A buyer brokerage practitioner and author is suggesting the Internet has done little to slow the growth of buyer representation - contrary to wide speculation - and in fact may usher in a new era of reliance on those dedicated to the buyer side of the deal.

Shelia Hensley, who is becoming the chief theologian of the buyer brokerage industry, writes in the current issue of National Relocation and Real Estate magazine that consumers are being overwhelmed by the amount of information coming to them from the Internet and that more and more often they are turning to skilled professionals to separate the good from the bad.

"The Internet makes the buyer representative more important," Hensley said. "When buyers are getting ready to move to an unfamiliar area, they have access to a huge amount of information - maybe even too much.

"That's when they want to get with a buyer's rep. They want someone who is independent who will put them in touch with physical local so they can actually see it, touch and feel it.

"It takes a buyer's rep to take them to the next level."

Hensley is head of Executive Relocation Services in Memphis. She also is a writer for the Real Estate Buyer Agent Council's "The Buyer's Rep" monthly newsletter and is a columnist for National Relocation and Real Estate. She also is often quoted in Real Estate Intelligence Report on buyer agency issues and in The Real Estate Professional.

In her current column in NRRE magazine, Hensley notes the recent Coldwell Banker survey showing that 70 percent consumers believe the Internet could be of "great assistance" in helping them find a home, but that more than 90 percent said they would not bid on a home seen online.

"Overall," she says, "the survey results are cause of reconsideration of negative predictions that have beset our industry. Haven't we been told repeatedly the Internet would remove the professional real estate agent from the center of the transaction? Are there not some who suggest that brokers, managers and agents all are about to become insignificant, if not irrelevant, to the real estate transaction?"

For the last few years much of that speculation has focused on buyer brokers as being likely to be cut out of the transaction, since the property ads on the Internet tend to channel buyers directly to listing agents.

But, says Hensley, "The recent survey tells a different story. The results indicate that industry conditions today can be described more aptly as a consumer's market rather than a buyer or seller's market. In a consumer's market, home buyers are hungry for information and seek it from every source available, including the Internet.

"… The Coldwell Banker survey tells us that even after (and perhaps because of) being inundated with information buyers seek skilled help in sorting it all out. Increasingly, they are turning to an accredited buyer representative for assistance."

Published: September 7, 2000

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.