People, thats why.

Every time I hear that real estate is “easy” and with all the information available on the internet agents are going to fade into the sunset, it makes me wonder what reality people are living in and if they think that other people are also living in that reality.

My question is, how can you predict that you are going to have an easy sale and if you don’t, how are you going to handle it? The biggest issue with regards to an “easy sale” is whether or not you are dealing with people. In order to buy and sell houses, you need people. People who own them and people who want them. Even without an agent involved in real estate you are always going to be dealing with people and people are emotional about their primal needs such as shelter. Real estate is an emotional decision because more often it’s a home at stake, not just a house. The issue of the nature of people in general and their emotional, stoical, melodramatic, confrontational and unpredictable personalities add a component to a real estate transaction that you just don’t have when you purchase a pair of jeans online or a boat or a car. In most transactions there is need for an advocate, a buffer, a councilor, an expert and a negotiator and a good real estate agent fills those needs.

In any given transaction you have at least 2 people on opposing sides, whether or not they have an agent. Each person is going to bring with them their own “issues” and their own goals for selling/buying that is not just about price and how soon do they want to move. In my experience representing numerous clients, every one was completely different and the way they handled the stress of moving and managing a huge financial decision was just as different. Some were great, some fell apart and some couldn’t make a decision to save their lives. You cannot predict how a transaction is going to go because you don’t have control over each person in the transaction. Some went extremely smooth and both buyer and seller were fantastic to deal with, professional and both wanted to make it easy on the other. In these cases, I could have seen where they could have done it without an agent and not had a problem and would have been the “star” for do it yourself articles. However I’ve also been involved with many more deals where the sellers and buyers were not on the same page and there were many road bumps and compromises made along the way. In some cases one party was out to “get” the other party because of some personal issues that had nothing to do with real estate but were manifested in their decisions and attitudes in the transaction which made the whole deal a nightmare to get closed. These kind of deals take every ounce of negotiating and people skills that an agent has as well as countless hours of work.

With sites like Redfin and other websites, It’s easy to say that I can search for a property online, view it in person decide if I want it and have an attorney review the documents for me and be done and save myself thousands of dollars in commission. What is not so easy is that you can’t manage the other parties decisions and attitude and since every situation is different the inherent risk is increased because you are dealing with the unpredictability of people. People won’t always act like you expect them to act and having an agent as a “buffer”, and an “advocate” can be extremely important, save money and save time, let alone help with determining value and other important educational aspects to representation. Whether it’s disclosure, negotiating, moving on time, repairing things around the house it all has to be negotiated and it all has to be handled in the end for a deal to come together. Because we’re dealing with a human’s primal need, the need to have shelter, I think it’s too unpredictable of a commodity to simply buy and sell online like a car with the emotion and personal attributes removed. I think for most people, using an agent is a well thought out decision to reduce their risk, save time and improve their odds of having an easy transaction.