Apr. 21, 2006: Using the web to buy a home may not be the best idea
"Save thousands buying surgery online!"
It may be a while before you see this headline. But you can't open a magazine or a Web site lately without hearing that Realtors are about to be "disintermediated" by the Internet.
"Disintermediation" is a 50-cent word that means cutting out the middleman. It has happened at the low end of the travel agency and the stock brokerage businesses, among others. Some Internet start-ups plan to automate or streamline the functions performed by Realtors, in anticipation of the glorious day when you will sell one home and buy another online.
There are problems with this idea. For example, although the book-selling business allegedly has been disintermediated, you will have plenty of time to read about that as you bide your time in the checkout line at Borders or Barnes & Noble.
Then there are these considerations: Would you say that a Realtor is more like a sales clerk at Target or Wal-Mart or more like a surgeon?
Is your home, or the one you hope to buy, more like a DVD at Best Buy or Fry's Electronics or more like a unique work of art?
In the first instance, we are taking note of the consultative expertise of Realtors, full-time professionals who know how to market homes and how to effect transactions against a sea of troubles. Surely some Realtors are better than others, but it would take a pretty lousy surgeon to be worse at surgery than an amateur.
In the second instance, we are talking about the idea of fungibility - substituting one item for another with no concern for differences in value. DVDs are highly fungible, as are books, items of apparel, travel arrangements or shares of stock.
Real estate is inherently non-fungible. Your home is unique in location, orientation, construction, upgrades, nearby amenities, etc. So is the one you are about to buy.
I love technology, and we deploy it every way we can. But to buy or sell a home without expert professional advice makes as much sense as buying surgery online. Both may happen some day, but neither will ever be common - or advisable.
Greg Swann is the designated broker for BloodhoundRealty.com, a full-service Metropolitan Phoenix real estate brokerage. This article originally appeared in the West Valley regional sections of the Arizona Republic.
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Am I link-baiting? You bet. The quid pro quo is free content for your site that pulls eyeballs and excites interest.<a href="http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/" target="_blank"> Phoenix Realtor Greg Swann</a> suggested I share this with you:
