RuListing Hits Record High as Disruptive Real Estate Startup Takes Hold Globally

As a buyers' and renters' want ads, RuListing.com is capturing attention across the U.S., Australia and Canada. Its new, disruptive real estate technology helps buyers and renters contact owners without agents across the globe. Historically, only 10-13% of homes, are bought and sold privately in the U.S. This low percentage represents an opportunity to provide people with better private residential real estate technology to support selling houses for sale by owner (FSBO).  

"Mapping is central to RuListing, as buyers plot where and what they're looking for with their profile. Homeowners can search their neighborhood, view profiles and send private messages for free," says Founder and CEO Susan Joynt.  

With record low inventory of houses for sale in Q4 of 2017, prospective buyers suffer with few housing options within their sought-after neighborhoods. As the solution, people are taking matters into their own hands using RuListing in hopes of talking to homeowners privately before listing on the open market. RuListing poses a disruptive threat to the $9B that agents and brokers spend annually in the U.S. in online real estate advertising. RuListing offers open access to a ready-supply of buyers and renters, such that advertising is no longer a necessity. 

This makes the established real estate industry nervous as the foundation of their monetization platform comes from agents spending future commission dollars on advertising their houses for sale. Zillow depends on the 1.9M agents across the U.S. spending approximately $5000/month to advertise their properties for sale. 

With homeowners finding buyers and renters on their own, agents have relief from the burdensome marketing expense to attract new leads - savings that can be passed along to homeowners in the commission fees charged to sell a home.

"Connecting buyers and sellers together privately is the first step," says Susan, "as I believe consumers will still choose to hire agents to assist with the sale and close of a property."

What an agent's role and fee structure will be, without the advertising and marketing expense, remains to be determined. Simon Baker, Chairman Mitula and Property Portal Watch, in Chasing Secondary Transactions, has been insightfully encouraging the real estate industry to venture into alternative monetization platforms beyond the primary transaction and the saturated advertising model. Agents looking to expand their role, as a full-service home provider, into financial and insurance services for example, could prove to be highly lucrative for agents in the future.

SOURCE RuListing