They are the agents who for decades have ushered homes from listing to sale.

Increasingly, however, consumers view houses and condominiums online, where they control the homes they see, how many and when. You also get prices, addresses, maps and, perhaps most important, lots of big color photos.

And here’s where the new world of residential real estate begins to divide: Do today’s home sellers require the personal touch and marketing services of a hands-on agent? Or can such a sale be transacted via phone, Internet and fax? Or some kind of blend between agent and pure technology?

Traditional agents increasingly are facing discount business models hungry for even a small piece of the $1.4 trillion national residential real estate market. These companies, such as MLS4owners.com, Redfin and ZipRealty, rely heavily on the Internet and leave some or a lot of the work to the homeowner. But they always extend a consumer-friendly carrot – money off the typical sales commission.

Such companies offer a range of services, from a bare-bones approach that emphasizes listing exposure to hybrid versions that bundle what they do for a set price or commission.

Agents with the region’s major brokerages still sell more than 98 percent of today’s listings, and many say they see no significant threat now – nor one on the horizon. They too use the Internet to find and communicate with customers, market homes and get them seen more than others on the Web.

But increased competition and ever-changing technology might be the harbingers of an evolution similar to those affecting travel agents, stock brokers and, yes, newspapers.

“If 90 percent of getting your home sold is pricing right, what’s the other 10 percent and what’s the value there?” asked Kevin Broveleit, who manages the Washington state listing team at Redfin, a company that sells homes for a flat fee and deals with sellers almost exclusively online and by phone.

“What is it a traditional agent can do for you that isn’t available other places?”

While traditional agents agree that pricing is important, they say so too is the service they provide, particularly in the crucial period that moves a purchase agreement to a closed sale. This could include dealing with inspection issues or making sure document deadlines are met – work that some but not all of the discounters also do.

“Most people value their time and they want the benefit of an advocate and they’re willing to pay for it,” said William Riss, CEO of Coldwell Banker Bain. “These limited-service models aren’t set up to do that. They transfer information.”

FROM BOOK TO WEB

More than 30 years ago, data available on homes for sale came to real estate agents on note cards with stats on the front and a picture on the back. Some agents stored them in shoe boxes. They would thumb through and grab cards they needed for appointments with buyers or sellers, said Jack Johnson, CEO of the Northwest Multiple Listing Service. The broker-owned service, based in Kirkland, publishes listings and compiles statistics for 19 counties around the state.

The next evolution of listings arrived by book in the late-1970s, delivered at least twice a month and bound with residential properties for sale in Pierce and other counties, Johnson said.

In 1999, the listing service began posting properties to the Internet – a change in format and access crucial to the genesis of today’s crop of companies.

The Northwest’s tech acumen makes it an ideal place for newer Internet-reliant real estate companies, said ZipRealty CEO Pat Lashinsky. ZipRealty launched in 1999 in the San Francisco Bay Area and chose the Seattle-Tacoma market as its third.

ZipRealty employs agents who work out of their homes. Efficiencies generated by using the Internet as a centerpiece of its business model and having no office space allow ZipRealty to take a 2 percent commission rather than 3 percent for seller’s agents, Lashinsky said.

University Place-based MLS4owners.com opened in 2001; five years later Redfin began selling homes. Another local outfit, $500 Realty, opened a South Tacoma office in August.

Their combined share of the market, so far, remains small. Altogether, those four discount real estate companies accounted for barely more than 1 percent of Pierce County sales for the first 11 months of 2007, according to Northwest Multiple Listing statistics provided by Windermere.

By contrast, the region’s two largest real estate companies – John L. Scott and Windermere – each have about 21 percent market share, as measured by units sold. John L. Scott celebrated its 75th anniversary last year; Windermere opened in 1972.

COMMISSION OR FLAT FEE?

$500 Realty charges $500 to list a home. Of that amount, agents are paid $400 for each listing they post to the MLS – a meager amount compared to the commissions pulled in by traditional agents.

While negotiable, the average sales commission last year was 5.18 percent, according to research firm Real Trends, with half generally going to the agent representing the seller and half going to the buyer’s agent.

On a $300,000 home, such a commission would be $15,540, leaving the seller $284,460 before closing costs and other fees. On a house costing $750,000, the commission would be $38,850.

$500 Realty is the newest of the bunch, run by broker Ray Pepper. He used to say listing agents were useless but says now that “We shouldn’t say they’re useless. But I think inputting a listing into the MLS takes an hour.”

Brokers and agents at traditional real estate companies say assembling a quality listing takes more than an hour and that inputting a listing is often done by coordinators who specialize in writing and managing them as part of a wider marketing push for the home.

Pepper, who talks evangelically about the good he thinks $500 Realty does consumers, tells potential clients that rather than pay a commission to a full-service listing agent, their money would be better spent hiring someone from Labor Ready to flag traffic to their house.

Doug Ingalls, who with his wife, Jan, works on a five-agent Keller Williams team in Puyallup, said selling a home takes much more than making sure it’s on the MLS and getting people to drive by.

“You really do sort of get what you pay for,” he said. “If they have a good listing agent, you’re not only getting a sign in the yard … you’re getting protected and presented in a sort of way that it will bring top dollar.”

Prices on the services of a traditional agent run higher than the discount models because agents and their brokers front marketing costs and risk losing money and time if a sale doesn’t go through, said Blanche Evans, editor of Realty Times.

A sales commission comes after a home sells rather than as a fee paid at listing. Redfin charges $500 up front on top of $3,500 paid at closing, or a flat, initial fee of $3,000. Customers pay fees to MLS4owners.com and $500 Realty before the home is put up for sale.

“What you’re looking at in the difference in the models is the degree of risk” for the agent, Evans said.

‘LIST TO LAST’

Listing a property in the world of traditional real estate has long been about more than making a sale.

Without listings, an agent has no properties to market. Nowhere to put a yard sign. Look at a flier promoting a house – you’ll almost always find the agent’s picture, along with photos of the home.

In the industry, the inextricable link between growing a stable of listings and building a valuable brand is summarized in the phrase “list to last.”

“You can’t market a buyer,” said Jonathan Watson, the managing broker of Gateway GMAC Real Estate, which has about 120 agents working out of its Puyallup office. “The avenues to generate business comes from marketing through listings.”

Today’s housing market, which has slowed compared to recent years, elevates the importance of promoting a listing and getting homes noticed, he said.

“Now you really have to pay attention to your competition, to the sales numbers, pay attention to buyers, look at similar properties. You have to be able to adjust,” he said.

Kay and Bill Duncan used Gateway’s Roy Kissell as a listing agent twice – once when he sold their Puyallup home in 2001 and once when he sold another Puyallup home for them in 2005.

“He was amazing. He just did everything,” Kay Duncan said.

The second transaction was made more complicated by the Duncan’s purchase of a retirement home in Nevada. Kissell instructed the Duncans on how to present the house they were selling in Puyallup and discussed strategy for timing the listing here to correspond with their purchase of the new-construction home 1,100 miles away.

“I would never sell a home without an agent, not ever,” Duncan said. “I’d be afraid of all the paperwork. How do you prequalify someone? How do you make sure they’re not going to rip you off? How do you make sure they’re not casing your place?”

A DIFFERENT APPROACH

At ZipRealty, agents are fed customers by e-mail.

The company provides the leads, generated primarily by visits to ZipRealty’s Web site.

Agent Sheryl McLaren, a Tacoma team leader at ZipRealty, started at the company more than two years ago after a short stint at John L. Scott.

Not having to dig up customers on her own, McLaren says, allows her to focus. Agents are commission-paid employees.

“Sometimes I’m in my sweats all day long on the computer; sometimes I’m out at 9 and back at 8,” she said.

At Redfin, in downtown Seattle, agents who list and sell homes usually don’t meet their clients. They communicate and handle sales through phone calls, fax machines and the Internet.

In November, Melissa Fuehrer, 37, sold her first home – a two-bedroom Browns Point condominium – using Redfin. Fuehrer never met her agent and completed all the paperwork by e-mail and fax, which suited her fine.

Having bought the condo six years ago for $115,000, she sold it in less than two months for $205,000 – $11,500 under asking price.

“I liked how I was able to do most of the interaction online versus having to take time off work to meet with a real estate agent,” she said.

Fuehrer said she also liked saving money on the sales commission, which she calculated to be a discount of $3,150.

Some of the discounters, however, have found that faceless transactions don’t work for everyone and so have added more in-person interaction.

Redfin, a month after launching its sales unit, brought on field agents who can let prospective buyers into a property the company has listed.

Nearly three years in, ZipRealty reworked its model from an online-only approach to making agents available to customers, said CEO Lashinsky.

“We realized quickly consumers wanted to see someone who could walk through the house and tell them the negatives and positives and a level of service beyond what you could find on the Internet,” he said.

While some consumers want a hands-on agent, some experienced sellers like real estate investor James Taylor voices a sentiment common among those looking for another, cheaper way to sell their homes.

“Agents don’t work hard enough for the commission,” said Taylor, who’s sold 15 properties through MLS4owners.com and figures he’s saved at least $50,000 in commissions. “Why would I pay someone without a college education more than I pay my doctor?”

CHARTING A FUTURE

MLS4owners.com, the discounter with the most sales in Pierce County, offers do-it-yourself home sales. The University Place company employs no agents and, while it provides data on nearby homes, you decide on a price and negotiate the sale.

The company recommends augmenting its services, which cost $595, by paying an attorney to review transaction documents.

President Chris Nye said he thinks that ultimately the six-year-old company will do the same volume of sales as the big traditional players.

Through November, MLS4owners.com has sold 96 homes this year in Pierce County compared to more than 2,500 each at John L. Scott and Windermere.

“I think someday in the future you’ll see comparable numbers,” Nye said.

Said Ken Whitney, general manager at MLS4owners.com: “Our company might be owned by our kids, but it will happen.”

Traditional agents often say that what consumers think they save with discount real estate companies is often lost by ultimately selling at a lower price or giving away something, such as a refrigerator, that should be negotiated.

Most people who sell a home don’t have the knowledge to make up for what they don’t get with discount companies, said George Pilant, a Re/Max agent.

When listing a home for sale, the Northwest Multiple Listing Service requires a seller to specify what the buyer’s agent will be paid. MLS4owners.com, $500 Realty and Redfin suggest that their sellers, while saving money on the listing side, offer up to a 3 percent commission to the agent who brings a buyer.

Pilant said inexperienced sellers who use a service like MLS4owners.com end up paying him to negotiate against them.

“I’ve got 18 years under my belt. They have this one house … Who has the advantage? My buyers do,” he said.

But Nye at MLS4owners.com says his customers negotiate all day long – on the job and in their lives – and want to feel in control of the transaction.

“A homeowner is just as capable of negotiating a sale as a full-service agent,” he said.

Traditional listing agents reject the idea that shifts in their industry mirror changes that have allowed consumers to buy plane tickets, hotel rooms or stocks at reduced prices.

Said Howard Chung, vice president of Washington real estate operations for John L. Scott: “We’re offering a service. When you’re looking for a ticket, you’re booking a ticket. You don’t have emotional ties. The home is the greatest investment you have, emotionally and financially.”

Windermere agent Tom Hume, who started selling homes 12 years ago, said that in the Internet’s early days he worried real estate might be hurt by online-centric companies.

But, he said, such companies give traditional agents the chance to prove they’re worth the money.

“Some people can do their own divorce. You can do your own oil change,” said Hume, who occasionally buys stock online using Ameritrade. “Some people will always want to pay for top-of-the-line service.”

Devona Wells: 253-720-8935

devona.wells@thenewstribune.com