Realtors, Disrupt This

The New York Times has a detailed look at the real estate business and how traditional agents are being disrupted by new web-based services such as  Redfin, ZipRealty and BuySideInc.com. The article refers to the exclusive control of information that realtors have enjoyed:

“You can find out more on the Internet about an eBay Beanie Baby than you can about a $1 million house,” said Glenn Kelman, chief executive of Redfin, a licensed broker in Washington State and California.

We identified real estate on our top 10 list of industries facing disruption (#7) early in the summer after seeing searchable satellite images, price estimates, neighborhood price trends, square footage and tax data for homes on Zillow as well as some powerful neighborhood statsistics (or here) on New York City's 311 system.

These new web services have several disruptive characteristics:

• Eliminate the need for experts
• Create greater accessibility for consumers
• Inferior by mainstream market view: lack of specialized knowledge & customer interaction
• Superior by new measures: speed of information

** Other Views **

Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine is ready to say the days of 6% fees are over: "Wake up, agents, your days are numbered."

Addicted Entrepreneur Howard Lindzon says, like dinosaurs, real estate agents were not prepared for the storm.

Comments

[James V. Reagan]

Actually, I am surprised real estate as we know it has lasted this long. Like brick-and-mortar travel agents, real estate is ripe for disruption. Any industry based on the "hoarding" or "quarantine" of information doesn't stand a good chance against the capabilities of the internet. :)