An article written today about Flat Fee MLS gives good context to the uncompetitive real estate home seller environment for consumers in the US. Real estate agents that try to offer their customers choice by putting their home listing in the MLS for a low-cost “flat fee” often meet resistance and artificial hurdles from the local real estate board that controls access to the MLS.
From the article, Chris Ballard who runs Century 21 Clickit Inc. based in Georgia said:
“It’s (the flat-fee business model) going to be a growing segment of the overall real estate industry — it makes sense to a consumer,” Ballard said.
He added that he informed Canadian bureau representatives of MLS-related legal issues he’s encountered in the U.S., such as MLS restrictions that prevent properties under certain types of listing agreements from being uploaded to Realtor.com.”
The US. Department of Justice and Canadian Competition Bureau have been investigating real estate anti-competitive claims for some time and take it seriously. So much so they have dedicated an entire website to it.
It’s great that the US DOJ is looking out for consumers in this way. Clearly they have done a lot of research on the issue. Even highlighting this chart of how real estate commissions have continued to rise simply because home prices have increased, when in a true competitive market, commissions should have remained flat. You have to ask why in the world consumers would need to spend $11,000 or more to sell their home.
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/real_estate/commission.gif
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
We are experiencing competitive issues as a Private Sale company in Canada. Everything from agents coercing vendors to not allow us (lawyers, newspapers, stagers) to writing offers that are conditional upon sale of the buyers home specific to them listing their home on the MLS.
These types of practices are deceitful and take away the rights of consumers to make choices.
See my blog post regarding some of their tactics.
http://pgww.blogspot.com/2009/05/angry.html
Mike
{ 1 trackback }