Real Estate is Changing
Á la carte brokers are carving out a buffer zone between selling For Sale By Owner and traditional real estate. Do-it-yourselfers have long sought an alternative to traditional real estate. In 2000 the term Flat Fee MLS was almost unknown. A Google search produced minimal results. Early flat fee companies got business by targeting for sale by owner sellers. Today that is changing. Consumers know what flat fee mls is. Instead of stumbling on it, they seek it out.
This would seem to model other industries. The success of Home Depot, Lowes, Schwab, and eTrade would tend to indicate that real estate should not be any different. There is a huge do-it-yourself sector of real estate that needs tools and à la carte brokers offer those tools; they sell the hammer but the consumer gets to swing it.
The result is that consumers are saving hundreds of millions of dollars in commission. Real estate sales are a 60 billion dollar industry and Flat Fee MLS is 2±% of the market or about 500-600 millions dollars in saved commissions annually. One billion dollars in annual saved commissions is in site.
Staff Writer