
iBuyer trend covers 0.2% of all real estate sales, there is not much to to hit there. Almost 90% of consumers use real estate agents to buy and sell their homes in the US. The only difference is how and for how much these services end up being delivered and/or priced with use of the network effects.
The idea to remove 2,000,000 agents out of the transaction equation seems absurd on a number of levels, and neither Zillow Offers nor Opendoor would ever want to do that — they just want to collect 40% of commissions by selling consumers as leads. This is the primary revenue generator in the real estate industry today — kickbacks.
When someone says that technology will bring revolution in real estate with an online interaction between parties to substitute a live in-person conversation, this just makes no sense. What does make sense is an opportunity to bring transparency into a fee-ridden equation with a simple logic — instead of paying out kickbacks, bring that massive cash back into your own transaction with $15 Billion in savings each year. This is consumer-focused value. This is lean technology. Only unbiased information is valuable in a rare-event transaction, so forget pay-to-play.
#realestate #savings #proptech #startups