I was doing a little surfing and found this:
http://realestate.yahoo.com/Sell_you...I5ttWUZk09HN0B


Looks like we may soon be out of a job. Opinions?

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Coastal Delaware Real Estate Sales
REHOBOTH BEACH CONDOS | REHOBOTH BEACH REAL ESTATE | REHOBOTH BEACH MOBILE HOMES
* Results not typical. Individual results may vary.

From what I can tell they are building their Real Estate section to compete with things such as homegain.com, realtor.com and so on... if you click through you will see there is a section for brokers/agents.

All of my virtual tour properties are added to that same director for the price of my virtual tour hosting which is a meer 29 a month for unlimited tours.

Although a lot of time and shopping will be elimated by looking online the online shopping can not have the smells of a home or the sounds... we will always have a place in real estate. Our buyers and sellers will be more knowledgable as time goes by.

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Thesa Chambers
Broker, RE/MAX Sunset Realty
Central Oregon Real Estate | Central Oregon Homes
Specializing in All of Central Oregon
First time homes to Resort Properties

This is nothing new. Craigslist already has a similar local service, and it's free. I for one welcome all this technology, because it'll make life much harder for slacker realtors who treat this job as a chance to BS and show off, and don't have any real knowledge of the market.

Smart buyers and sellers will be able to quickly realize who's real and who's fake, and it'll give good agents a chance to shine.

Do you think it would make any sense for me to post a few of my listings with a service like this?

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Coastal Delaware Real Estate Sales
REHOBOTH BEACH CONDOS | REHOBOTH BEACH REAL ESTATE | REHOBOTH BEACH MOBILE HOMES
* Results not typical. Individual results may vary.

Why? what's the point? I don't know about your local MLS, but here in Austin, if someone lists a house with a realtor, it shows up on all the IDX feeds (I don't think any brokers here opt out) it shows up also on AustinHomeSearch.com, and then the various news and newspaper websites either duplicate this data or link to it. Oh, and it goes to Realtor.com, Yahoo.com homes, etc, etc. In other words, if your listing is in MLS it'll be all over the web.

I've never understood agents trying to spend money listing with a site that gets 1% (or less) of the traffic that those free sites get.

What I am seeing now is that first-time buyers who are under 30 and people 55 and up are using Realtors. The ones in the 30-50ish range think they have everything figured out, especially at the younger end of the spectrum. They use zillow or whatever plus county appraisal districts for their "comps." Then they assume that a seller will come down 3% if they don't use an agent. The first-timers like agents if we do our jobs well and truly help them. The older crowd isn't quite as internet savvy and have used agents in past transactions. But how will this change as technology advances? Two things will tell. First, we must be absolutely professional and excellent at the service we provide. Gotta leave people with a positive experience and great memories. Second is time.

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Sam Chapman
Austin, Texas
Austin, TX Real Estate |Austin Luxury Homes |Austin Real Estate Blog

Haha, that's funny. Good luck to them with Zillow in Austin. And good luck with county sales records, since the price is not recorded. If anyone is stupid enough to try to use those very unreliable sources for doing their own negotiations, they deserve to be burned and they deserve to overpay.

I think we need to have a clear value proposition. Save them time, save them headache, sometimes it requires anticipating what they might want, etc..

Don't know about you Sam, but I've had good expriences with the 30's crowd. Those are the people who are smart enough to realize the value I can offer them.

Zillow and my local tax records provide an opportunity for me to shine as I can point out how inadequate and unreliable these services are. How many consumers do you know that can tell you how to get from a for sale sign through closing the house? Add a mortgage, market conditions and numerous other factors and we have as secure a job as most other industries do. The internet provides information. Our job is to sift through it, digest it, add our experience and deliver a well thoght out proffessional conclusion from this info that can be translated for the consumer. I don't think that zillow or realtor.com or any other internet site can do that nor do I think that for the vast majority of buyers and sellers have that kind of time to learn it. Just my 2 cents.

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Ryan Ward, REALTOR® - Keller Williams Realty Consultants. (404) 630-3187
Atlanta Real Estate - My featured area is Alpharetta Real Estate and it is where I call home. Read my Atlanta Real Estate blog.

Right, people can in theory be their own lawyers, their own mechanics, etc. But eventually you find out that someone who studies the real estate market every day can save you a ton of time because we can just do it so much more efficiently. The problem is with incompetent agents who ruin it for everyone.

BINGO.

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Aaron

Minneapolis Real Estate | Twin Cities Real Estate | Edina Realty Agent