A Lafayette company, ilisting.com, has launched a real estate service that lets people sell homes for flat fee of $3,495.

The service, located at ilisting.com, includes home listings, appraisals and inspections. The company's site has more than 3,000 Baton Rouge-area homes listed from the Realtors MLS service.

Owner Reed Andrus has access to the MLS listings because he's an agent. Buyers can use the site to make legal offers through an automated online purchase agreement. Real estate agents are available through the site to help buyers and sellers. Ilisting.com has allied with local companies to provide services such as home inspection and appraisals.

Andrus says 407 homes have been sold in the Lafayette area through the service, which was launched in late . He said buyers and sellers are using the service not only because it's cheaper than real estate commissions but also because it saves time.

Online real estate sales were supposed to erase real estate agents, but that hasn't happened. One reason is that the different companies involved in the real estate process never agreed to a common electronic standard for doing business.

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