> They had to take their own photos and develop them, put up signs, and publish catalogs for people to find homes. Keeping up with meetings, phone numbers, and all the tasks in between was beyond a full-time job.

Uh, houses still need pictures taken, virtual tours and drone shots are a thing now, house needs to be staged, signs are still put up, publishing to the MLS isn’t instant (or no effort), you still meet clients in person, open houses need to be advertised and staffed, you’re at the closing, and you negotiate with other agents/clients.

I don’t see automation as making anything above obsolete.

Finding a house is a little easier but you still have to take your clients on showings and negotiate with the other agent/client. I’ve seen clients buy the first house they see and some see close to a hundred and never buy.

And for both sides you have to deal with emotional parties, who have either never gone through this process or do it once a decade at best if not longer, and know nothing about the industry on the whole. The _general public_. Even if you are in a HCOL area specializing in more expensive houses you will still deal with lunatics.

And I’ll agree there are good and bad agents. If your agent isn’t doing everything and/or more of what I listed above then you have a bad agent.

I don’t understand why some people pick a realtor at random (or through a sponsored ad) then go on to say “all realtors suck”, yeah and if you go on upwork and hire the cheapest or first result you’ll have a bad time as well.

Can some people do it all themselves? Sure, if your time is worth nothing or you’re ok with doing a subpar job. Will prices come down? For some people, largely the same people who sell their house to websites for under market value and think they got a deal. I predict we have agents that charge more than now in some cases and represent a more premium end of service. Giving up an extra percent doesn’t matter if the agent is able to make you more than that with the knowledge and system they have.

On a million dollar house, 3% is 30K. That’s a rounding error to offers/counters. Even on a 200K house 3% is 9K. A staged house with good pictures. priced correctly, and can swing a house value for more than 9K easy. Even doubling those numbers (as it’s done now) is far from crazy for the value a good agent provides.