REAL ESTATE Disrupting the MLS

[steelandchrome]

With all the news on lawsuits against agent fees and the MLS I figured that it would only be a matter of time before someone truly tried to disrupt real estate listings. Read this today and sounds like a pretty cool way to try and do this with the high end stuff at least. Curious how they plan to monetize it and if they will have negotiable fees etc..

The Pocket Listing Service

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[Sauce]

I think this will work for certain types of sales. Unfortunately, the best way to reach the widest market is via MLS.

The bigger disruption is (potentially) on this lawsuit.

What The Bombshell Buyer-Side Lawsuit Means For Realtors

 

[Red]

The 'landmark' lawsuit mentioned above doesn't seem to have a fundamental understanding of some very basic terms... but whatever, if it helps change the industry, great, I'm all for it.

The biggest complaint in the way things currently work is that the sellers have to pay for the buyer's agent to do their job (for the most part) -it's tradition, no other reason at this point. I completely understand this complaint.

Until we get autonomous buyer representation, paid for by the buyer themselves, this industry for the most part won't change.

Also, all these agents crying about Zillow selling their leads back to them? Grow the f*ck up. You create a website with a search platform that beats the Realtor.com site (it's not hard, Redfin's already done it). Zillow did the work, they have the market notoriety, they built that platform & you did not so they reap the benefit. You can opt out of syndicating your listings to them, and in my opinion, doing so hurts your sellers for the sake of your ego. They are not selling anything that was "yours" back to you.

I believe the way of the future will be real estate agents earning 1% on each side which will be paid accordingly by each party. That's my best guess, time will tell.

Edit: I may be a little cranky because coyotes woke me up at 4:30am. :/

 

[Suzanne Bazemore]

@steelandchrome and @Sauce, thank you both for posting these articles. It's interesting that the newly developed PLS is an effort to keep agents relevant and bypass the impact of large sites like Zillow, Realtor, and Trulia. Between PLS and the lawsuit, I think both articles could point to a potential paradigm shift in how real estate sales are conducted.

 

[Valhalla]

I believe the way of the future will be real estate agents earning 1% on each side which will be paid accordingly by each party.

This is how it is in Hong Kong. I lived there for years and I wouldn't recommend it as a solution/disruption. Finding even a decent agent is incredibly difficult, and they are very transient. I suppose it's good because you don't pay much, but you definitely don't get much. I think long term, especially on this side of the world this would create a situation where only massive firms can compete to crank out the sort of quantity needed to get by on 1% which, again, won't help matters overall.

I believe the solution lies in something we have yet to consider which could be created indirectly by a change in contract law or by a lawsuit or by national protest or by a huge change in lending requirements or.......

 

[Silverfox148]

Realtors, MLS ,etc. one of the biggest inefficient ripoffs in the current U.S. It's an area that desperately needs to be disrupted just like healthcare, flat fees could have an impact in this market.

 

[Sauce]

Hoping /USER] , @JScott and @SteveO will chime in here

Love hearing @Red s thoughts as well.

 

[SteveO]

I believe that a good agent is worth their weight in gold. But a less than stellar agent can cause a lot of problems. If the buyer and seller are more involved, most deals would not go through. Good agents work through the emotions and issues.

 

[Ecom man]

I’ve seen tons of advertising for Redfin only charging 1.5% to sell your house... that is a huge discount compared to normal charges. I just sold my house about a year ago and paid 5% (almost 15k). An extra 10k off of fees would have been awesome!

 

[steelandchrome]

Just fyi, I didn't mean to post this as if this was a true disruption in the MLS space... I think that this is a HUGE market that people in general would say works as-is and isn't worth messing with or trying to improve and many would look past the billions of dollars that will be created by whoever does solve the 3 problems @JScott mentions above as well as I'm sure many others.
I for one think that the 6% commission structure is one of the biggest things that should be fixed first and there should be a more performance based fee structure or it to be more "normal" to negotiate fees on the seller side. I doubt buyers paying for a buyer agent will ever be a thing but the likes of opendoor who let you tour a home by yourself and then they give you cash back if you use them to buy without an agent is more the way the market will change.

 

[Valhalla]

Just fyi, I didn't mean to post this as if this was a true disruption in the MLS space... I think that this is a HUGE market that people in general would say works as-is and isn't worth messing with or trying to improve and many would look past the billions of dollars that will be created by whoever does solve the 3 problems @JScott mentions above as well as I'm sure many others.
I for one think that the 6% commission structure is one of the biggest things that should be fixed first and there should be a more performance based fee structure or it to be more "normal" to negotiate fees on the seller side. I doubt buyers paying for a buyer agent will ever be a thing but the likes of opendoor who let you tour a home by yourself and then they give you cash back if you use them to buy without an agent is more the way the market will change.

That performance based fee structure is interesting. Spitballing here but maybe for sellers, a small percentage based on a given market or appraisal price, then a higher percentage on any selling price above that?

 

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[steelandchrome]

That performance based fee structure is interesting. Spitballing here but maybe for sellers, a small percentage based on a given market or appraisal price, then a higher percentage on any selling price above that?

I would agree something like that would make sense. I have done on my last two houses an offer to the buyers agent for 4.5% commission if they got a full price offer in first 30 days of listing and both have sold right away and were well worth the extra 1.5% (Both under $300k so not a big deal)...

 

[advantagecp]

@steelandchrome and @Sauce,It's interesting that the newly developed PLS is an effort to keep agents relevant and bypass the impact of large sites like Zillow, Realtor, and Trulia.

Behind all of the bullshit in their explanation, PLS only serves to make the agents relevant. It does not benefit the seller in any way. Back in the old days, hip pocket listings were common. They allowed agents to benefit themselves at the expense of their clients.

To simplify: If you are selling your home do you want wider or narrower distribution of information about your property? Exactly. You want wider distribution and more exposure.