Hello,

I was hoping to get some feed back on an idea that’s not mine but certainly has a place in the real estate market.

Let me start by saying that I’m not a real estate broker/agent or even involved in the real estate business at all. A few years ago, I briefly met this guy who started a business called buyhomes.com His nitch in the market is that the home seller pays him $555.00 to list their home for sale on his website. He provides them with a for sale sign, lists the home on the MLS, and takes. ooo1 commission when the house sells + a possible MLS finders fee if the home doesn’t sell through his site. There is more detailed info available on his site if you are interested.

I am a website designer/programmer and own the domain name NoBullHomes.com. I have been considering using this name for a similar website to BuyHomes.com. My twist would be to do this on a national level using independent brokers to sell this service. I would just have a flat fee of lets say $50 per home to use the NoBullHomes.com name/website + the cost of the sign and shipping. The broker would be responsible for listing on the MLS, relations with the customer, pictures of the home, and creating the homes profile through my automated system.

Would I still have to be a licensed broker to do something like this? My other question is…Would you as brokers even consider getting involved with this concept. I know for a fact that there is demand for this because BuyHomes.com has roughly 250 homes listed for sale as of today.

I appreciate any feed back about this topic.

Best regards,

John

John,

Lousy idea... don't waste your time. No broker would participate IMHO.

It is a good idea and being done all over. That idea is called "discount" brokerage in the business. There are whole companies set up to do this. Google "discount broker real estate" and see what you get (8,950,000). This concept is based on two ideas: 1) that it is easy to sell real estate, and 2) that the commission is the barrier for most people.

Discounters don't survive long, in my market area anyway. They don't make enough income.

Many agents' average income is about $16/day with a normal commission. (see http://www.real-estate-credit-loans.com/howrealestateagentsgetpaid.html )
Discounters start further in the hole.

You have to understand more than commissions to design a good website for selling real estate.

Buyhomes.com provides one valuable service to clients: putting the homes into MLS. $550 is a quite a bargain for this one service.

What you're proposing provides no valuable service to anyone. It certainly has no value to licensed real estate agents and brokers.

If you can generate enough quality traffic to a site, perhaps some FSBO sellers would be interested in advertising there... but with already popular free sites like craigslist, I doubt you would be successful at this.