What DB are you pulling from? Is this self curated?
I tried add locations for `Santa Cruz`, `Santa Barbara` and `Mendicino County` and got "No listings in this area yet."
Open Listings (YC W15) Is Helping Homebuyers Hack Real Estate
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Re: Open Listings (YC W15) Is Helping Homebuyers Hack Real Estate
#12Founders are on deck to answer any questions you guys have. We're really excited to be in YC!
Hi guys. Cool site. Quick question - and I completely understand if you can't answer - any more details on your plans for expanding MLS coverage, or particulars on your current data arrangements? Just curious because I know some realtors and it seems like the barrier to a national MLS equivalent has been opposition by industry organizations wanting to protect their data. Any thoughts?
Getting MLS data is hard. We had to become a registered California brokerage and join individual MLS organizations as participating agents. Each MLS runs on different servers with slightly different SOAP/XML APIs and slightly different data formats. We're ingesting from 3 right now in real-time. We're planning to get full CA coverage this way in the next month or so (CA is 15% of the national real estate market).
We might have a different approach when we scale nationally but so far this is working pretty well. There are a few third party companies that offer the data but it's not as fast or complete as a brokerage feed from the MLS (and speed matters in hot CA markets).
That said, we don't need the property in our system to put an offer on it so you can shop on Redfin or Zillow and come back to our site when you want to put a bid in. We will happily put an offer in on any home in California.
Re: Open Listings (YC W15) Is Helping Homebuyers Hack Real Estate
#13What DB are you pulling from? Is this self curated? I tried add locations for `Santa Cruz`, `Santa Barbara` and `Mendicino County` and got "No listings in this area yet."
As a participating California brokerage, we're pulling directly from regional MLS servers. We don't have those areas yet but we're rolling out full CA coverage in the next month or so.
Currently we have 100% MLS coverage in SF and the greater LA area.
Next on our list is Silicon Valley, East Bay (Oakland), and San Diego. I'm super excited for Mendocino too!
Re: Open Listings (YC W15) Is Helping Homebuyers Hack Real Estate
#14It seems the value of this is highly dependent on the local market. A 2% commission on a $300k home is comparably priced at $6000 (and commission rates are negotiable), but a local agent will provide a lot of service difficult for a web app to compete with. I can see the value in a market where seven figure homes are the norm, though. Most buyers don't want to negotiate a good flat rate with an agent. On the other ha…
Point taken, thank you!
We recognize that our pricing makes less sense outside of California but we're hoping to operationalize it here and make it really efficient before scaling to other markets where the fee will be lower.
One misconception is that people think when they directly negotiate with a seller's agent that they aren't paying the full commission. In fact, when the house is priced, 5-6% commission is set aside for the agents. If you go in without a buyer agent, the seller agent takes the full commission (this is called dual agency and it's financially ideal for them).
Re: Open Listings (YC W15) Is Helping Homebuyers Hack Real Estate
#15It seems the value of this is highly dependent on the local market. A 2% commission on a $300k home is comparably priced at $6000 (and commission rates are negotiable), but a local agent will provide a lot of service difficult for a web app to compete with. I can see the value in a market where seven figure homes are the norm, though. Most buyers don't want to negotiate a good flat rate with an agent. On the other ha…
Point taken, thank you! We recognize that our pricing makes less sense outside of California but we're hoping to operationalize it here and make it really efficient before scaling to other markets where the fee will be lower. One misconception is that people think when they directly negotiate with a seller's agent that they aren't paying the full commission. In fact, when the house is priced, 5-6% commission is set a…
Will you be a licensed brokerage in these "other markets"?
Re: Open Listings (YC W15) Is Helping Homebuyers Hack Real Estate
#16It seems the value of this is highly dependent on the local market. A 2% commission on a $300k home is comparably priced at $6000 (and commission rates are negotiable), but a local agent will provide a lot of service difficult for a web app to compete with. I can see the value in a market where seven figure homes are the norm, though. Most buyers don't want to negotiate a good flat rate with an agent. On the other ha…
Point taken, thank you! We recognize that our pricing makes less sense outside of California but we're hoping to operationalize it here and make it really efficient before scaling to other markets where the fee will be lower. One misconception is that people think when they directly negotiate with a seller's agent that they aren't paying the full commission. In fact, when the house is priced, 5-6% commission is set a…
Is 100% dual agency the norm? The industry definitely seems pretty opaque in regards to these issues. In my circumstance, the seller agent's contract stipulated that the agent earned 50% the buyer agent's commission for buyers lacking an agent. That worked well for me, as the seller had lower commissions and her agent's interests were also aligned with me. But I admit that going into the transaction, I had assumed there would be no commission for my half of the transaction.
Re: Open Listings (YC W15) Is Helping Homebuyers Hack Real Estate
#17I have observed real estate agents acting as a cartel. As an example, if you use a real estate agent from outside the area, when they go to negotiate a sale with the selling agent the selling agent won't give him the time of day. Once you get an agent who is in the same circle with the local agents, all of the sudden you get responded to.
I am worried that this service, which I want to see succeed, will be nullified by the incumbent agents.
Thoughts?
Re: Open Listings (YC W15) Is Helping Homebuyers Hack Real Estate
#18How are you different from redfin? Are you aiming for an acquisition by redfin or zillow?
Re: Open Listings (YC W15) Is Helping Homebuyers Hack Real Estate
#19There is a decent amount of information that the agent-to-agent communication around offer presentation delivers. Are the sellers more keen on price or on terms ? If its a fixer, is the buyer aware of that and is that reflected in their offer (because the sellers probably wouldn't want to waste time on a buyer who was going to be shocked to find out that its a fixer after getting in contract). Usually the buyer's agent helps to gather this information in order to present the best possible offer, and then gets a sense of how that offer sits with the seller upon presentation ("oh this is way too low" or "the sellers need a shorter contingency period"). How will you handle gathering and passing along this information to prospective buyers in order to allow them to make the best offer possible ?
Re: Open Listings (YC W15) Is Helping Homebuyers Hack Real Estate
#20I have observed real estate agents acting as a cartel. As an example, if you use a real estate agent from outside the area, when they go to negotiate a sale with the selling agent the selling agent won't give him the time of day. Once you get an agent who is in the same circle with the local agents, all of the sudden you get responded to. I am worried that this service, which I want to see succeed, will be nullified…
From what we've seen, money talks. That is, in every case we've seen, the highest offer got accepted. Seller agents are legally required to present every offer to the seller. It's kind of a prisoners dilemma thing -- as an industry it makes sense to block out agents who are disrupting the normal commission structure but as an individual agent who is actually getting paid a cut of the sale price, you just want your client to take the highest price.