Online real estate buyers’ service BuySide Realty has expanded its national footprint to Washington, marking the sixth state for the company that launched a little over a year ago.
Joseph and Avi Fox, brothers who paved the way for online stock brokerages in the late 1990s, in April started BuySide Realty, which gives home buyers access to property listings, licensed real estate agents and technology used to make and manage offers via the Internet, among other things.
The company gives back 75 percent of the buyer agent’s commission to buyers who close on a home using the BuySide service.
In addition to Washington, the company offers buy-side services in Virginia, Georgia, California, Florida and Illinois.
BuySide says it has rebated “millions of dollars” to home buyers with an average rebate of over $11,000.
BuySide also recently launched a sister company, Iggys House, which offers home sellers a free listing in the MLS, a free Web ad at IggysHouse.com and free display at Realtor.com. (See Inman News story.) In cases where the free MLS listing service isn’t available, sellers can still post free information and multimedia content for their home at the IggysHouse.com Web site.
In conjunction with the launch of BuySide realty in Washington, the company said it will offer sellers in the region a free listing at the Northwest MLS.
Sellers in Washington may already be familiar with the online discount brokerage model, as Redfin is headquartered in Seattle and has been doing business in that market for a few years. Redfin gained attention last month after being featured in a “60 Minutes” primetime segment on real estate commissions.
Iggys House CEO Fox told Inman News that the free MLS service should expand to 37 states over the next few months. The service is now available in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Washington.
While Iggys House does not charge for its services at this time, the company’s hope is that consumers who use Iggys House will also choose to use the company’s other services and affiliates’ services. The BuySide Realty Web site offers to prequalify consumers for a mortgage and to connect consumers with its loan officers who “work with leading national lenders.” BuySide Realty has a partnership with Chase, the home-mortgage unit of JPMorgan Chase & Co., to provide the preapproval services to BuySide clients.
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