Real estate websites are flourishing and real estate agents fear their heydays are numbered. Is the market ready to totally do away with the services of a property agent?
The real estate agent basically stands as the middleman between buyers and sellers which has been the norm for a long time. And now, according to The Street, this role is expected to diminish with the advent of listing sites that give buyers and sellers services they need at a fraction of the cost compared to hiring the services of a real estate agent.
SurveyMonkey Audience recently made a survey for Redfin, a Seattle-based online real estate broker company with presence in 80 cities in the U.S. and it revealed that 17 percent of those who bought properties in the last two years did so without any help from an agent. The survey also showed that many of the real estate sites are giving big cuts in their commissions. About a third of the poll correspondents admitted to having received a refund or discounts of $500 or even more.
Comparing the two in terms of savings, a standard commission rate of 6 percent is often charged by a real estate agent for each listing. For a $230,000 property that would mean a cut of $13,800 going to the agent's pockets. Selling without going through a realtor puts the estimate of savings at 3 percent off commission fees.
However, The Wall Street Journal reported that despite the increasing trend of listing site use, the demand for real estate agents is still high. One proof of this is the rise in incidents of agents moving from one brokerage to another. Billy Rose, agent and co-founder of The Agency based in Beverly Hills said, "There's not a lot of brand loyalty. A lot of times they become mercenaries."
