A lot of people are afraid of buying a house without a realtor. However, if something goes wrong with a deal, the realtor has very little liability. He has no real interest for the buyer or seller. In most cases his biggest interest is to make as much comission as often as he can.
The lawyer has far more liability for a house sale yet he charges just a fraction what the realtor does. Some of the legal fees can be bypassed now by using title insurance instead of a title search. Title insurance in my opinion is superior to doing a search.
I think something like Google will be the best way to buy or sell a house. Rather than spending $30,000 on comission you'd be much better off to spend a couple of hundred on a home inspector. Also you could spend another couple of hundred to get a mortgage appraisal done, not a real estate appraisal. By doing a mortgage appraisal before you buy the home, you can make sure that what you're paying is in line. If you end up buying the home, you can use that appraisal to get a mortgage.
The internet is slowly making a lot of travel agents obsolete. It would be nice to see it cut into the real estate business as well. Perhaps I'm being cruel, but I see a lot of sales people and such as being leaches on society. I would rather see those people doing something a little more productive. When I was building houses we would sweat and worry just to make a few percent profit. The real estate agent would do next to nothing and make just about as much as we did. I'd gladly give my real estate agent a job to paint my next house, he'll just have to be careful not to get any paint on his suit.
