Amazon Is About to Disrupt the Real Estate Industry

PHOTO: To reward homebuyers who close on a home through TurnKey and Realogy, they will get up to $5,000 in Amazon credits.

Whenever Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) moves into an industry, the existing companies there shudder. And for good reason. Amazon is huge, and it’s willing to take a loss early on in order to grab market share.

One thing is for sure: Consumers are the winners in these battles. And so are shareholders.

You might think that with interest rates at generational lows, real estate would sell itself. But Amazon sees more. Much more.

In fact, last month, it teamed up with Realogy Holdings Corp. (NYSE: RLGY) to refer potential buyers to Realogy agents via its joint TurnKey program.

Amazon is not selling real estate, but it will, thanks to its enormous reach, funnel potential buyers into Realogy.

Realogy is a real estate company that owns brand names like Coldwell Banker, Sotheby’s, Century 21, and Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate. These are big firms, and they cover the real estate market from the entry-level homes to the most exclusive estates. All together, they employ 190,000 real estate agents in the United States and another 98,200 around the world.