Who actually says they didn't need an agent?
Almost nobody, once the deal is behind them.
Plenty of people say AI is going to replace agents. Go looking for someone who closed a transaction and came out the other side saying "I didn't need that person," and the well runs dry fast.
But people do find their own houses now.
They do, and they'll tell you so. "I went on Zillow and I found it myself."
Sure. Then what did you do?
You called an agent. To see it. To write the offer. To tell you whether the inspection report was a real problem or a Tuesday. To work the appraisal when it came in under. Finding the house was the part you could do alone, and it was never the hard part.
So where's the disconnect?
Search got mistaken for representation.
When listings went public, the most visible part of the job went public with them, and it was the part that looked like the whole thing. Everything after the offer stayed invisible, because it's only visible to people who've been through it, and most people go through it a few times in a life.
So the argument gets made by people reasoning from the part they can see. It's laughable if you've done the work, and it's completely reasonable if you haven't.
Does that make agents safe?
That's the wrong word for it.
Nothing about this is a guarantee, and the honest answer to "what does this look like in ten years" is that nobody knows. What's true right now is that the thing being automated is mostly the search, and the search was already the part clients did themselves.
The rest of it, the judgment and the hard conversations, hasn't moved. What can move is how much of an agent's day gets eaten by paperwork before they get to any of it.
People find the house themselves. Then they call somebody.
Quick takes
Do buyers actually say they didn't need an agent?
Almost never, once the transaction is behind them. People say they found the house themselves, which is a different claim. The thing they did alone was the search, and the search isn't the job.
Why does the disintermediation argument keep getting made?
Because search got mistaken for representation. Listings went public, so the visible part of the work went public, and everything that happens after the offer stayed invisible to anyone who hasn't been through it.
What is the actual job in a transaction?
Everything after the house is found. Writing the offer, reading the inspection, handling the appraisal, keeping the file moving and telling the client which problems are real. Ethica, the AI transaction assistant, supports that work rather than replacing the person doing it.
Sources
- AI Doesn't Get a Vote: On which parts of a transaction stay with the agent no matter how good the software gets.
- Office Hours Are for Professors, Not Real Estate Agents: On the work that arrives after the house is found, and when it arrives.
Transcript
55 words
People continue to say that AI is going to replace them. The disconnect there is incredible to me.
I've never heard anyone say, I didn't need that person. I heard people say, I go on Zillow and I found it myself. Then what did you do? You called a realtor, right?
And so it's laughable.
