Real Estate Agent?

Ok, so I know I'm going to offend some of my friends when they read this but hear me out and tell me if this doesn't make sense.

The other day I had a friend who was in the market for a new home, tell me about this great place that he was thinking about buying. I asked the standard questions one asks when in that situation, what part of town is it in, how old is it, how big, etc. He went on to tell me the details of the home and then came the statement that has me confused and I keep hearing it more and more frequently. He said, "I found this great house on the internet, so I called my broker and went to look at it". My reaction to this is you dumb@#$; that's right I said it, @#$). If YOU found the house, and end up buying it, why are you going to hand your broker (who after all, didn't do their job) 3% commission of the sale for doing very little to nothing?

To put some substance around this example, say this home cost 300,000. At 3% he will end up paying his broker 9,000.00 on the deal, money he could have used for the down payment, upgrades, furniture, you name it, that money would have been his to spend.
On a similar rant, I'm not so sure an agent has my best interests in mind while selling my home. I recently read a study done on real estate agents and the % of asking price and time on the market for their clients homes vs. their own homes when they sold them. The study concluded on average the agents own home was on the market for 6 months longer and usually pulled in 5-10% more than their clients. Well hold on you say, how can this be. Take a step back from the problem for a second shall we? The agent only gets paid when you SELL your home, so when a decent offer comes along they are pushing you to take it, citing several economic reasons as to why you should settle and take THIS offer now. So by you not selling and holding out for the BEST offer, the agent waits for their paycheck and depending on their current financial situation you will probably see varying degrees of scare tactics pushing you to take the decent offer.

Back to my previous example where my friend "gave" his agent a check for 9,000 b/c he didn't want to invest a lot of his time or work into finding a house, he DID end up being the one to find the house, he DID do most of the work on his own (after all he was spending 300k, he'd be dumb not to do a little homework), and he DID fork over 9,000 for an agent who didn't provide much value, and most likely he could have done the entire transaction on his own or at a minimum a few hours of attorney fees looking over the contracts, which would have ended up being much less than 9k.

So where am I going with all of this you ask? I think we are on the verge of a major paradigm shift in the way real estate is bought and sold. For years it's been the agents who hold the "inside info" on buying and selling real estate. I know MANY people, who during the down turn couldn't find work, so they became real estate agents and brokers. The Internet is enabling the willing to seek out the information they need to do the transaction sans agent and I think we will see a consolidation in the market and a shift in the way agents and brokers market their value to their clients. I am starting to see less value in agents in general, given I can search the same data they can with even more proficiency, it's nothing a little time, work and Internet can't overcome. Then you can hire a lawyer, who CAN give legal advice and has the background to do so, for a few grand or less; which is much cheaper than 3% of 3-400k ($9,000 - $12,000).

I can hear you all now saying... "We'll that's what I'm PAYING them for, to invest the time and do the work", but have you stopped to think whether or not you're getting taken advantage of? You certainly wouldn't pay a car sales man a couple extra grand, just because he made copies of the contract, and carried them to his manger would you? After all you researched the cars, did you're homework on price and just walked in, test drove it and told him what you were willing to pay. All he did is act a a middle man who had no additional knowledge, negotiating power between you and the manger (after all, who's side do you think he's on when he goes to "negotiate" on your behalf)? He only gets paid when the car get sold (just like real estate agents) so they are going to do what it takes to make the sale and try to make you think you're getting a great deal. So back to my original question, "Why then would you pay a real estate agents 3% commission on a sale where you did most of the work?"

-- Just my 2 cents. :)