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Why Real Estate Agents Are Not yet Obsolete

A sad real estate agent knowing they could become obsolete

The question is, are real estate agents obsolete and the answer is not quite yet. In this post we’re going to discuss why real estate agents are not yet obsolete, what the future may hold for them, or us I should say, and the reasons why. The reality will surprise you, especially coming from a real estate agent.

Do yourself a favor if you are thinking about selling your house yourself subscribe to this You Tube channel. The videos will show you how you can sell your house fast and sell it for more money.

Using one of the two million plus real estate agents in the United States is still the most prevalent way to buy and sell a house in the U.S. It’s still the most popular way and the most used. There’s a lot of interlopers that are trying to change that or disrupt the real estate industry as we know it today.

We’re going to discuss a few of those interlopers here.

Ibuyers Want To Make Agents Obsolete

First are the Ibuyers. Ibuyers are companies that will come in and buy your house from you outright. Don’t mistake these for the many flippers that are out running around. They’re not house flippers. You’ve probably seen those signs on the side of the road that say we buy houses. It’s not those guys.

Ibuyers don’t buy your house for cheap and then fix it up and resell it. A seller will get pretty close to market value when using an Ibuyer. They’re a little more expensive than using a real estate agent but very convenient. It means that you don’t have to go through the whole anxiety of listing your house, repairs, appraisals and all that.

An Ibuyer will make you an offer. If you accept it, you’re pretty much done. Ibuyers are really gaining in popularity across the country where the service is available.

While Ibuyers are gaining traction in the areas they operate real agents are not yet obsolete

FSBO

Mostly here on my website and Youtube channel I discuss and teach For Sale By Owners. There are more and more For Sale By Owners every year. More home sellers are figuring out it’s not that difficult with all of the free information and technology available.

If you look at the numbers from the National Association of Realtors they still have that numberof FSBO’s at around eight percent and it’s been there forever. The number is really actually a lot higher.

The way they do their math to come up with that 8% is a little fuzzy. For instance they only count the people that don’t use a real estate agent at all whatsoever. A lot of people selling their house themselves use a buyer’s agent. Some people selling their house use an agent to help them price their house. Even with FSBO’s Real agents are not yet obsolete. They still have place.

There are also a lot of misnomers about how a real estate agent can sell your house for an extraordinary amount more than than you could on your own. And they claim you would get more money even after paying commissions. Some claim as high as 32% more. That’s just absurd.

Those numbers are also fudged a little bit. Without using side by side comparisons but lumping all FSBO’s together that number would appear higher. Mobile homes and condos are often sold by owners and much less expensive than single family homes that would list with a Realtor.

There have been companies that have done side by side comparisons in the same neighborhood with the same type of houses. They all find that a real estate agent is really not going to get any more for your house than you are.

Zillow

Zillow’s Agents

By far the biggest threat to the real estate agent is Zillow. Real estate agents have been in denial about that for years. Zillow has the power to make real estate agents obsolete.

When Zillow first came online, they’re big thing to agents was that we’re here to work with you. We’re not going to take your business away from you. The thing is, is that Zillow makes most of their money by selling real estate leads to Agents. When a consumer is on Zillow looking at homes and want more information Zillow gives your contact info to a real estate agent that pays for that privilege.

Zillow is growing fast. In fact, in the last quarter of 2020 year over year Zillows revenue grew 158% to 949.3 million dollars. For the full year their consolidated revenue year over year was 2.7billion dollars.

That’s two point seven billion dollars. That’s right.

Zillow’s Growth Could Make Agents Obsolete

Zillow is also branching off into other aspects of the real estate industry. For instance, now you can get a mortgage with Zillow. They have Zillow home loans and they also bought out mortgage lenders of America.

Zillow has Zillow instant offers that we talked about earlier. They are now in the IBuyer business. You can sell your house directly to Zillow and be done with it just like that.

Zillow also just recently bought a showing service. A showing service is a company that real estate agents use to schedule showings for buyers. That’s one of the main reasons why people still need real estate agents, or use them, is to gain access to houses. You have to wonder what a company like Zillow needs with a showing service and how they plan to use it.

That’s not to mention Zillow will also post For Sale By Owners on its site for free. Zillow attracts a lot of eyes to help sell those FSBO’s. Sites like Realtor.com won’t post for sale by owner listings.

The scariest thing for real estate agents is now Zillow is becoming a licensed brokerage across the United States. In almost every state, if not all, Zillow is a licensed brokerage that can actually run agents and gain access to the MLS has across the country.

Agents Are Not Obsolete, For Now

As long as Zillow is making their money from real estate agents buying leads, real estate agents will remain relevant but when Zillow finds a more profitable way forward, that could be the demise of the real estate industry. It could be the end of the traditional real estate agent as we know it.

Until such a time real estate agents are not yet obsolete.

How To Use A Flat Fee Service To Get Your FSBO on the MLS

by Joel Weihe

What is a flat fee service?

If you’ve ever wondered where all those homes for sale on sites like Zillow and realtor.com come from, they come from the multiple listing service or the MLS. The MLS is where real estate agents and their brokerages put houses that they’re listing for sale so they’re all in one place. They can share those listings with each other through their membership in the MLS. Sites like Zillow and Realtor.com pick those home listings up from the MLS and put them on the internet for all to see. All means potential buyers, and, of course, looky loos.

We’re going to talk about how you can get your house on the MLS as a for sale by owner without paying those high commission listing fees. Hiring a real esta te agen t to list your house for you is expensive. You can learn to do all of the tasks an agent does for you and use a flat fee service to avoid commissions.

Check out my You Tube channel that will show you what you can do to get your house ready for market, price it right and anything and everything else to sell it on your own.

Flat Fee Service

If you want to put your For Sale By Owner on the MLS, which some people think is super important but I tend to disagree, there’s a way to do that without hiring a listing agent. And that’s by using what’s called a flat fee service. There are a lot of them out there. These are companies that will put your house on the Internet for one fee.

That fee can range anywhere from $300 up to a $1000 and sometimes even more. The price will depend on the service that you want.

Some of the services include;

How long you’re going to have it on the MLS,
How many pictures you want to put out.
If you want to have somebody help you fill out the paperwork
Some of them will give you fliers that you can print out.
A sign for the yard

There are more than several of these flat fee type companies to choose from. The original, forsalebyowner.com, founded in 1999, was the one that started it all.

Since then for sale by owner flat fee services have become more and more popular. It’s a much less expensive way to list your home on the mls where not only do consumers find It on sites like Zillow, but Realtors see it on their platform, the MLS, also.

To name a few;

Different flat fee services will work in different states. Some of them are licensed in all states. Google it, flat fee service or how to get my For sale by owner on the MLS. This is a great way to get your house on the MLS. While I don’t believe completely necessary, it will get more attention and it might help it to sell a little bit faster.

Real Estate Agents

Keep in mind that by putting your house on the MLS you’re saying that you’re willing to work with, and pay, a buyers agent. A buyers agent is the agent that is showing the buyer homes. The bonus part is that the agent will then do all the paperwork for you.

Part of a Realtors job is to help you price your house and show you how to get it ready for market. You definitely don’t need to hire a real estate agent to price your house for you or to show you how to get it ready for market. I can show you how to do all that. There are videos here that will show you all you need to know. Using that and a flat fee service you’re doing everything an agent does for you, at a fraction of the cost.

Selling your house is really not that difficult. Everything a real estate agent does for you, you can easily do yourself from pricing, to preparation to listing whether you want to use the MLS or not.

Are Real Estate Agents Obsolete?

by Joel Weihe

The question is, are real estate agents obsolete and the answer is, not quite yet.

In this post we’re going to learn why real estate agents are not yet obsolete, what the future may hold for them, or us I should say, and the reasons and the realities. The answers may surprise you, especially coming from a real estate agent.

Hi, my name is Joel Weihe. I’ve been a not quite obsolete real estate agent in the state of Kansas since 2009. That’s where I get the experience and know how I use to teach you to sell your house yourself.

Using one of the two million plus real estate agents in the United States is still the most prevalent way to buy and sell a house. It’s still the most popular way and the most used.

But there are a lot of interlopers that are up and coming and trying to change that or disrupt the industry, if you will. We’re going to look at a few of those here and see what’s going on. See if the real estate agent as we know it has a future.

Ibuyers

The first we will mention are the Ibuyers. The buyers are companies that will buy your house from you outright. Please don’t mistake these for the many flippers that are working the real estate market. Ibuyers are not flippers. You see those signs on the side of the road that say we buy houses. It’s not those people.

Their goal is not to buy your house for cheap, fix it up and resell it. Ibuyers actually give you pretty close to market value. They are a little more expensive than using a real estate agent after repairs and it’s all said and done but they are super convenient. The convenience is incredibly good. And that is the attraction.

Using an Ibuyer means that you don’t have to go through the whole anxiety of listing your house, repairs, appraisals, fretting over buyers financing and all that. An Ibuyer will make you an offer. If you accept it, you’re pretty much done aside from some minimal paperwork.

Ibuyers are really starting to get traction and are gaining in popularity in the cities where they operate. They’re certainly working hard to make the real agent obsolete.

FSBO

Mostly here and on my youtube channel what I talk about is For Sale By Owners. Of course with a title like Sell Your House Yourself what else could it be?

There are more and more for sale by owners every year. If you look at the numbers that the National Association of Realtors puts out it would seem otherwise. They still have that number at around 8% of all homes sold as For Sale By Owner, and it’s been there forever. But that is not the reality.

The way they do their math to come to that number is a little fuzzy. They only count the people that don’t use a real estate agent at all whatsoever. A lot of people selling their house themselves use a buyer’s agent, some people selling their house use an agent to help them price their house and there are those FSBO’s that use a flat fee service to get onto Multiple Listing Service, or the MLS. NAR doesn’t count those as for sale by owners.

The real number of people not using a listing agent, considered a For Sale By Owner, is really a lot higher.

There are also a lot of misnomers about how a real estate agent can sell your house for an extraordinary amount more than you could on your own making you more money, even including commissions. That is absurd. Those numbers are also fudged a bit, quite a bit.

There have been studies done using side by side comparisons of homes in the same neighborhood with the same type of houses between homes sold FSBO and homes sold by Realtors. They all find that a real estate agent is not going to get any more money for your house than you are. An agent may sell it a little faster but you’ll save paying those expensive commissions when you do it yourself.

Zillow The Disrupter

By far, the biggest threat to the real estate agent is Zillow.

Real estate agents have been in denial about that for years. When Zillow first came online, their big promise to agents was that we’re here to work with you. We’re not going to take your business away from you. For now that’s true.

The thing is Zillow makes most of their money selling real estate buyer and seller leads to Agents. If that continues to be the case agents will be alright. As of right now Zillow’s goal is not to make real estate agents obsolete.

But Zillow is growing fast. In fact, the last quarter of 2020 year over year revenue grew 158% to 943.9 million dollars. For the full year Zillow’s consolidated revenue was 2.7 billion dollars.

That’s right. 2.7 billion dollars.

Zillow is also starting to branch out into other aspects of the real estate industry.

For instance, now you can get a mortgage with Zillow. They have Zillow home loans, and they also bought mortgage lenders of America.

Zillow has Zillow Instant Offers that we talked about earlier. They’re in the Ibuyer business. You can sell your house directly to Zillow and be done with it (snaps fingers) just like that.

Zillow also just recently bought a showing service. A showing service is a company that real estate agents use to schedule showings for our buyers. That’s one of the main reasons why people still use real estate agents or need them is to gain access to houses. That’s important. Everyone is still wondering what Zillow, Zillow the brokerage, needs with a showing service.

That’s not to mention Zillow will also post For Sale By Owners on its site for free. And Zillow attracts a lot of eyes so that’s a big benefit to those listings.

The scariest thing for real estate agents is now Zillow is becoming a licensed brokerage across the United States. In almost every state now Zillow is a licensed brokerage that can run agents and has access to Multiple Listing Service’s across the country.

As long as Zillow is making their money from real estate agents buying leads, real estate agents will remain relevant. But when Zillow finds a more profitable way forward, that could be the demise of the real estate industry.

It could be the end of the traditional real estate agent as we know it.

Is It All Over For The Agent?

With all the competition facing the real estate industry can they hang on? Is it all over for the real estate agent? Not yet. The real estate industry, it’s brokerages and agents are still strong and it’s still the preferred way that everyday people buy and sell their homes. It’s also expensive, cumbersome and outdated.

As long as folks are willing to pay all that money the industry and it’s agents will continue to thrive.

But when the public starts to realize in mass that there is a much less expensive way to handle selling a home, and it’s really not that difficult, it may make real estate agents obsolete.

Sell Your house yourself.

How Much Money Does A Realtor Make

by Joel Weihe

Have you ever wondered how much money does a Realtor make?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the latest data from May of 2019, the average real estate agent makes $45,990. According to some more recent data from salary.com, the average agent makes $42,183. Notice that’s a little bit lower.

In this video I discuss how much money a Realtor makes, the realities of that and how much long it actually takes to start making money. And why it still costs so much to hire a real estate agent.

Anyone you know who is planning on selling a house now or any time soon, subscribe to this channel because I’m going to show you how you can save, or make, if you will, thousands of dollars by selling your house yourself.

Hi, my name is Joel Weihe. I’ve been making money selling real estate since 2009.

The Money A Realtor Makes

handing over cash for house in front of beautiful new home.

The real estate business is kind of like most other businesses in that it uses the 20/80 rule. 20 percent of the agents make 80 percent of the money. Top producers make an average of $112,000 a year. Then you’ve got your mega agents that can make a half a million or more. Some agents that work with the super-rich. They can make millions of dollars a year. In this article we’re just talking about the average agent with the average price house in the average market in the average America.

There are plenty of real estate agents out there that make a good living, 40 or 50 grand a year, which is average. The money a Realtor makes varies widely. 10% make less than $23,000 and 10% make more than $110,000

There are also a lot of agents that wash out. In fact, according to the National Association of Realtors, 80% of real estate agents wash out within the first five years. And there’s other data that says that 80% only last two years. Agents cycle in and they cycle out.

Agents

Right now, at the beginning of 2021, we have a glut of agents. It makes the salaries go down a bit. Plus, the market is so low on inventory. There are a lot more agents and a lot less houses to sell. That mostly means that more agents wash out or the lower agents make less money. Simple supply and demand.

Most of the top producers and the agents that have been around for a while are going to keep their salary about the same. Of those agents that wash out, you get agents that come in and they sell maybe one to three homes in the first couple of years. It’s just not enough money for them to make it. There are also a lot of bills and expenses, sometimes agents even end up in the hole.

There are what are called DNA agents. Those are agents that come in, get their license and they sell to their family and friends until those family and friends run out. Once the easy money is gone, their gone.

We also have part time agents. Some part time agents do really, really well. They have a full time job and a side hustle selling real estate.

It’s not easy money. The beginnings of a real estate career can be difficult. For those that hang in and survive the first few years it can be very rewarding.

My Career So Far

My first year in real estate, I made $12,000. I literally had to borrow money to make ends meet. After my second or third year, I started making a little more money, enough to get by and start paying back that money that I borrowed. By my sixth or seventh year I was making in the lower six figures and that was nice. That was pretty cool. I was getting to travel. I was getting to save some money and do some other things that I wanted to do.

As time rolled on I didn’t really start selling more real estate. I just started working less hours. Now I work between 20 and 25 hours a week and I still make in the low six figures. That’s what I want, more time. Someone else may want more money, and that’s very possible too.

Agent Expenses

To sell a house cost between five and seven percent of the contract price. And out of that five to seven percent, the agent has to pay his broker. That’s generally in the area of around 30 percent. If that broker belongs to or owns a franchise like Keller Williams or Berkshire Hathaway or something like that, they take their cut too.

And then there’s dues. Real estate agents pay dues on the local level, the state level and the national level. There’s expenses like gas and websites and maybe office space. Some brokers charge you when you print and they charge you for all the little extras that may be used.

Another big expense these days are so called entrepreneurs using the Internet to steal business that would otherwise go directly to agents. These “entrepreneurs” start a company, go online and they advertise for to consumers looking for realtors. It works like, if you need a realtor click here, you click on that button and then they sell your information to a real estate agent. A real estate agent pays for those leads, is what we call them. That can get costly.

Most new agents must buy those leads to survive. After you’ve been a real estate awhile you develop a database from all your past clients and you try to work mostly on referrals. But those early years can get expensive. Sometimes real estate agents actually end up in the hole. Those are the ones that are more likely to wash out.

Realtors Are Expensive

That’s why it still costs you so much money to sell a house. I mean, even with the advent of internet sites like Zillow, Realtor.com and all these websites that make real estate so much easier these days. Despite the money a realtor makes the buyer is actually doing a lot of the work by finding houses on their own on Zillow and sites like that. Still, that five to seven percent commission is cut up into many smaller pieces keeping prices high to satisfy all that greed. That pie now has a lot more pieces than it used to.

Some agents are barely making any money at all. And on top of that, you have real estate teams, which is a new phenomenon. That’s an agent, not a broker, just an agent that has less experienced agents working underneath them. They also take a cut of those agents pay and plus they take credit for all the homes that those agents sell.

On average a real estate agent can make about 50 grand a year, the ones that have been around for a while. Agents can work their way up to six figures, but it’s still going to take time.

Whatever a Realtor does make it comes out of your pocket. To avoid that expense considering selling your house yourself. You’ll save thousands of dollars and be happy you did.

I’ll show you how

Watch the video, like it and subscribe to this channel.

Ibuyers vs Realtors

by Joel Weihe

When it’s time to sell a house most people automatically think of hiring a Realtor and have never heard of Ibuyers. There are other options even though they often aren’t considered. Choosing how to sell your house comes down to how much it costs and/or convenience. Check out this video to learn which is the best option for you? To sell it fast and hassle free, hire someone to sell it for you or sell it yourself and make the most money.

The most well known and popular way to sell a house is to hire a real estate agent. Hiring an agent can be expensive, often as much as 6 or 7 percent of the contract price. For a $320,000 house that could be more than $19,000. That’s a lot of money.

The most popular up and coming real estate disruptor are the Ibuyers. Ibuyers are companies that will buy your house directly from you at a fair market value or just slightly below fair market value price. Using an Ibuyer is definitely more convenient for a faster less stressful sale but can get expensive too.

Watch the video above to learn the specific advantages, disadvantages and costs associated with Realtors and Ibuyers.

For Sale By Owner

And of course you can always sell your home yourself and make the most money by not paying anyone. Using Ibuyers or Realtors can be expensive and really cut into your profits and future plans. The reason most people never even consider a For Sale By Owner is lack of knowledge, they simply think it would be too difficult. I’m not saying it doesn’t take some time and effort. Sometimes problems will come up. Buyers can be demanding. But when it’s all said and done the savings, the money you get to keep, makes it all worth it.

Sell your house yourself! Click here to learn how.