The worst nightmare of real estate agents

Posted on May 14, 2007
Filed Under Online Tools, Venture News |

The worst nightmare is coming true for real estate agents. While Zillow, Trulia, HotPads and PropertyShark are already dampening real estate commissions by providing tons of real estate information, now Redfin puts the last nail in relators’ coffin by establishing call center completely replacing broker in the real estate deal. Redfin is cheaper as well, at least for buyer. Techcrunch reports that Redfin reimburses the buyer 2/3 of regular fee. Michael Arrington quotes Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman saying “Real Estate is by far the most screwed up industry in America.” I thought that HMO is the most screwed up industry. When will we see disruption in healthcare industry?

Meantime I run quick check out on Alexa and Compete and got very consisting figures supporting this very encouraging trend - real estate is going online.

Website	Alexa Rank	Monthly US visitors
Zillow.com	1,594	1,780,301
Trulia.com	5,172	760,449
PropertyShark.com	54,490	34,532
Redfin.com	23,807	26,033
HotPads.com	72,515	9,313