different. The colors and sponsor logos disguise this fact.
The chassis? Standard. The tires? Firestone only. Engines? You get a choice: Honda or Chevy, and both crank out about 750 horsepower. Even the fuel is the same. Ethanol.
That means the race doesn’t come down to what kind of car you’re driving.
It comes down to the team behind the car, the strategy that powers it, and the driver’s performance, which brings it all together.
That’s precisely how the MLS works for production builders.
The MLS is like the Indy car. It’s a powerful tool that every builder has access to. But the difference comes down to who’s managing your listings, your MLS listing strategy, and who is inputting every listing.
Because behind every winning race team, there’s more than a fast car. There’s a smart crew, a well-planned strategy, and a good driver.
While MLS listings can’t win a race, they can increase a builder’s bottom-line. How a builder uses the MLS is the great differentiator.
That’s where HomesUSA.com fits in.
Think of us as the ultimate pit crew with the most experienced race engineers who know how to deliver peak performance.
There are reasons no brokerage or team surpasses HomesUSA.com in new home sale achievements: Nearly $28 billion in sales since 2004, with more than 68,000 total sales. A record-setting $3.93 billion last year alone and backed by the most experienced admin team in the MLS listings world.
And the driver for this business? That’s SpecDeck. Purpose-built for speed and precision, it carries out the strategy, listing after listing, with consistency no manual system can match.
More importantly, it helps HomesUSA.com deliver an average ROI for 240% to its 70 home builder clients.
Manual MLS input can’t deliver an ROI of 240%
Let’s say you’re a builder with an inventory of 50, 100, or even 200 homes. Now imagine each MLS listing requires more than 20 changes during its life cycle, from status changes and price adjustments to feature updates, current photos, availability, and incentives.
Can your agent or in-house coordinator catch every change on every listing? On time? Every time? Error-free?
That’s like trying to win with no pit crew, no radio, and no telemetry. You can get on the track, sure. But you won’t be achieving your goal.
In addition to the average ROI of 240%, builder Days on Market are reduced by an average of 14 days and for as much as 40 days.
A flat fee that’s highly affordable
Most importantly, HomesUSA.com charges a flat fee for every listing – with no hidden charges. This one-time cost per listing for the entire life of the listing, from the property’s first availability to its sale, covering an average of more than 20 updates and status changes for a new home posted on the MLS.
This generates an average commission savings for builders from increased direct buyer traffic of $700 to $2,500 per home, depending on the home’s sale price. For most HomesUSA.com builder clients, that equates to saving tens of thousands of dollars monthly.
As the only automated platform of its kind, SpecDeck helps builders maximize the MLS. It is purpose-built for speed and precision listing after listing with consistency a manual system cannot match.
The MLS is powerful, but only with the right strategy, team, and tools
The MLS is not a compliance box to check to get a home listed and move on. That would be like saying the Indy car is just a fancy way to get around a circle 200 times.
Listing in the MLS isn’t a one-and-done exercise: for maximum exposure to agents that sell 86% of all homes. It is an ongoing, strategic process that SpecDeck automates and manages for you.
The bottom line is for maximum results, builders must maximize the MLS as it is the single most powerful marketing engine for new homes.
Success requires your data to always be accurate, current, and that requires active management.
That’s what SpecDeck does.
SpecDeck isn’t just a tool for entering listings. It’s how builders can stay competitive in a market where accuracy, speed, and consistency matter.
It delivers the metrics reports builders need to measure performance. SpecDeck provides the detailed insight that sales, marketing, and executive teams need for better inventory management.
When paired with a structured process and oversight, like the kind HomesUSA.com delivers, SpecDeck helps ensure listings don’t just go live, they perform better throughout their entire lifecycle.
SpecDeck is an automation machine
SpecDeck is the only automated MLS listing and marketing platform built exclusively for production builders. It doesn’t just get you on the track. It can be the difference between winning and not winning.
Here’s how:
- Automation accuracy: More than 50 built-in validations ensure every listing is correct, consistent, and current.
- Real-time updates: Pricing, availability, and status changes are instantly updated across your MLS and third-party platforms.
- Lead routing: Organic Buyer inquiries come straight to you, not to an agent who may have other priorities.
- Eliminating errors and giving builders more control: Manual input is prone to mistakes. SpecDeck eliminates human error and keeps your listings running at peak performance.
Ask our 70 builders who use SpecDeck about the value it delivers to them every day.
They will tell you SpecDeck more than pays for itself – and then some.
The builders who get the most from the MLS are the ones who treat it like a performance platform – not just a checklist. A good team today must have an automated system, which makes all the difference in performance.
Those builders will be the first to see the checkered flag.
You can schedule a demo of SpecDeck here AKA more sales.
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Ben Caballero, founder and CEO of HomesUSA.com, is America’s top home seller and a three-time Guinness World Records title holder. From 2004 to 2023, he sold over 68,000 new homes totaling $27.786 billion. Ranked No. 1 by RealTrends every year since 2013, last year, Ben sold 7,722 homes worth $3.927 billion.
