July, 2014
Web portals such as Zillow and Trulia have attracted a great deal of attention in recent years. That attention is well-deserved, because these sites do a good job helping agents promote listings and consumers find properties. To a large degree, they do what newspaper real estate sections used to do: advertise listings and generate leads for agents.
What they don’t do, however, is provide the actual service involved in buying or selling a home. Portals can't replace real estate agents, because although people look for houses on the Internet, they don't buy them there. This isn’t like buying a book on amazon.com, and it never will be. A real estate sale is a complex proposition, and people still want a professional—a real live human—to guide them through it. The challenging market of the past few years reinforced the need for professional assistance.
It's worth noting that the question implies that the portals operate in the same segment/industry as the national real estate brands. They don't. They're in the marketing business, with a successful model that provides free consumer access and relies on the listings, cooperation, and advertising dollars of agents and brokerages. If the portals ever tried to move into the brokerage business, they'd destroy their model by alienating the advertisers who create their revenue. Just as travel websites promote, support, and coexist with hotel and airline brands, entities like Zillow and Trulia are valuable contributors in the real estate ecosystem. They add tremendous efficiency to the process, and their technology serves the interest of consumers and agents alike.
That said, the portals are limited in terms of their emotional impact on consumers. A real estate agent, however, becomes a trusted adviser and even a friend. Multiply that effect hundreds of thousands of times each year and you start to realize why people still think of real estate agents, and their brands, more than a website used along the way. At its core, real estate remains a business built on relationships. The portals are a fantastic resource, but in the end a real person—someone you come to know and trust -helps you achieve your goals. The name of that person, and the brand he or she represents, is something you remember long after the experience is over.