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June 2, 2006
Web business thrives on helping sell-it-yourselfers
Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle) - June 2, 2006 by Katherine Conrad East Bay (Calif.) Business Times
Of the 6 million homes sold nationwide, about 30 percent of the sellers conduct the transaction without an agent -- or tried to.
According to an audit of for-sale-by-owner Web sites by Murray Consulting Inc., 75,000 sellers listed their homes on four Web sites last October. A survey showed that Owners.com snagged the lion's share of the listings, 50,000, while Forsalebyowner.com had 13,000; Byowner.com had 9,000 and Fsbo.com had 3,000.
For those who try to go it alone and fail -- which roughly a third do -- Owners.com will help the sellers find an agent and refund $1,000.
"There's 1 million (National Association of Realtors) members and 80 percent of all homes are sold through an agent," Udelson said. "It doesn't hurt to hedge our bets."
Accordingly, Owners.com has formed partnerships with Century 21, Coldwell Banker and ERA to provide agents.
"When we reached a significant volume of FSBO customers, we caught their attention," Udelson said. "And from our standpoint, a large percentage of customers, roughly a third, will hire an agent."
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