Anyone who sells their home without a real estate agent earns almost 5,000 euros. That is the brokerage of 1.1 percent that a Dutch broker on average counts on a sales price of 438,000 euros.
And to sell your house, even an advertisement on the Funda housing site is no longer necessary, says the founder of online broker Gmak.nl. The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) rejected his complaint about Funda’s monopoly on Monday, but he no longer seems to care.
„Selling a house in this market is not rocket science“, say one of the customers from Gmak.nl on the mediator’s site. The Frisian start-up is one of the web services that helps homeowners to sell their home without a broker. The owner himself determines the asking price, guides interested parties around and negotiates the sale himself.
Gmak, founded in 2018 and still loss-making, takes care of a few things: until recently, the most important was the automatic advertisement on Funda. This is important, because that is, after all, the hub of the Dutch housing market. Until November 2020. The advertisements of Gmak.nl have been missing on Funda for over a year.
Funda rejects the conscious advertisements, because, according to the site, they do not meet the new conditions that have been in force since the end of 2020. Funda requires intermediaries who advertise, among other things, that they have physically assessed the home themselves. That is by definition not the case at Gmak.nl.
Unreasonable
The Frisian website found Funda’s demands unreasonable and filed a complaint with the Authority for Consumers & Markets (ACM). The regulator sees the housing market as one of the themes it will discuss this year want to give extra attention† Gmak.nl complained that Funda’s new criteria favor traditional brokers and hinder newcomers from entering the (online) housing market.
The fundamental question to ACM was: is Funda, of which the NVM estate agent association is a major shareholder, merely a site of and for estate agents? Who can decide for themselves who they allow? Or does Funda have such a great social importance that everyone should have access to it?
The ACM stated in its ruling on Monday that “access to Funda is important for the proper functioning of the Dutch housing market”, but yet she refrains from further investigation† Reason: no convincing indications have been found that Funda conditions disadvantage intermediaries and home owners. Gmak subsequently withdrew the enforcement request.
“Of course we would have liked to see a statement of principle from the ACM”, director Chris van der Voorn of Gmak responds. “But the housing market has changed. Funda has ‘zero’ added value for our customers.” A rumor that a house is for sale would be enough to bring it to the attention of interested parties. “Funda adds nothing.”
Funda is pleased with ACM’s decision. “Funda sets clear requirements for the conditions under which brokers can use Funda,” a spokesperson told ANP news agency. “They are the same for all brokers and intermediaries.”
Also read: The arguing at Funda is not over yet
A statement that is important for Funda will follow later this week. The Enterprise Chamber in Amsterdam will then issue a judgment in a case involving smaller Funda shareholders. They believe that major shareholder NVM should offer more room to attract new investors, so that Funda can be expanded.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of February 8, 2022