[wanderingbit]

I welcome this wholeheartedly. I recently sold my first home and was frankly disgusted by how large the fee is for what my realtor did. I eventually went For Sale By Owner and will never go back to using a realtor. Zillow/redfin already replace the search and comparables part of the process. What realtors currently provide is the “white glove service” which helps first time buyer/sellers feel good about one of the biggest transactions of their life. Other than that I’d say realtors are mostly rent seekers, and their time has come.

What I predict will make or break the AI realtor experience is how well the AI can emulate (maybe and even improve?) the feeling of security and assurance that one gets from using a realtor.

I’d love some responses with stories on where realtors provided some actual unique service. Because all I’ve seen are realtors as a dying parasite of a bloated system.

[aabajian]

I've purchased two condos and one house in the Seattle area. My first condo I bought remotely and my agent toured a couple of places for me. Agent was very valuable in this case as I was in medical school trying to buy a place for residency.

Second condo I found myself and my agent merely facilitated the transaction. She hired a home inspector who missed a couple things. Not saying I would've caught them with my own inspector, but when your agent is chummy with an inspector, you can't really call them out on their mistakes.

When it came to looking for houses, I saw a few with my agent, but the one I ended up buying I found myself on Redfin. I went to an open house myself and just told my agent I wanted to make an offer.

Of note, my agent got paid the least for the first condo (because it was the cheapest), but she was most valuable in that transaction. The other two transactions just required the agent to fill out the paperwork, yet they got paid much more. There has to be some relationship between the amount of work done and the cost of the buyer's agent, not just a percentage of the sale price.