Online Foreclosure Listing Services Helping Buyers Cut Costs
The rising number of houses purchased through online foreclosure listing services is prompting concerns about the job security of real estate agents. More and more prospective home buyers are using foreclosure listing services for their home search because of the thousands they expect to save on sales commission.
Youngmin Bae and Marco Huerta are among couples who have purchased a house without meeting a real estate agent in person. Instead, they scoured foreclosure listing services and other real estate listings to get information on neighborhoods that interested them and to ask for discounts and make offers.
Huerta said that they saved $10,000 in sales commission when they finally bought their Burbank, California home.
Stuart Gabriel, head of the University of California’s Ziman Center for Real Estate in Los Angeles, said the number of realtors typically decline in a housing downturn. But he contends that when the housing market finally recovers, the number of brokers and realtors will not recover proportionally because of a reduced demand for their services.
Recently, the National Association of Realtors reported that its number of members fell by 13 percent from its 2006 membership level.
Los Angeles broker David Emerson laments that the traditional realtors’ monopoly of information on foreclosure listing properties and other properties for sale is gone. He said that the Internet has changed the real estate industry and has reduced the number of realtors.
For many years, real estate agents were the only ones with reliable listings of homes for sale. Prospective home buyers would rely on them to search for homes for sale and to show them the properties.
Now many real estate web sites are showing foreclosure listing properties, including valuable information such as prices, changes in prices and description of neighborhoods and services available in the communities.
Years ago, the National Association of Realtors sought to block online foreclosure listing services and other online real estate brokers from publishing certain important information. However, in 2005, the Justice Department charged the realtors with antitrust.
After the antitrust suit was settled last year, online brokerages were essentially allowed to continue publishing the same kinds of real estate information traditional brokers have.
Nevertheless, traditional brokers still believe that their businesses cannot be totally wiped out by online brokerages. They said there are still many home sellers and buyers who want their transactions to be handled by traditional brokers.
However, the success of several online foreclosure listing services and other online brokerages show that prospective homebuyers are increasingly using online services for the conveniences and cost savings they get from online real estate listings.
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