The pressures from democratizing information is nothing new. Agents once thrived on exclusive information, when listings were locked away in printed books. Then came the Internet: listings, market data, neighborhood information exploded into view—seemingly for free. That data, that harvestable information, is now fuel for artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Objectively, AI isn’t a new threat. It is, however, a supercharged accelerant of that existing trend—with one crucial difference:

Until recently, buyers and sellers had no problem distinguishing between reportable data and genuine human insights, earned from lived experiences.

AI is blurring that line at breathtaking speed, so you can’t fault agents for quietly wondering: what’s my role twelve months from now?

Fortunately, the answer is sitting patiently within the problem statement itself— genuine human insights, gleaned from lived experiences, are the legitimate defense against irrelevancy. It’s what machines attempt to produce, but really can’t.

However, and this is important, this defense only works when agents resist inertia and take concrete steps toward staying indispensable.

Data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers:

The Neighborhood Rules:
According to the NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, 59% of all homebuyers rank the “quality of the neighborhood” as their number-one consideration when choosing a place to live.

Quality of the neighborhood:
This is the attribute buyers are least willing to compromise.

The Lifestyle Shift Over Commuting:
Convenience to the home buyer’s job has continued to decline and is now at 31%, down from 34 percent last year and down from 38% in 2014.

How we arrive at 71%

According to the National Association of REALTORS® 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers (Exhibit 7-1, "Method Used to Find Real Estate Agent"), sellers found their agent as follows:

• Referred by, or is, a friend, neighbor or relative — 37%

• Used an agent previously to buy or sell a home — 29%

• Personal contact by agent — 5%

• Website without a specific reference — 4%

• Referred by another agent or broker — 4%

• Open house — 3%

• Direct mail — 2%

• For-sale/open-house sign — 2%

• Employer or relocation referral — 1%

• All other methods — remainder

Of these, only one segment represents a relationship an outside agent realistically cannot win: the 29% who return to an agent they have used before. We concede that share entirely. A seller with a trusted prior agent is, in most cases, already committed.

Every other path is contestable. A referral is a nomination, not a decision — the referred seller still evaluates the agent before choosing, and that evaluation is won or lost on demonstrated credibility. The remaining segments (personal contact, website, open house, sign, and the rest) involve no prior commitment at all.

Subtracting only the conceded 29% leaves 71% of sellers whose choice is still genuinely in play. We regard 71% as the conservative figure: independent surveys of agent selection place the contestable share higher, in the 70–85%range, once fragile referrals and undecided sellers are fully accounted for.

Our local research confirms the field is open in practice, not just in theory. Across the Portland-metro neighborhoods we analyzed, no agent captured more than [13]% of a neighborhood's listings — the pattern trends lower as the study expands. If referral and repeat business locked the market, a dominant agent would emerge. None does. The fragmentation of every neighborhood is the direct evidence that most of the market remains winnable.

That a top agent reaches 13% while most capture low single digits tells us something important: focus works. Concentration on a neighborhood does produce results — the agents who commit to one area outperform those who scatter. But 13% is also a ceiling. It is roughly what focus and effort alone can achieve — and it still leaves 87% of the neighborhood choosing someone else. The gap between a focused agent's 13% and genuine neighborhood authority is not closed by working harder or mailing more. It is closed by method: the ability to demonstrate, publicly and credibly, the expertise that focus alone leaves invisible. Focus earns familiarity. Method earns authority. That gap is where Place & Trust works.

Sources: NAR 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, Exhibit 7-1 (p. 100) and Exhibit 7-2 (p. 101); Place & Trust neighborhood market-share research (RMLS sold-listing data). The 71% figure is Place & Trust's analysis of NAR data, defined as total seller acquisition minus the repeat-client share.

Source: https://www.rirealtors.org/clientuploads/documents/NAR/Homebuyers_and_sellers_trend_2025.pdf