Can Realtors Become Obsolete?

The L.A.Times reports:

A decade ago, Richard Barton launched Expedia.com and helped transform the travel industry by handing consumers the same tools to book reservations that travel agents had long controlled.

Now, Barton is applying the same approach to real estate — and is banking on equally dramatic results.


Today, he will unveil a beta-test version of Zillow.com, the latest website to offer property information that has until recently been beyond the reach of the average buyer or seller who didn't engage a real estate agent.

As Barton sees it, Zillow can be the real estate equivalent of the auto world's Kelley Blue Book. By typing in an address, the user gets an instant valuation of one home or all homes on a street or neighborhood.

To get that information, Zillow would pore over county records and other government data on 60 million homes nationwide. It then would use proprietary computer analysis to determine current values, which the company calls "zestimates."

Are those juicy real estate commission going to come down? You can bet on that.Plus there probably will not be as many real estate agents 5 years from now.