Are Real-Estate Online Tools Shifting the Paradigm?

New Jersey home sellers have had to slash their prices by up to 25 percent. The New York Times cites a ranch that was purchased for $709,000 in July of 2005 had to be sold for $528,110 in the spring of 2008.

Gene Riede, a real estate agent in Sacramento, California, writes on how the market is "flooded with low-commission listings." Riede adds that many agents have left real estate or have started their own discount real estate brokerages.

In Westchester, New York, single-family home, condo, and co-op sales dropped by 25 percent in 2008. The median price of a home dropped to $570,000, "down 11 percent from the same quarter a year before," according to the NYTimes. Homeowners are bypassing real estate agents and listing their houses themselves online to avoid paying real estate agents a commission.

The Real Estate Marketing Report Card audits how well or how broad a reach to which a seller's real estate listing has been exposed. Is an increased use of the Web 2.0 Syndication Search and the For Sale By Owner tool a means for home sellers to save on real estate broker commissions?

Comments

[TheMadHedgeFundTrader]

In case you missed the business section of the San Francisco Chronicle, there is a fabulous graphic illustrating the hard times for the city’s commercial real estate market. The epicenter of the melt down is Tishman Speyer’s 556,000 sq. ft. 555 Mission Street, which opened in late 2008 during the worst possible market conditions, and remains 70% empty. What is really impressive is how bad the implosion of the legal profession is hitting landlords. The dissolution of Heller Ehrman has emptied 350,000 sq. ft. 333 Bush Street, while 388,000 sq. ft. 101 Second Street has been vacated by the dissolution of Thelen LLP. Conditions will worsen as more new buildings started during better times come on the market.

[LyleEMartin]

For years consumers mistakenly believed that they had to pay high commissions to enjoy the professional services of a REALTOR® and the benefits of Multiple Listing Service (MLS). We’ve being operating a ‘discount” brokerage model since 1987 and saved home sellers over 1 BILLION dollars compared to paying 6%. Now that equities have diminished and in many cases disappeared entirely, models like ours are gaining popularity. Maybe now consumers will “get what you pay for.” Value equal to the price paid. www.assist2sell.com

[martinchill]

online tools only help those capable of using the tools. having said that - yes, the internets are a means for home sellers to save on real estate broker commissions. agents are screwed.

we put our first home on the market on 9-10-01.

three months later, we declined to renew the contract with the agent and sold it ourselves.

we bought and sold the next one sans agent and used a Zip Realty agent to buy our third.

Zip is online-only. no offices.

check out trulia or redfin - house prices in palm springs are waaay down.....

[jsarets]

A median home priced at $570,000 financed over 30 years at 5% costs $36,000 per year excluding property taxes and homeowner's insurance. The median household income is $48,000 per year before income taxes. Housing prices are still very much in fantasy land. It takes three times the median income to afford the median home!