The housing market in the Greater Toronto market becomes increasingly costly by the day. Both buyers and sellers have naturally become extra frugal with their expenditure: each dollar justifies its expenditure. In part, the value of land and speculation has increased the prices of homes within the area. However, people often downplay the significant brokerage commission fees as a subset of the greater scheme of things: its final price.

According to Urban Toronto, “The typical commission paid to agents of both buyers and sellers averages at 2.5%, typically totalling 5% of the home's selling price, and adding thousands of dollars to the cost for both parties.”

Fortunately, we live in interesting times; with the help of burgeoning disruptive technologies like Uber, Airbnb and a plethora of others before them that are shaking up traditional industries by providing low-cost alternatives, Justo Inc.has borrowed a leaf and is using it to shakeup the real estate industry.

Justo Inc. is a new Brokerage firm in Toronto that employs technology to efficiently and effectively manage the transactional processes of buying and selling a house, all the while slashing the costs of commission by half.

Reporting for Urban Toronto, Jack Landau writes, “Where a traditional brokerage would keep the entire commission, Justo splits the commission with the buyer, each taking an even 1.25% of the purchase price. With the halved fees, a home priced at $600,000 could save a seller up to $10,500, with the purchaser saving as much as $9,000. Homes priced at $1M could save sellers up to $16,500 and buyers up to $14,000.”

Justo Inc. states on its website, “Justo’s team of local agents provide all-inclusive services that harness innovative technology and put extra cash in your pocket. Using data-driven business intelligence, we lower our costs and pass the savings on to our customers. Access to our platform, tools and experts is completely free - with no commitments or contracts whatsoever.”

To take away the jargon, Justo executes its vision by lead generation, and not only enabling, but allowing agents to work on a volume basis and oversee the reduction in commission rates by increasing the deals to a number that exceeds what most realtors take on.

Justo offers everything under one roof and is doing more than what a traditional brokerage firm does. These include professional photography, virtual 3D tours, architectural plans, staging, and property marketing that go a long way in saving costs.

Justo is bent on having a huge piece of the cake. This, they are doing under the leadership of CEO Daphne De Groot who believes the traditional brokerage model hasn’t been keeping tabs with recent technological advancements.

He said in a recently released statement, “With the housing boom over the past 15 years, today, agents are making multiple times the commissions for half of the work. There is still a lot of expertise provided by agents, but we felt there was a need for some adjustment to the current norms. We don’t believe it should cost someone the equivalent of a year’s salary to sell their home.”

Justo’s innovation is a big plus to the two most important stakeholders in the real estate industry: the buyer and seller. The reasons are, as explained above, clear as day.