‘I’m moving out’
StreetEasy $3 fee has brokers snapping ...
Big Apple real estate brokers are irate after a popular online listings site recently instituted a pay-to-play system.
In protest, five brokers have pulled their rental listings from the StreetEasy site — and four of the group have also yanked their sales listings — because the site began charging a listing fee of $3 per day per rental, the brokers told The Post Wednesday.
The fee policy is expected to bring StreetEasy $1 million a month in added revenue.
In addition, the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), an industry group, has moved to add muscle to its broker-only site.
The anger is sparked not only by the fee but also by the move by StreetEasy to place a “No Longer Available” label on listings by brokers who have refused to cough up the $3 fee.
Brokers feel it gives apartment hunters the idea that the listing is unavailable to rent — rather than simply unavailable on the site.
“People are mad,” one industry heavyweight told The Post. “StreetEasy is misleading the consumer in different ways. It’s not right.”
“The inventory is still available, just not on their site, but the consumers don’t know that,” a second source, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, told The Post.
The five brokers that pulled their rental listings are the Corcoran Group, Brown Harris Stevens, Town Residential, Compass and Stribling & Associates.
All but Corcoran have also pulled their sales listings as well. Other brokers are expected to join the revolt.
“We mainly sell apartments, but we have 300 rentals and we pulled them all from StreetEasy,” said Bess Freedman, BHS’s managing director of sales and business development. “We don’t support them as a company, but our brokers are free to pay on their own.”
StreetEasy, owned by Zillow, is trying to smooth some ruffled feathers. “We’ve been in conversation with New York state to make sure that everyone is fully educated on our new policies,” a StreetEasy spokesperson said.
Until two weeks ago, StreetEasy was the go-to site for all rental and sales listings in New York City — and beyond.
StreetEasy listings have dropped by half since the $3per-day charge launched on July 19 — from around 30,000 rental listings a day to fewer than 17,000 rentals a day.
To protest the $3 fee, on Aug. 1, REBNY syndicated its “RLS” listings service with all big brokerage firms participating.
To be sure, some brokers who agreed to pay the fee have seen their traffic grow.
“Our listing traffic jumped more than 30 percent,” said Douglas Elliman executive Scott Durkin, who adds that the brokerage firm is picking up the fee for all of its brokers. Still, Durkin is not happy with the site’s move.
“What StreetEasy did was not OK,” Durkin said. “It’s like they cut the electricity and turned off all the lights.”
A StreetEasy spokeswoman calls the $3 a day charge a “minimal” amount for a rental broker to pay.
“Consider that they earn thousands of dollars in commissions per listing for potentially no work, and this will cost them under $100,” she said.
The Post is owned by News Corp., which also owns Realtor.com.