hold your hand throughout things. That can be helpful.

Granted, it is probably $500 worth of helpful, not $5000 worth of helpful.

Historically, most of the value they brought to the market was via colluding to control the information available. The internet is certainly breaking that business model.

We are seeing things like CarMax and Carvana break the mold of used car sales, and companies like Tesla and Volvo attempting to crash the car dealership monopolies on new car sales. There are even a few companies out there who buy and sell homes (but typically only homes in cookie-cutter neighborhoods where knowing what it is worth is easy) directly with the homeowner, bypassing the entire process of showing the home and dealing with realtors.

The industry is ripe for disruption. We probably aren't that far away from some significant changes happening.