So you want to buy a home?

Home buying and selling has been revolutionized with the advent of cell phones and Internet. Twenty years ago a home buyer had choices but none as desirable as today's options. In days of old, you could go find an agent, drive the neighborhoods, or study print material. The best of these choices was the real estate agent because they had all the goodies in one place. However the agent was in control of the information and the process. You'd meet the agent at the office, do a "buyer" counseling session so the agent could establish control, then the process of finding the right home began.

The Internet has totally changed this process although sometimes change is hard and possibly in this case, hardest for real estate agents. The insanity of more webtools and websites has gone on and on. Brokers contracting for office websites and passing the cost on to the office agents, agents not being able to control their own budgets due to "mandatory" costs imposed by office brokers and big franchises. Consumers seeing that they are doing more and more of the home buying and selling process using the available webtools begin to wonder why they are paying high agent fees. This lead to the cutting of commissions, agents cutting fees. These was followed by brokerage houses based on super low commission rates.

The super low commission rates and cash back at closing offers then lead to agents not providing the services buyers and sellers expected. Bottomline, it is worse to pay too little that too much because the pain of inferior service or products last long after the sale is complete.