A former real estate broker and Web entrepreneur in San Diego has developed an Internet tool with a very human purpose - to collect feedback from home buyers and their agents on the houses they've seen, and distribute that information back to sellers and listing agents.

The Web site is homefeedback.com. The cost to a listing agent to put a home on the site is $6 per month and $4 per listing.

The site is the brainchild of CEO Rick Bengson, who spent 15 years as a real estate sales agent and found himself often frustrated by the limited amount of feedback he'd receive from other agents showing his listings.

"In the current process, the listing agent has to try to call back every agent who has shown the house trying to get feedback," he said. "But those (buyer agents) have no incentive to return those calls.

"What you end up doing is going back to your seller and, if you're honest, explaining that you can't get your phone calls returned. But the seller is still going to blame the agent for not doing his job."

The feedback site attempts to change that with a carrot and stick approach. Showing agents who provide information are given high ratings that are published on the system. Agents who don't respond are given low ratings.

"In a normal situation, you might get 20 percent of agents to give you feedback," Bengson said. "We're getting around 50 percent, so it's clear the system works."

The homefeedback system is simple and fairly straightforward.

When agents tour a home, they leave their business cards at a central location. The listing agent then collects those cards -- which hopefully include e-mail addresses -- and sends those e-mail address to homefeedback.com.

The Web site then sends a multi-point questionnaire to the showing agent, asking basic questions:

Published: December 12, 2000

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