Beginning next year, Re/Max International will post on its website the listings of all U.S. homes for sale – including those of its competitors.
The radical move by the Colorado real-estate giant could lead to lower real-estate commissions nationally, experts said.
“This is pro-consumer,” said Steve Murray, editor of the Littleton trade publication Real Trends. “It will allow for greater competition … in the industry, and that may well lead to lower prices for consumers.”
Online listings are a hot issue in the broker community. For two years, federal antitrust officials have scrutinized efforts by the National Association of Realtors to limit access to online listings by Internet startups. Greenwood Village-based Re/Max is a member of the trade group.
Re/Max’s biggest competitor, Cendant Corp., may follow suit, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday, citing industry sources.
“Re/Max and others have determined that NAR is not going to prevail, therefore listing information is going to become increasingly universal,” Murray said.
The trade group along with local boards of Realtors, which control listings, had sought to limit access to them after Internet brokerages began reposting them on their websites. Some of those brokers irked traditional brokerages by charging referral fees for sending buyers to other agents and rebating a portion of the commission back to the buyer.
Because Re/Max will post all listings, the national association and the local boards will find it harder to justify withholding their listings from nontraditional brokerages that charge lower fees, Murray predicted.
“It’s not going to have a profound immediate effect on commission pricing, but I will tell you that when the Internet- based companies that are charging less can compete with traditional companies, they are going to get more business,” he said.
That could lead to lower prices as competition heats up.
Some smaller brokerages already aggregate national listings on their websites, but Re/Max’s plan would make it the largest brokerage to do so. The real-estate franchise has 5,600 independently owned offices in the U.S.
Rick O’Neil, president of Castle Rock-based Help-U-Sell, questioned whether the move would affect his business.
“We’ve been doing this for three years, so I don’t see how this would affect us one way or the other,” said O’Neil, whose company has expanded to 800 offices based on a flat-fee model starting at $2,950.
Previously, Re/Max – like other large brokerages – relied on the National Association of Realtors’ website, Realtor.com, to provide customers with national listings. Doing so, however, meant customers who accessed home listings would leave the Re/Max website and be redirected to Realtor.com. Additionally, brokers have complained that the website was difficult to use.
Sonja Leonard Leonard, broker owner of Leonard Leonard & Associates in Denver, doubted Re/Max’s efforts would shake up the industry.
“The Internet and national organizations are good for the first step of looking and educating yourself, but they’re not going to take the place of going out and kicking the tires,” she said.
Staff writer Kristi Arellano can be reached at 303-820-1902 or karellano@denverpost.com.
