The new wave involves licensed real estate firms seeking a piece of a house deal for themselves. They rely heavily on the Internet and technology to attract customers and to track mortgage applications, home inspections, appraisals and the like. Division of labor. Typically, an office-bound agent oversees and manages. More efficient business models, plus the fact that many customers are already doing much of their preliminary house search via the Internet, permit them to shave thousands of dollars off the typical house deal, the new e-brokers say.
Some firms set variable commissions by the types of service the seller wants.
For now, these start-ups are barely a blip in the real estate universe. Total sales for the largest still measure in the hundreds. By contrast, a brokerage needed about 3,500 sales last year to break into the National Association of Realtors' list of the USA's 100 biggest. Nonetheless, Nick Karris, real estate analyst at Gomez Advisors, says the e-brokerages are here to stay. The Internet has changed the way people trade stocks, buy airline tickets and book hotel rooms, and the same is happening with home sales, he says.