Such kind words thank you! Frankly you brought up a very interesting point: Do real estate boards purposefully complicate the process? If so is it done to keep consumers coming back, keep consumers in the dark?

If you are right then that mentality plays into something that Kevin Boer posits quite often in his discussions with Realtors: Why have lead generation companies been able to sell Realtors their own information?

The idea Kevin hits upon is that the Brokers and Boards that decided, long ago, to horde and make MLS info exclusive to the agent hurt the industry tremendously. This act of hiding this info set the stage for the Zillows of the world to garner both consumer traffic and consumer advantage.

Now the cat is out of the bag. Consumers feel empowered by online companies willing to give them information.

The Zillow’s and realtor.coms could have been left with nothing had the industry shared MLS information and set up the same type of online sharing of info that is going on today with the aforementioned companies.

Sorry for the rant. If I messed up Kevin let me know?

My mom is a Realtor and I believe Realtors bring value and are an integral part of the business. I also believe you when you say that providing to much “mental clutter” can sometimes work against an agent during the process.

Thanks for the kind words and thought provoking comment!

dean

Great to see you! I am of the opinion that Realtors will always be part of the process. Yet I am also of the opinion that Realtors who are unwilling to implement technology will lose business to the younger demographic.

My idea is simple in that Baby Boomers are beginning to cycle through life. Their position as buyers will be replaced by a younger demographic trying to become established. It is this new and upcoming group that Realtors must keep up with on the technology issues. They will be, within a few years, the majority and they will be very technology savvy. In addition to this group of buyers and sellers will be a new wave of younger, tech savvy agents coming into the industry as competition. It’s a double edged sword.

Great to hear from you your blog is so informative. Keep up the great writing!

dean

Thanks for pointing us to Dr. Musil. I certainly hope he isn’t right about agents being completely replaced by “virtual deals.” Real estate is, of course, a much more complicated, emotional, expensive, and hands-on transaction than is, say, buying airline tickets.

Still, you never know. Technology has brought about incredible changes in many fields, and there’s no reason real estate should be exempt.