the next generation of real estate services™

Today RT Brokerage launched a direct channel, hourly rate real estate affiliate program for small- to medium-sized businesses in Washington State. The program lets businesses pass on discounted hourly rates for real estate services directly to their employees and customers in exchange for performance driven quarterly co-marketing opportunities.

SEATTLE--(PRLog)--Jul 30, 2008--“Why not let your employee’s or customer’s selling or buying experience be something they’ll remember ‘you’ for instead of an agent across town?” says RT Brokerage Services CEO Louis Herrera. “You don’t need a wholly owned subsidiary or joint venture to offer your employees and customers full-service, real estate brokerage transactions. Our agent-employee brokerage model gives businesses a direct channel to offer hourly real estate transactions to their employees and customers at discounted rates.”

RT Brokerage can offer direct channel sales since their agents are employees of the company, not independent contractors like the majority of agents in the industry, and because they have converted the real estate transaction into a time-accountable REAL estate TRANSACTIONS™ model of tiered licensed and non-licensed hourly rates.

“As an industry, we need to face some simple facts about buyers and sellers today. First, the ubiquitous online listing has changed the way they search and narrow down properties. Second, they know so much more about the buying and selling process than any time in history. Just go check out HGTV’s lineup. It is full of enormously popular ‘how-to’ shows. Shouldn’t buyer and sellers be compensated for some of this knowledge?” questions CEO Louis Herrera. “We think so. That is why we created our pay-as-you-go fee-for-service model. We avoid the commission risk, so we never have to roll-over failed transaction costs to the next buyer. It is a more efficient model. It is definitely not for everyone, but for those who know what they want, it is fair, practical and straightforward.”

Some industry pundits have suggested that when the foreclosure rate normalizes, the net effect on real estate commission from the extended period of downward pressure will be a new benchmark rate significantly lower than 6%. “That is definitely a scenario we played out when we started the brokerage, and since we all fundamentally agreed that discounting on risk was a concept we weren’t comfortable with, we avoided it. If the pundits are right and the benchmark rate drops substantially, real estate transactions are likely to migrate to a two model system.” says Herrera.

In the first model, the agent bears 100% of the commission risk and reaps 100% of the reward (full commission), exactly like it is today except no rebates. In the second model the agent bears no commission risk by billing throughout the transaction, and receives a steady stream of income generated by hourly rates. “Hourly rates are a big bet, but by launching initiatives like our direct channel affiliate program that reinforce fee-for-service, we believe businesses and consumers alike will eventually see the big financial rewards brought on by sharing the risk in the transaction.” remarks CEO Herrera.

RT Brokerage Services, Inc. is a full-service, licensed real estate brokerage in Washington State. We provide consumers with real estate services on a fee-for-service basis. That means we track our time and charge hourly rates for the services provided. The model is like any professional services profession that operates under a fee-for-service compensation basis (e.g., law, accounting, and engineering): you only pay for what you use.

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