Online Brokers Can Save You Thousands in Costs

Online brokers have gone a long way from the difficult times when they were restricted from accessing major multiple listing services and were just used for initial information on certain properties but never hired for closing.

Now, online real estate brokers are enjoying one of the best times in their careers, as more and more Americans turn to the Internet for their shopping and all other needs as consumers.

Browse for online brokers and you will see lots of real estate web sites offering all types of homes for sale, including foreclosure listings. They also offer various guidelines on home ownership, home loan application, pre-approval processes and other information that helps prospective home buyers.

One indication of the rising popularity of online brokers is the success of one new online real estate brokerage which started just three years ago. It has grown so fast, completing real estate transactions worth $1.5 billion in this three-year period with a client satisfaction rate of 97 percent, according to its web site.

There are several reasons for the success of many online brokers even during the downturn. One is the realization by many Americans of the conveniences and valuable information offered by the Internet.

For consumers searching for a house to buy, they just have to sit in front of their PCs in the evening while their children are nearby. They do not have to spend precious family moments driving from neighborhood to neighborhood taking a look at houses they should have not considered in the first place if they knew beforehand the main features of the house.

For this convenience, one would have difficulty in putting a price to it, but it can be priced in the thousands, depending on the value of your time.

The one benefit that can be easily estimated is the money saved from the sales commission. Online brokers share their commission earnings with buyers. While a traditional broker usually gets 6 percent of the total home sales price, in an online home sales transaction, the online broker gets 3 percent and shares typically half of it to the buyer. The other 3 percent goes to the seller’s agent.

One online brokerage said that its home buyers have received an average of $7,500 as their share in the commission.

Explore the web sites of online brokers and providers of online foreclosure listings, you may just find the home you have been looking for with savings to boot.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 4th, 2009 at 2:22 pm and is filed under Home Brokers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.