Is your real estate agent dumb and dodgy?

I'm a naturally sceptical person and my bulls--t radar was on high alert when I sold my previous place.

Luckily my agent was OK, but I never really felt fully sure if all the offers had been passed on to me and that he was being straight about the likely price my place would fetch.

However, next time I sell that won't be a problem because I'll just use Open Agent to find someone who has achieved exceptional sales results in my area.

The start-up has just launched an awards program for real estate agents. The agents who have received the most outstanding feedback from clients on the site will receive a gong, which they can then use in their marketing to attract new clients.

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Co-founders Zoe Pointon and Marta Higuera​ met when they worked for professional services firm McKinsey. They had been tossing around new business ideas for a while when they realised there wasn't enough information available about the people who sell what's generally everyone's biggest asset.

"There was something wrong with the way real estate was working; it wasn't set up around customer needs. We felt the way agents were chosen needed to change; they needed to be held more accountable," Pointon says.

Despite having no previous experience in the area, Pointon coded the business's first site. "We learnt that even without a snappy site people wanted the service," she says.

In just three years, the now 45-person-strong business has raised $8 million in funding and, as at October, held 1 per cent of the market. This is no mean feat given market leaders Ray White and L J Hooker each have just under 10 per cent of the market. Real estate darlings McGrath, which is about to be floated, has about 3 per cent of the market.

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