Noah Rosenblatt, founder of UrbanDigs
Noah Rosenblatt, founder of Manhattan market trends analytics site UrbanDigs, launched a new flat fee buyer consulting service today. He said the service aims to help home seekers find properties’ true market value, and will then guide them through the buying and negotiating process, starting with the opening bid. Rosenblatt said the service is aimed at buyers who don’t trust brokers and want an independent advisor.
“There’s a perception that there should be a little bit less conflict of interest, a little less incentive for the buyer’s broker to get the buyer to bid as high as possible and get the deal done and collect commission,” said Rosenblatt, who has continued to serve as a traditional buyer’s broker since leaving Halstead Property in 2009. “There’s a need for an independent consulting service.”
Rosenblatt said this is the first service of its kind that he’s aware of in Manhattan. He plans to charge clients $1,500 for a detailed property valuation based on the analytic methods he’s used for UrbanDigs.com, plus consultation until a contract is signed or the buyer decides to walk away from the deal. But he’ll remain in the background throughout, invisible to the seller and the seller’s broker. If a buyer who walked away from a first deal wants to use Rosenblatt’s consulting service for a second property, they’ll need pony up just $500.
The service will appeal to a very particular type of buyer, Rosenblatt said, one who has the confidence to conduct negotiations on his own and who has no interest in dealing with a broker, especially now that property listings are widely available on the Internet.
Other brokers agree that there probably is a market for Rosenblatt’s service, but said consumers are selling themselves short by eschewing a broker.
Jeff Schleider, managing director of Miron Properties, said that there’s more to finding a home than looking at listings. “Analytics are very useful to the process, but sometimes it goes beyond that,” he said. “You can’t always put a numerical value on what may be the perfect home for a buyer.”
He also noted that Rosenblatt’s service could engender the same perceptions of kind of conflict of interest that the traditional brokerage model does, since he might have an incentive to encourage low-ball offers so that clients keep paying for his services.
But Rosenblatt feels strongly that the demand is there. He launched the service because he said he kept getting requests to consult people with their purchases, and began assisting on a handful of occasions. One buyer paid him $1,000 to consult on a home he was purchasing, even though he already enlisted the help of a broker because it was his wife’s best friend.
Still, brokers don’t seem concerned that Rosenblatt’s new platform will cut too deeply into their business. “I don’t think any higher-end clients would prefer this service over the traditional buyers’ broker,” said City Connections Founder and CEO David Schlamm. “I can see it having some success with the lower-priced condo segment of the market.”
