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Is the Internet slowly replacing the role of the real estate agent? What's the future of the real estate industry as a whole? Here's my take on the matter.
 Few other industries have been as heavily affected by Internet evolution as much as the real estate industry. In fact, if you look at what has happened online in the last few years alone, you can see it "unfolding" before your eyes. A wide variety of real estate self-help websites have sprung up, and they will continue to do so:
Websites like FSBO.com help homeowners sell their homes -- without the use of a real estate agent.
Websites like HouseValues.com and Zillow.com help homeowners get a ballpark estimate of their home's value using publicly available data -- and without using a real estate agent.
Websites like Trulia.com help buyers find and research homes for sale in their area -- without having to go through a real estate agent.
In addition to all of this, you can use the web to learn how to prepare a real estate contract, validate an asking price, negotiate, find a home inspector ... you name it.
So when you look at all the tasks a real estate agent would normally do for a buyer or seller, you can see that nearly all of them can be done by the actual buyer or seller, simply by going online.
Resistance to Change at the Highest Levels
Real estate is a very traditional type of business. Real estate agents do not like change. The higher you climb up the real estate establishment, the more this seems to be the case. For example, take a look at the current legal dispute between the U.S. Department of Justice and the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS(r) -- yes, they insist on their name being displayed in all caps that way.
The NAR and the DOJ are at loggerheads over real estate listings. Basically (and this is my interpretation here), the DOJ says real estate listings are public property and should not be made exclusive in any way. The NAR, in their outdated mode of thinking, asserts that certain brokers should have certain exclusive rights to certain property listings.
If this is not an organization trying to resist change, I don't know what is. If the NAR does not learn to accept change (especially with regard to the free exchange of information made possible by the Internet), then it will eventually cease to exist.
The question is ... would anyone really miss it? Not me.
How Real Estate Agents are Reacting
In my professional life, I deal with real estate agents a lot. It seems that all of them realize the significant changes taking place in the real estate industry, but they react to these changes in one of two ways.
Dynamic Agents -- Many real estate agents know good and well that consumers have a lot more empowerment these days, due to the Internet. They know the average buyer or seller is much more knowledgeable about real estate today than they were ten years ago, and that they have endless amounts of information at their fingertips. These agents are finding new and creative ways to serve their clients, and are thus prolonging their relevance to the modern consumer.
Static Agents -- On the other hand, some real estate agents are in denial about the changes in their industry. They plan to keep on doing "business as normal" ... trying to fill roles that are becoming outdated and holding out their hand for a six-percent commission. These agents are fading from existence and will soon be extinct.
Conclusion
The world is ever changing, and that applies to business and industry as well. Smart business people learn how to adapt to such changes in order to survive professionally. The lazy and unwilling become obsolete and extinct. In business, as in nature, adaptability is the key to survival.
My prediction is that in less than ten years' time, the traditional real estate agent as we know it will cease to exist -- replaced by a multi-tasking, web-savvy, and more efficient version of the "agents of old."
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