Buy Owner and 18 affiliates filed an assignment for the benefit of creditors July 26, 2010 after turning over all their assets Friday to Michael Moecker & Associates managing director Philip J. von Kahle. Moecker specializes in liquidating companies in receivership.
Experts also say the competitive landscape has changed with the real estate downturn and that simply listing a home on a website is no longer enough to sell a property.
Its simple philosophy — cutting costs by eliminating the middleman — hasn’t proven strong enough to carry the company through the recession. That surprises Brad Hunter, chief economist at Palm Beach Gardens real estate consulting firm Metrostudy.
“I thought they had a business model that would be viable in today’s tough market because it allows people to save the commission. On the other hand, it demonstrates it is so hard to sell a home in this market that you do need a real estate expert to get the job done,” he said.
Although Buy Owner is essentially dead, von Kahle said he will attempt to keep its website and services alive and available to consumers, who should not notice a change.
Going with Buy Owner meant going it alone, without the expertise needed to sell a home in a depressed market.
When the market was healthy, the share of brokerless transactions made up nearly a tenth of all properties sold but has decreased in recent years as homeowners realize they need the marketing depth of agents to close sales in an onerous market.
A study prepared for the Florida Association of Realtors last November showed the share of Florida sellers who sold their own homes was 10 percent compared with a national average of 11 percent. The study also showed 40 percent of those sellers knew the buyer before the sale.
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