Redfin and other innovators, including ZipRealty and BuySideInc.com, are using technology to reduce costs and to save time for their brokers. Agents don’t find and recommend homes — customers do that on their own, using Internet listings — and that enables agents to charge less for the services they do provide, chiefly handling the paperwork and negotiations.More on Redfin's flat fee model here.The Internet has radically changed the way consumers buy books and airline tickets, trade stock and learn news. But the real estate industry has resisted change — and protected its commission structure — by controlling the information on its Multiple Listing Service database of properties for sale.
“You can find out more on the Internet about an eBay Beanie Baby than you can about a $1 million house,” said Glenn Kelman, chief executive of Redfin, a licensed broker in Washington State and California.
The M.L.S. is the only place that contains nearly all the homes for sale in a community. Only brokers can post there, but agents can also display selected information about a listing on their own Web sites and on Realtor.com, a site that works with the National Association of Realtors.