TALKING ABOUT A REVOLUTION

As much as Russ DiPietro relishes saving money, there are limits to what he will do in the name of fiscal conservancy. “If I need to have my foot operated on,” he says, “I’m not going to break out a scalpel.” But DiPietro has determined that selling a house without the aid of a real estate agent is not foot surgery. He sold a home in Quincy that way about 10 years ago, and last fall he listed his mother-in-law’s $899,000 Milton house on forsalebyowner.com, run by a New York company that says it has saved homeowners “billions of dollars” in real estate commissions since 1997. Forsalebyowner customers can list their properties – and choose options like customized brochures, demographic information, yard signs, and an e-book that the company touts as “the definitive guide for selling your home without a real estate agent” – at prices ranging from $89.95 a month to a flat fee of $899.

DiPietro’s Internet listing has not generated offers, but he has no intention of ringing up a real estate agent. “I won’t pay 6 percent of today’s prices,” he says, referring to the typical broker’s commission that sellers pay. “It’s not worth it.”

An increasing number of Web-based real estate companies hope other buyers and sellers will also revolt against a commission structure that has been in place for decades. These companies operate on set-fee structures or – like Seattle-based Redfin – offer commission rebates. All promise to pocket less of the proceeds than a traditional broker. Most of their pitches can be squeezed into this question: Why pay real estate fees based solely on the price of a property instead of the services provided?

Redfin, which plans to expand its West Coast business into Boston this year, aims for simplicity. Sellers pay $2,000 for marketing materials and online listings. “When an offer is made, we take over,” says Redfin’s Cynthia Pang. “We negotiate prices and draw up the paperwork.” The company refunds buyers two-thirds of the commission it receives from the seller’s side of the deal. Some other discount firms feature rosters of options longer than a T.G.I. Friday’s menu, ranging from basic online listings to personal guidance from brokers.

That doesn’t mean everyone is embracing the concept. In fact, 83 percent of sellers nationwide hire a full-service agency, according to the National Association of Realtors. Agents say people prefer to have someone else handle price negotiations, particularly in a down market. But buyers especially are spending a lot of time online – about 80 percent use the Internet for house hunting, up from just 2 percent in 1995, according to the realtors association. Technology has “changed forever the way people buy and sell property,” says Steve Ozonian, chairman of the board of Help-U-Sell Real Estate, the country’s largest set-fee real estate company, based in Irvine, California. Primarily, that’s because consumers have more access to multiple listing services, the databases of properties for sale that agents once guarded like top-secret military plans.

The first MLS database was created in San Diego in 1887 as a way for brokers to share information, and there are now about 900 nationwide. Anyone can view them, but only licensed agents who pay a fee to join an MLS can list properties for sale. Discount brokerages such as listforless.com and ownersdirectmls.com charge just a few hundred dollars to list a property on a MLS, allowing buyers and sellers to contact each other directly. Other firms offer more limited listings that are not linked to MLS databases.

David Barry, a San Francisco attorney specializing in antitrust litigation, says MLS databases are controlled “by self-anointed trade associations that tell us they know what’s best.” Barry is trying to change that through Open MLS Institute, a nonprofit that is collecting signatures for an initiative that would establish statewide MLSs first in Maine and eventually in all 23 states that allow citizens to petition to get measures on the ballot. “Anyone, not just an agent, could list,” he says. The group’s goal is to form open MLS databases across the country that cost about $20 monthly “for unlimited listing rights.”

Before joining Help-U-Sell, Ozonian held top jobs at commission-driven companies wedded to the MLS structure, such as Coldwell Banker and Prudential Real Estate. Today, he criticizes the “disparity between the amount of work a realtor puts into an average transaction and what they charge the consumer.” Ozonian’s defection to an alternative firm jolted some industry observers. Local broker Bill Wendel likens it to “Bill Gates going to work for Steve Jobs.” Wendel opened Real Estate Cafe in Cambridge 12 years ago and is considered an innovator in the fee-for-service movement. He says the Internet’s “incredible efficiencies” make it possible for alternative companies to charge less than traditional ones. Time-guzzling research that used to be an agent’s responsibility, like poring through listings, is now routinely done by buyers. “When I see someone using an alternative broker,” he says, “I think they are Web-savvy and innovative or someone who tried business as usual and couldn’t get their price.”

Wendel’s view is strikingly different from what Dick Cahill sees as president of Massachusetts’s largest independent real estate firm, Jack Conway & Co. All 45 “Conway Country” offices were built on the commission system. It still works, Cahill maintains, because full-service almost always delivers the best deals. “I’ve seen new ideas come and go,” Cahill says of discount brokerages. “What are you getting for a flat fee? And if you want something else, what’s the next flat fee?” Conway’s financial stability and half-century of experience allow it to weather market slumps better than newcomers, he says, and its thousand or so agents warrant commissions because they are skilled at accurately setting prices, marketing houses, and screening buyers. “As great as the Internet is, when push comes to shove, people come to the real estate agent because they don’t want to do it on their own.”

Or they look for a sign. DiPietro, the Quincy man who listed his mother-in-law’s house on a website, also is employing an ancient real estate tool: a “for sale” sign. “In a good location,” he says, “it’s like gold.”

Mark Pothier is a senior assistant business editor at the Globe. E-mail him at mpothier@globe.com.