One last gasp

From the Record:

Foxtons hunts buyer for listings

Foxtons, the failed discount real estate company, is looking for another company to buy its 4,400 sale listings.

The seven-year-old company announced last week that it was going out of business because of the housing slump. It laid off 350 of its 380 employees.

But several industry veterans observed that other brokerages might not be eager to buy the listings because they would have to honor the lower commissions – typically 3 percent to 4 percent — offered by Foxtons. Most traditional real estate agents charge 5 percent to 6 percent.

In addition, agents were reluctant to show homes listed by Foxtons because their split of the commission would be lower than the usual amount.

The announcement that Foxtons was folding came as a surprise to many of its clients who had recently signed listing agreements. Marshall McKnight, a spokesman for the state Real Estate Commission, said he could not comment on how many complaints the state has gotten from Foxtons customers, because they are open investigations.

Barnett Silverstein of Leonia had listed his house with Foxtons and wanted to get out of the list-ing after he heard the com- pany planned to shut down. But other real estate agents told him he was stuck unless Foxtons released him from the listing contract.

So Silverstein drove to the company headquarters in West Long Branch last Friday and got a written release from his contract. He thinks he is one of the few Foxtons clients to do that.

He and his wife now have listed their property with another broker.

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