Has the Internet Helped or Hurt Real Estate Agents?
By digiMa on Oct 28, 2008 in Real Estate
The Internet has made locating and communicating with real estate agents easier than ever. You can pull up dozens of local agents’ websites in a matter of seconds on Google. Has your real estate agent found a potential house for you? He or she can zip it right on over via email, and you can say yay or nay right away.
Unfortunately for the agents, the Internet has also made it easier to operate without an agent. I think it is essentially the Internet that has given birth to the FSBO (for sale by owner) movement; pre-Internet, it just wouldn’t have been as possible.
Here are the reasons why the Internet makes FSBO so easy:
- Buyers can do a real estate search online. It’s no longer up to an agent to find potential homes for you. You can find them yourselves on any number of websites — searching by price, location, number of bedrooms or bathrooms, lot size, etc. Talk about making it easy to find your dream house!
- Buyers can view pictures and decide whether or not to tour a house. This cuts down on the number of properties you need to visit, for one thing, meaning that you are less likely to be wasting someone’s time if you ask to see their house without a real estate agent present. It is also helpful if you are looking for a house out of state — you can look up Jacksonville Florida real estate or Houston real estate, for example, without ever having even set foot in the cities!
- Sellers can connect with buyers online. You are no longer dependent solely on the FSBO sign in your front yard. You can buy an MLS number yourself online, which enables you to list your FSBO property on all the major — and frequently searched — websites. You can also list your house on special FSBO websites, which is nice for folks who don’t want to have to deal with someone else’s real estate agent!
As you can see, the Internet has made FSBO happen in ways that would never have even been possible before!