Continental Real Estate Group Inc. has launched a nationwide referral network that’s intended to make it much easier for flat-fee brokers to both send referrals to other brokers and receive them.
Currently, many flat-fee brokers — known as “originating brokers” — display flat-fee MLS listing packages offered by other brokers around the country. The originating brokers make a profit by marking up packages by a set amount, and then sending consumers to the actual providers of those packages — the “servicing brokers” — who enter seller’s listings in the local multiple listing service.
But given that there are close to 900 MLSs, originating brokers face challenges in providing accurate pricing data on packages offered in different markets. Listing Checkout addresses that problem by aggregating packages offered in markets covered by more than 800 MLSs.
If a broker integrates Listing Checkout into its website, the engine shows consumers the cheapest packages in a particular market submitted to Listing Checkout by servicing brokers in that market. The cost of a package equals the mark-up entered by the originating broker into Listing Checkout, and the cost entered by the servicing broker into Listing Checkout.
Listing Checkout only shows consumers the cheapest bids entered by servicing brokers. As a result, Listing Checkout’s pricing engine should spur servicing providers to charge less in order to win leads through the engine, said Derek Eisenberg, founder of Hackensack, N.J.-based Continental Real Estate Group.
The platform allows brokers to be both originating and servicing brokers, and it makes money by taking a 10 percent cut of both the fee charged by the servicing broker and the mark-up charged by the originating broker.
So far, Listing Checkout offers packages submitted by servicing brokers in markets covered by 500 MLSs, according to Eisenberg. But that number may increase if brokers in other markets sign up for the network.
To see a demo of the product by Eisenberg, view the video below.
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