Death of a Real Estate Agent By Joseph Feross At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

The Indianapolis real estate agent is a dying breed. It’s been a long death because, even in the current precarious condition of the economy and the confirmed death of the real estate market, the Indianapolis real estate market was still considered strong as recently as January 2008. Unfortunately, the agents were already coming to their demise.

Obviously, the condition of the housing market has affected the Indianapolis real estate directly. These men and women work solely on commission. If they do not sell property, they do not get paid. Many real estate agents have left the industry because of the housing market crash. Many have filed bankruptcy. For many long-timers, this is all they have ever done and will have to train for a new career. Sounds familiar, right? What the public doesn’t really understand is that the real estate agent does not get paid for any work they do unless a house is sold. The agent receives even less of a commission of both the buyer and the seller are not his clients.

The real estate agent’s career has been in jeopardy since long before the crash of the housing market. At one time, the Indianapolis real estate agent was a critical component to the purchase of selling of a home. He not only had property listing tools at his disposal which were only available to real estate agents, he also has exclusive access to all information required to determine the fair market value of the property, and informative knowledge to help a client determine what price bracket they were in when purchasing a home. This has all changed.

In the past, the Indianapolis real estate agent contracted to sell a property would post a listing on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) internet system, which would include all of the information a purchaser would need to know to determine if they were interested in a property that was for sale. This listing was posted on a private internet system, and only accessible by other licensed real estate agents.

About 15 years ago, the a few real estate agents decided that they could save a few dollars on newspaper advertising for their listed properties by including the MLS# in the ad. They would just list the city where the property is located, the price and the MLS#, and direct the potential buyers to use their company website to look up the MLS listing. Exclusive MLS access used to be the single biggest reason that a real estate agent was required in the buying or selling of property.

Now that the public had access to an agency’s website, they could look up any Indianapolis real estate by location, asking price, number of bedrooms, and dozens of other parameters that the agents formerly used to narrow down potential properties for an interested buyer. Also eliminated, by the same process, was the necessity of the agent to determine the property taxes of any Indianapolis real estate. This information is also listed on the MLS. The potential buyer of any property can now look up all of the features, legal description, property tax info, and seller’s comments on the internet without the aid of an agent. The buyer can also take this information and plug the numbers into any number of websites that will calculate the monthly income needed to support the mortgage payment. Strike three for the agent.

As for handling all of the paperwork associated with the buying and selling of property, a real estate attorney will charge a flat rate which is less than the commission an agent would command. In fact, most Indianapolis real estate agents will agree to act as “transaction coordinator” for a flat rate; a service they have been forced to recede to just to keep their heads above water.

In closing, the death of the Indianapolis real estate agent, has been facilitated by other short-sighted agents, who eliminated the need for their own services by giving out their “secret code”. These “pioneers” of a new way to do business deserve the full brunt of the fury and resentment of the entire industry for destroying the careers of so many. While the current economic climate is being blamed for so much of the housing market crash, the “Craig’s List “ option for home sellers is now becoming the norm because of all of the tools that used to be exclusive to the real estate agent.

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