Real Estate: Agent's Share

The value of your home might have increased quite a bit but it's actually only 94% of what you think the price should be! A 6% commission is taken away by the real estate agents. For a long time both buyers and sellers were nurturing this grudge inside their mind while making the transaction, but things are changing for the better. A new breed of realtors are coming up to sneak into the market just by addressing this issue of importance.

BuySideRealty.com, which has launched in California, Illinois and Florida and expects to be nationwide by early 2008, returns 3/4th of the buyer's agent's share to clients.

Seattle, Washington based Redfin.com, which is also expanding to California this year, rebates 2/3rd of its commissions. [Late editing: Immediately after our initial posting today, one anonymous reader left a comment (see the comment link below) pointing out that one can now buy or sell a home through Redfin anywhere in Washington or California ... they also have an active Web presence in the San Francisco Bay Area in addition to Seattle. Thanks to him/her for this information.]

RebateReps.com gives back 1% of the home's selling price (about 1/3rd the commission) to buyers.

They are mainly taking advantage of the growing trend among potential buyers to use internet in making a choice, thus allowing buyers to do much of their work and in that process giving them back a portion of the traditionally fat commission. These agents are thus getting more transactions in their hands than what the traditional brokers are having.