In last Sunday’s NYT Magazine devoted entirely to real estate, the authors of Freakonomics argued for the inevitable extinction of real estate agents:

The Internet is a natural repository for the sort of data that drive the real-estate market. New sites like zillow.com let anyone try to figure out (if imperfectly) what his home is worth; sites like craigslist.org allow buyers and sellers to easily find each other. As those services and ones like them become more popular, it is hard to imagine that the market will allow Realtors to maintain their hefty commissions.

Trulia CEO Pete Flint couldn’t disagree more:

At the end of the day, we still need a professional to help us make sense of all the information available to us both off and online and to carry out all the duties necessary when buying or selling a home. Ask yourself this, do you really have time to learn an entirely new profession on top of your own life responsibilities to buy or sell one house? How much is your time worth? I have looked at the data and crunched the numbers. At the end of the day, the real estate agent is worth every penny.

Let the debate begin.
Freakonomics in Real Estate [John Cook's Venture Blog]
Endangered Species [NYT Magazine]