From the January issue: For some buyers’ brokers, it’s their greatest fear come to pass. More and more apartment hunters, armed with listing information gleaned from the Web, are representing themselves rather than using a real estate agent. “I have buyers coming at me [at open houses], unrepresented, clutching fistfuls of paper,” said Halstead Property senior vice president Charles Homet, who primarily works with sellers. “They pride themselves on their Internet acumen and they feel they have enough information.” This is the long-feared bogeyman of the Internet era for buyers’ brokers: the idea that buyers will no longer need them because they can find listings online and deal directly with the seller’s agent.And while buyers’ brokers clearly have an advantage right now in the soft market, the long term is a different story. In some ways, the changes are already afoot. Prudential Douglas Elliman vice chairman Dolly Lenz said she is doing “a lot more direct deals,” estimating that she may be working with twice as many unrepresented buyers now as in past years.

Leigh Zaph is planning on registering his three-person firm, Manhattan Homes, as a Virtual Office Web site.

From the December issue:
A new breed of online brokerage is springing up in New York, altering
the landscape of real estate sales in Manhattan and worrying
traditional firms, who fear the changes may hurt their business. In the past, New York firms have contended with Web aggregators
like StreetEasy and Trulia, which gather and post information on local
brokerage listings. But thanks to a recent settlement between the federal Department of
Justice and the National Association of Realtors, the Real Estate Board
of New York is now sharing all of its members’ listings directly with
online brokerages, known as “Virtual Office Web sites.” These VOWs, as they are called, allow consumers to view those listings — including those from other firms — online. Experts say the change will have far-reaching consequences for the
industry in the coming year and beyond. Some believe VOWs could also
pave the way for a comprehensive Multiple Listing Service, which has
long been resisted here.  More

[more]

Streeteasy.com Web site

In the traditionally enigmatic world of New York real estate, some
facets of even the most closely-held deals have become tough to hide.
Basic information — buyer, seller, price, address — is searchable on
the Web once it closes and becomes public record. And the selling agent
is easy enough to find between advertisements that prominently feature
their names and real estate listings Web sites like Streeteasy.com,
which, since 2005, has been matching those listings with records from
the city’s Department of Finance. But there are two sides to almost
every sale, and despite the past decade’s move toward transparency,
information on buyers’ brokers remains more elusive. Streeteasy.com hopes that changes, said Derrick Gross, a business
analyst at the company. StreetEasy rolled out a group of new features
last Friday — among them, the ability for buyers’ brokers to claim
recent deals as their own. [more]

Real Estate listings Web site Streeteasy.com has expanded again, this
time to the notoriously opaque Hamptons real estate market. Starting today, Streeteasy.com has debuted some 5,000 sale listings and
10,000 rental listings on the East End of Long Island, said Derrick
Gross, a business analyst at Streeteasy. Gross said the company is aiming to bring more transparency to the
Hamptons real estate market, which, with no centralized multiple
listing service, currently offers customers very little listing
information, with property addresses and even asking prices rarely
accessible. [more]