Is Real Estate A Dying Occupation?

First off I’d like to say ‘thank you’ to all of the people that read last week’s post called The Dreaded Empty Nest. I had never had a featured post before so thanks again… Now here’s a little background on why I even thought about this current post. A few days ago my daughters and I were talking about jobs they would be good at, so they could generate some extra spending money when they move out. We decided that Tatiana should try to find a job at a nursery because she loves children. Ciara is the hard one. I threw out that Ciara should try to be a librarian because she doesn’t do anything but read, no video games, no sports, no other normal teenage vices, all she does is read. Both of my daughters laughed and told me that being a librarian was a dying field.

            I was pretty surprised that they thought this way. My high school librarian knew absolutely everything about everything. She quoted books, told me where I could find them in the library, and could even tell me which books I needed to have to write an essay. Librarians seemed like they were so evolutionarily superior to normal humans that they could read your mind and tell you the answer to your question before you even asked it. How could this job no longer be useful? But then I thought about it… Now when you want a specific quote you can google it, if you want to find where a book is in the library you look on the library computer, and if you want to find the books you need to write an essay you can google it, buy the books online, or maybe even find the book pages you need.

            Is real estate in the same bubble as being a librarian? True, people will always want to buy or sell a house, but are Americans getting to the point where they don’t need the go-between to do it. I know that a lot of the business I try to snag is the For Sale by Owner homes. They are the easiest, you already know they want to sell; all you have to do is find them. What is going to happen now that more and more of these people are deciding to stick their guns and sell their homes themselves? When it comes to buying a home, people are quite able to do it themselves without the use of a realtor. My answer to the question above is no. Real estate is not dying. The good thing about people is most of us understand when we need to bring in a professional. If I’m buying a car, a house, or getting married, certain people just have to be involved. Yes, it is a million times easier to get information on houses these days. Yes, my wife can probably describe the features in houses better than I can purely because she watches a lot to of HGTV. But, I know that no one in my family would know the first thing about buying or selling a home without my help or the help of another professional. So although being a realtor might be a little old-fashioned but it’s one of those jobs like being a lawyer that people could probably figure out by themselves but instead will go to a professional.