Happy Thanksgiving Philadelphia! Here at CondoDomain, we hope that you have a very enjoyable and RELAXING holiday!
Stay tuned to our Philadelphia Condo Blog for more updates and Philadelphia condo news
Pssst! I think the turkeys want you to eat beef. hehe
Technorati Profile
via Inman News…
The Department of Justice and the National Association of Realtors have agreed to minor modifications to their proposed settlement of the government’s antitrust lawsuit against the Realtors’ association, paving the way for a final judgment in the three-year-old case.
The government says the settlement, announced in May, will give consumers access to multiple listing service data on homes for sale similar to that enjoyed by Realtors. After wrapping up its review of public comments submitted during a 60-day window, the DOJ proposed leaving the settlement virtually unchanged.
But in its response to comments received from the industry, the DOJ shed some light on how it expects the agreement to be enforced: by NAR. The government also left the door open for future antitrust action concerning NAR’s Internet Data Exchange, or IDX, policy.
In its September 2005 lawsuit, the DOJ alleged that NAR’s policy on “virtual office Web sites,” or VOWs, violated antitrust laws. The policy alleged suppressed competition from real estate brokers who gave consumers access to multiple listing service data on a par with that enjoyed by Realtors through password-protected sites.
By allowing brokers to withhold their sellers’ listings from VOWs, NAR restrained VOW brokers in their ability to compete with traditional brokers, who often provide information on MLS listings by hand, mail, fax or e-mail, DOJ lawyers said.
By blocking VOW brokers from allowing their customers to review the same set of MLS listings that traditional brokers can provide to their customers, NAR’s rules “restrained VOW brokers from competing in a way that is efficient and desired by many customers,” the DOJ claimed.
The proposed settlement requires NAR to modify its challenged VOW policy, making it clear that brokers can operate VOWs “without interference from their rivals,” and that traditional brokers cannot withold sellers’ listings from display on VOWs.
The proposed settlement would also allow brokers to operate referral VOWs, which allow prospective buyers to search for homes online, but directs them to other brokers or agents when they are ready to see a home in person, negotiate a price, enter into a contract, and close the deal.
Existing referral VOWs have established relationships with Internet companies and developed “significant numbers of potential buyer leads,” the DOJ says, and the proposed settlement prohibits MLSs from standing in the way of VOW brokers referring customers to other brokers for compensation.
We are soooooo very excited to launch CondoDomain Philadelphia this week, the 6th most populated city in the U.S! This is one city we have been dieing to get into and I have been wanting an excuse to come down and visit my friend & college teammate – Donovan McNabb AND I have been dieing to try the original – Philly Cheese Steak @ Geno’s!
With the help of our longtime friends at Goldman Properties in Manhattan, we have partnered with the best of the best in Philadelphia Real Estate - The Atacan Group.
Antonio Atacan and The Atacan Group is a team of educated and experienced Realtors who have the unrelenting desire to deliver superior services with insight, innovation, and integrity. Antonio, being an extremely tech-savvy real estate broker, he understood what we were trying to do in Philadelphia and has been very welcoming to his city.
The Atacan Group which will continue be one of the top full-service Philadelphia Real Estate brokerages offering both buyers servcies & listings services and will also be our exclusive partner here @ CondoDomain working with our ‘web-savvy’ and do-it-your-self-er’s clients.
As you may know, the CondoDomain business model is a very rare and unique model.
1. As a company brand, we only work with buyers.
2. We are dedicated to the downtown marketplace.
3. Being a web-based company, we can afford to give a commission refund to our clients.
What to expect from CondoDomain Philadelphia?
ONLINE
When we open our “web-doors” later this week, you will see that CondoDomain Philadelphia is a great informative website. We will have a full MLS feed, overview of all the new luxury developments & loft buildings, foreclosure information, FSBO listings & even auction opportunities. We hope to give you a great set of online tools combined with up-to-date accurate real estate listing information.
OFFLINE
If your like most of our visitors, eventually after surfing our website and visiting some open houses on the weekends, you want “more” and you email us, phone us or come in and meet a team member. The team members from The Atacan Group who will be working with all CondoDomain buyers will show you how we work & save you thousands! So, if you are a savvy client, you know where you want to live, and you want the advice of Philadelphia’s Top Real Estate Brokerage and help to facilitate the transaction, negotiate, do the paper work and refer you to top mortgage and legal partners – this is a home run for you because we will do all this for you and save you thousands with our commission refund.
Intrigued? Check out our Boston Condos site to learn more.
We look forward to working with you.
Sincerely,
Tony Longo
Founder & CEO, CondoDomain.com LLC
*** We are putting this out on our entire network all our blogs hoping for some great feedback ***
I had a great call last night with longtime friend and peer Joe Ferrara – and as always, he got my wheels turning.
I am putting this out on the wire (blog-o-sphere) and hope for any and all ideas & suggestions on proven marketing & PR advice for our new message.
Lets put all the the B.S. aside, all the disgruntled comments from the traditional real estate folks and lets just talk basics.
At CondoDomain.com we have a pretty unbelievable story to tell. No we are not curing cancer or saving the planet (I wish I was…but unfortunately I am smack-dab in the middle of the real estate world right now), but the point being is that we are offering a surreal “Too good to be true” kind of product & service.
The Basics:
1. CondoDomain is a real estate broker, just like RE/MAX, Century 21, Coldwell Banker or any other real estate brand out there. We all claim to be better than one another or have more market share, etc, but bottom line is that we are no different than then mega-brands. The point here is that any agent that works for one of these firms is just a “person” and that “person” is whom creates the value in the transaction. So no matter if you are working with RE/MAX or CondoDomain – the better agent will create more value for you – and therefore provide a better service and get you a better deal. Agree?
2. Niche: As a firm we specialize in 1 vertical. We ONLY work with buyers and we concentrate on urban living which mainly consists of condominiums. Buying a condominium is different than buying a single family home, that being said, we feel we have an advantage as our ‘agents’ deal with this all day long. Also, ONLY working with BUYERS allows our “agents” to concentrate on solely that. Most traditional real estate agents spend the majority of their time marketing themselves to drum up clients/business. After they get a new client (buyer or a seller) they need to adjust their perspective on how they are going to help them (ie. markets a new listing or help them find a new home). At CondoDomain we just work with buyers, 100% of the time, so all we do is tour properties all week long and see up to 10X more listing than the average “top real agent agent”. I would put this way up on the list as a major advantage for CondoDomain to serve you as a buyers agent, no?
3. Business model: Without drilling into details or boring you with how our internal systems work, our business model ‘affords’ our team members/agent to work with buyers for a set flat fee. When we started this business it did not make sense to us that if we helped a buyer buy a home and they spent more money, we got paid more? Actually, our exact opinion was this is “ass backwards”. As a buyers agent aren’t we supposed to try and help our buyers get the new home or condo for the lowest price possible? Thus, the implementation of the “flat fee”.
Because of how the traditional real estate model is set up & for still operating, we are still compensated a commission based on the percentage of the sales price. So we simple accept the commission at the closing, subtract our fee due to the firm (which is the exact same for every transaction) and then cut the remainder of the commission back to our client. Sound fair?
Summary:
To date we have had VERY FEW thought-out rebuttals to our business model. Most traditionalist classify us as a “discounter” and just write hateful things to us about the model – whatever! Does anyone out there who does not agree with our model have a “thought out” response to a flat fee based buyers agency?
Our goal as a company, beyond the obvious of helping buyers, is NOT to ruin the real estate industry, but rather provide a very sensible and viable option to consumers.
So….
We are operating a company called CondoDomain that provides a dominant web-based information portal that includes more ‘local’ RE data on one site than any other single source. We have local real estate agents whom we believe are some of the very best in the industry for calculated reasons. And…we work with every single one of our clients for the exact same set fee and REFUND them back any remainder of the commission.
My guess is that if we were lucky enough to tell every buyer in our market about our business model, 8 out of 10 people would choose us. So….HOW DO WE TELL OUR AWESOME STORY?
More information visit our website @ www.CondoDomain.com
Recent Comments