Posted by Leonard Steinberg of URBAN COMPASS, August 2nd, 2014

Zillow will be buying out Trulia and their combined might in the real estate world has sent shudders down the spines of real estate brokers everywhere: will this machine replace brokers just the way travel agents were made virtually extinct? Hardly.

The bulk of Zillow and Trulia’s revenues come from real estate brokers, as does much of its data. These sites want consumers to believe that they are their direct link to broker elimination, but I seriously doubt it. What will happen now is the costs to brokers will rise, and I have already heard how these companies are raising their rates. Huge is not necessarily best. I suspect other company’s will enter to compete for broker-dollars. Chances are the real estate transaction sans broker is a long, long way away, and may possibly never happen, especially on the higher end of the market where attentive service and intelligent insights are tough to replicate with simplistic technology. The biggest problem brokers face by a huge entity such as this is that they could get lost in it. Consumers are already over-loaded with information. Most consumers are not that stupid to believe that a machine that proposes a broker specialist has not been paid for that proposal…..more consumers are catching onto this and they do not like being deceived. Just because someone pays the highest price for placement does not mean they are the best for the job. The property that is highlighted as FEATURED may be seen by more people faster, but does that provide an un-biased representation?

Now, more so than ever, brokers need to up the ante on their professional and customer-service skills. Those that evolve into advisors rather than the traditional transaction-obsessed pariah’s, will soar…..in my humble opinion.