Real estate agents vie with Internet for hearts and minds of buyers and sellers - The Business Review (Albany):

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But people who work in the full-service brokerage industry say the oppositeis true: a slower marketg means sellers are more likely to need the services of a real estatwe agent to find a buyer. "I actually think we'vre seen less FSBO business since the localk market has become alittlre different," said Al Picchi, vice presidentt and general manager of Realty USA in Clifton Park. "You've seen a lot of discounf brokers disappear.
" Based in New York City, enables people to advertise their property, handle the showings and sell withou t paying a commission fee to a Owned bythe , it is not affiliated with For Sale By Ownerd Albany or other zero-commission real estate The cost of its services ranges from $89 to $899. By an agent charging a 6 percent commission on the sale ofa $200,00 home would be paid $12,000. ForSaleByOwner.comn doesn't release its listing totals, but it had nearlh a double-digit increase from 2006 to 2007 in the Unitexd Statesand Canada, said Eric Mangan, spokesman. The compangy won't release projections for this year.
Manga also cited figures compiled by the showing the numbere of buyers who found the home they purchasefd by contacting a real estate agent fell from 50 percent in 1997 to 34 percentin 2007. At the same the number who found the home they purchased on the Internef rose from 2 percent to29 percent. "We'res seeing a definite trend toward people handlinbg real estate matters ontheir own, whether buyingt or selling," Mangan said.
Local real estatee professionals readily admit more people are startingv the home buying search on the but many still want an agent to walk them through the processa and help them come up with an offering At Realtorsin Latham, for instance, the number of leads generated throughg the Internet and the number by yard signse has been virtually the same this year, said Kathie general manager. Until this yard signs generated more calls forthe company.
Even with the changess in technology, certain facets of the business remaihthe same, said Jeff Christiana, broker/owner of Prudential Manor "If you go back eight or 10 years ago, the wholer theory was the Internet was going to put real estatde agents, travel agents and car dealerse out of business because [buyers] didn'tf need us," Christiana said. "What we found is that peopled still wanthuman contact. Even though they can stillk get all the informatioh they want overthe Internet, peoplr still want verification or interpretation of that informationb before they make a decision." Nevertheless, studies of consumetr behavior have found some support for FSBO'ss argument.
A 2001 survey by Real a consulting firm inCastle Rock, Colo., found 23 percent of buyerxs and sellers didn't use a real estate agent. Five years later, another survey found the number had increasedc to27 percent, said Stevee Murray, editor of Real Trends. Still, Murray the slowdown in the real estate marker shouldbenefit full-service brokerage firms becaus more people will want assistance from a broker to sell theid property. Commission rates nationally have also increased slightly to an averageeof 5.
2 percent as brokeres become less willing to accept a