The world will always need a real estate agent

It is no longer necessary to book through a middleman when all the info is electronically available with a few clicks of the mouse. So entire industries have reinvented themselves and migrated online. What could have taken two weeks in 1980 now happens in two minutes in 2008. It has been hypothesized that in a new world order where social media converges with markets the residential real estate agent like its cousin the travel agent could go the way of the dinosaur. The natural habitat of the travel agent in which they built a comfortable niche has been decimated by the encroachment of sites like Kayak and Travelocity. However, the world will always have and need the residential real estate agent. Here is why: The difference between a travel agent and a real estate agent is that the real estate is right there along with you for the journey. They are there showing, sharing, caring and handing over keys. There is localism in every deal. A residential real estate agent can never be physically outsourced to Karachi or Mumbai. Home security is required in every transaction. Sellers will never want unscreened, unsupervised strangers traipsing through their living rooms. It is a act that the competent agent negotiates a higher sale price than the owner does. The buyer responds differently to the agent than they do with the seller. What differentiates residential real estate from other industries is it is such an emotional process. The process is emotional enough that is important for the client to have a psychological buffer so that they are able to separate the personal from the impersonal. There is a big difference between living in your home versus selling it. In the end if all goes well a client would have found "home," a place to rest and belong to. While the barriers to entry to becoming for a real estate agent may be small compared to becoming a heart surgeon much of the job is learned in the field through years of experience. Selling real estate, especially ones own home, is not for the emotional faint of heart and can sometimes feel like a financial rollercoaster. Robin Greenbaum is a founder of Cobroke Nation (www.cobrokenation.com), New York, N.Y.