You think it's bad now? When i was young my dad was a real estate agent and the MLS had a total monopoly on all the data... so you basically had to have an age

You think it's bad now? When i was young my dad was a real estate agent and the MLS had a total monopoly on all the data... so you basically had to have an agent to find out the comparable house prices and get good list of all houses for sales. these days with sites like zillow... make it much easier as a buyer. however, unless you buy from a FSBO (for sale by owner) the selling agent will take both sides of the commision. on the selling side... having a good agent can be a big help... especially in this market, an aggressive agent may be the difference in selling or not.