RealDirect Inc

Description of Work: I learned about RealDirect from a neighbor in my building who had recently used their services both to sell his previous apartment and to buy his current one. He enthusiastically urged me to use them, claiming that I could get everything a traditional real estate could do for a small fraction of the price. It sounded too good to be true. But at the same time, I did not relish the thought of shelling out, between my agent and a buyer's agent, over $35,000 in realtor fees, so I decided to check out this real estate broker. This was my experience: Prior to signing on with RealDirect, they requested that I fill out an apartment profile that gave them information about my property. RealDirect subsequently emailed me a customized price recommendation for the high and low ends of where to price my property. I then signed on with RealDirect and completed my own web pages on their site that included pix, a blurb, and answers to their questionnaire, among other things. RealDirect promptly listed my apartment on their web site, as well as on numerous real estate search engines and classifieds sites such as Zillow, Trulia, Google, Streeteasy, Craigslist, Natefind, etc. And since RealDirect is a licensed real estate broker in New York, they also got my listing into the local MLS databases to enabled buyers' brokers to show my listing to their clients. RealDirect offered three basic options for pricing. I chose the lowest price, which was $399 per month. Anyone who has used a real estate agent knows that this is an obscenely good price; a traditional broker at the standard 3% cut would have cost me a whopping $17,250! What was the difference in service? I showed my apartment myself. That's right — showing my apartment by myself saved almost $16k! Not only did it save me a huge expense, but potential buyers actually told me that they LIKED having the me handle my own appointments because they could hear directly from me why I liked the apartment enough to buy it in the first place, plus I knew immediately the answers to all their questions. In my pages on RealDirect's web site, I controlled the times and dates my home was available for showing, and prospective buyers could book appointments with me directly through my listing. Not only did this speed buyers' ability to book appointments, but in addition, all my appointments automatically got added to my Contact List, which made communicating with potential buyers and/or their agents really easy. I was happy with getting a real estate broker at this great price, but RealDirect also gave me so much more. In addition to the great price and the points mentioned in the paragraph above, RealDirect totally out-performed any other agent I ever used in the past in other ways. When I sold my previous property, my agent back then was all about selling it at any price that anyone offered just to make sure she got her cut of the deal ASAP and before her contract with me expired. And prior to her, I fired my agent for not showing up to appointments and angering (not to mention losing) a handful of potential buyers! But Kumar at Real Direct really cared about acting in MY best interests. When my first month went by and I had no offers, I was ready to lower my price because I really wanted to sell the apartment ASAP. Kumar talked to me for a long time, on his unpaid off-hours, about the current market trends and why he was confident that I should hold out with my asking price. (Obviously this was ALL about helping me; Kumar was not being paid a percentage of the selling price, hence he only stood to make more money off of me the longer he kept the listing.) I followed his advice, and ended up being very glad that I did; within a couple of weeks, I got an offer — asking price! Boy, was I glad I didn't lower the price! I still had to pay the buyer agent 3% (NOT RealDirect, but I repeat, the agent for the BUYER), and the difference between the quality of Kumar and that of the buyer agent was not to be believed. RealDirect was as excellent as they could be, while the buyer agent was as incompetent as he could be.