In the News
Presented by Prairie Title
Commentary by Frank Pellegrini, Prairie Title CEO
Unless a federal agency intervenes, Zillow is about to merge with Trulia, creating an organization that features two of the three largest real estate listing portals. Does that herald the end of the Realtor® era? Hardly.
As NAR’s annual survey of home buyers and sellers pointed out last fall, 88 percent of buyers reported that they purchased their home through an agent, while an identical percentage of sellers reported being assisted by an agent. So, nearly 90 percent of buyers and sellers don’t go it alone, and those numbers have been growing since 2001. Here’s one reason why: Moving real estate is hard work. It takes time and effort and nothing beats experience in finding a seller-buyer match that works.
Like everyone in the real estate industry, agents face challenging circumstances these days mainly stemming from economic conditions. Rapidly changing technology also raises questions about the human factor in facilitating home sales that I would argue are more perceptual than real. That same NAR survey reports that use of the Internet in the home search process rose to 92 percent, yet the vast majority of those buyers still bought through an agent. The Internet is a tool, not a replacement for the skill, expertise and experience built up over years by real estate agents.
In an interesting article posted on Inman News, the author asks the simple question: Can you convince sellers you are not obsolete? He starts from the premise that brokers are absolutely not obsolete, but like everyone in our industry they need to be prepared to justify their role in real estate transactions to clients every day.
Questions or comments? Call me at 708-386-7900, or send me an email: frank@prairietitle.com.
Other stories we’re following:
- Housing Starts Improve in July
