From House Values dot com to Just Listed dot com, and even Zillow dot com, these new players have caused a marked shift in the our industry. Up until the summer of 2006 after which the market started to slow down, these companies were providing leads to help fuel the upward trend. Many FSBO were successful because in my opinion, the market was demand driven. So, when a FSBO decided to list his house, he had a good chance of selling it. Often times the Realtor would end up doing the paperwork for both sides of the transaction.
When the market slowed down, the shift occurred. Now I do not mean to suggest that the above-mentioned factors are exclusively responsible for this, but they are contributing causes. Here are a few observations that I have made: Listing agents are now having to consolidate their efforts to stay afloat; homes are staying on the market quite a bit longer than before; if you are a buyers’ agent with a pipeline, you are not doing so bad. So until the market turns, I don’t know that one can dismiss the notion that there has been a paradigm shift. What’s your opinion?
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