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Josh Sitzer, whose last name became famous in the real estate industry thanks to his role as a plaintiff in the high-profile Sitzer | Burnett commission lawsuit, has followed up his legal victory by co-launching an à la carte real estate platform.
The project is called Landian, and according to its website it’s “a platform that schedules and coordinates service contracts between homebuyers and licensed real estate agents.” The company lets would-be homebuyers schedule tours and make offers, and includes multiple different pricing tiers.
For consumers paying entirely à la carte, for example, Landian charges $49 per home tour. An offer written by an agent costs $199, but “AI-Powered Offers” are only $99. The company also has an “exclusive agent package” that costs $1,799, paid at closing. The package gives buyers up to five tours and two offers.
Customers using the exclusive package who want more tours or to make more offers are charged the à la carte price for those additional services.
A la carte and flat-fee services are not new to the industry, and indeed have been among the buzziest concepts in real estate over the past few years.
But what may surprise many in the industry is Sitzer’s involvement. Though it’s unclear what specific role he has in Landian, TechCrunch reported on Thursday — the day the company came out of stealth mode — that Sitzer had “teamed up with Bryce Galen and Neal Batra.” According to the TechCrunch profile of Landian, the company is designed to “take advantage of the new landscape.”
That new landscape stems from the National Association of Realtors’ landmark settlement that changed rules regarding agent pay. The settlement resolved several different antitrust lawsuits, one of which was known as Sitzer | Burnett — a name that comes from its lead plaintiffs, including Josh Sitzer.
Inman reached out to Landian Thursday with a request for comment. A company spokesperson offered to send emailed questions to Galen, the CEO. Inman responded with a request for a phone interview and had not heard back by the time of publication. This story will be updated with any comments the company provides.
In any case, though, the company’s website includes an exhortation for consumers to “join the real estate revolution,” followed by a quote from Sitzer.
“After our hard-won settlement paved the way for a new era of fairness and transparency, I’m thrilled to help launch Landian’s revolutionary flat-fee model for home tours and offer submissions, liberating homebuyers from the excessive commissions they were previously forced to pay,” Sitzer says on the website.
The company’s website additionally argues that it can save consumers the “equivalent to a year of mortgage payments.” It also states that “sellers are increasingly declining to pay buyer agent commissions,” but that when sellers do offer buy-side commissions, buyers ultimately still “pay agent commissions through the purchase price, which is higher than what a seller would otherwise accept for the property to receive the same net proceeds after commissions are paid.”
Consumers can schedule a tour or make an offer on a home by pasting a link to a listing from another site, such as Zillow, into Landian’s homepage.
Credit: Landian
In addition to working directly with consumers, Landian also includes an agent signup option. Landian is not a brokerage, and agents who work with the company still have to hang their shingle somewhere else. But the website does promise that agents can “unlock a new era of success” by working with Landian.
Registration for agents is free, but Landian’s website does not say how much money agents will make if they do home tours or write contracts with the company. The website also does not say how many agents have signed up so far, or what kind of lag time consumers might face when connecting with an agent for a tour or to make an offer.
Agents who write Landian offers will conduct “offer prep” sessions with consumers, according to the company’s website, during which they’ll discuss issues such as prices, terms and contingencies.
“After the session, the agent will draft the offer and submit it to the seller (via a listing agent, if applicable) on your behalf,” Landian’s website further explains. The agent will also manage any counteroffers, providing guidance and support until the offer is accepted, rejected, or expires. This service is provided for a flat fee, covering all aspects of the offer process.”
Among the industry changes that resulted from the settlement in Sitzer’s and other cases is a rule that seller’s agents can no longer make offers of compensation to buyers’ agents within their NAR-affiliated multiple listing service. The rule has raised questions about how exactly buyers agents might get paid going forward. One school of thought posits that they will get paid much as they have in the past, with the caveat that agents will simply have to communicate privately to hash out commissions.
However, another school posits that sellers will — like Sitzer himself and other lawsuit plaintiffs — balk at paying buyers agent commissions and refuse to make offers of compensation. That would place the burden of paying for those agents on the buyers themselves. Landian appears to be betting on this outcome, and that buyers will consequently gravitate to lower-cost offerings.
Update: This story was updated after publication with additional details about Landian.
