Despite the rise of AI chatbots and the growing amount of real estate information available online, home buyers and sellers are still turning to real estate agents for guidance when it’s time to make a move—even more than they used to.
A record high—92%—of home sellers worked with a real estate agent while 90% of home buyers also purchased their home through a real estate agent or broker over the past year, according to the National Association of REALTORS®’ newly released 2026 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, based on responses of buyers and sellers who completed transactions between July 2025 and June 2026.
“More buyers are using agents than ever before,” says Jessica Lautz, NAR’s deputy chief economist. “This might seem counterintuitive given consumers have access to more information than ever before. However, all that information can be misleading without proper context. When executing one of the largest financial transactions of most people’s lives, consumers need localized expertise from agents to give buyers and sellers personalized knowledge.”
Related: 10 Reasons Why AI Won’t Replace Real Estate Agents
FSBOs Remain at Record Lows
The number of homeowners trying to sell their home themselves—known as For Sale By Owners—matched last year’s all-time low of just 5%, NAR’s research shows.
The FSBO market share has been gradually shrinking over the last four decades, even as technological advances have entered more aspects of a real estate transaction. In 1985, FSBO sales peaked, comprising 21% of home sales. The FSBO share has stayed mostly in the single digits since 2010.
Thirty-seven percent of FSBO sellers said the main reason why they sold on their own was because they didn’t want to pay an agent commission or fee. Yet, FSBO transactions tended to fall short on the final sales price compared to sellers who work with a real estate agent, data shows.
Over the past year, the median price for a FSBO sale was $368,500 compared with $455,000 for agent-assisted sales—a nearly 24% difference in favor of agent-assisted homes. The lower price point for FSBO sales also may reflect that they tend to be lower-cost mobile or manufactured homes or homes located in rural areas.
Navigating the sales process on a seller’s own can prove challenging, the survey finds. FSBO sellers most often said they struggled with preparing the home for sale, selling within their desired timeframe, pricing the home and understanding the paperwork, according to NAR’s survey. Notably, 41% of FSBO sellers did not actively market their home.
"When you go into a real estate transaction, there’s a lot more to it that meets the eye,” says Chris Garrett, 2026 president of Tennessee REALTORS® and co-owner at Weichert REALTOR® The Andrews Group in Murfreesboro, Tenn. “Having a professional guide you through it can really save you throughout the process—by understanding what your needs are and how to position your home.”
Why More Sellers Are Turning to Agents
Home sellers responding to NAR’s survey said they decided to use a real estate agent because they wanted to be able to market their home to a wider pool of buyers, price the home more competitively and sell the home within a specific timeframe.
Eighty-seven percent of sellers said their real estate agent provided a “broad range of services” and managed most aspects of their home sale. What’s more, 86% of sellers said they’d likely recommend their agent for future services.
According to NAR’s survey, sellers said they most wanted real estate agents’ guidance on:
- Marketing their home to potential buyers: 20%
- Pricing the home competitively: 20%
- Selling the home within a specific time frame: 17%
- Finding a buyer for home: 15%
- Identifying ways to fix up home to sell it for a higher price: 14%
- Negotiating and dealing with buyers: 7%
- Helping with paperwork/inspections/preparing for settlement: 4%
Why More Buyers Are Turning to Agents
Forty-six percent of buyers reported that their initial step in their home search was looking online at properties for sale. However, the highest source of information in the buying process remains the real estate agent, with nearly 9 in 10 buyers using the agent as their key information resource, according to NAR’s report.
Buyers say they relied on an agent’s expertise for finding the right home to purchase, negotiating the terms of the sale and home price, and for completing the paperwork. Overall, the top benefits buyers cite receiving from using their buyer’s agent are:
- Pointed out unnoticed features/faults with property: 55%
- Helped buyer understand the process: 54%
- Provided a better list of service providers (e.g. home inspector): 45%
- Negotiated better sales contract terms: 44%
- Improved buyer’s knowledge of search areas: 39%
- Negotiated a better price: 33%
- Shortened buyer’s home search: 27%
- Provided better list of mortgage lenders: 19%
- Expanded buyer’s search area: 17%
- Narrowed buyer’s search area: 14%
Buyers rated agents’ highly for their responsiveness and constant communication, particularly in sending them property information and communicating via text message (74%), calling them personally to inform them of recent activities (73%), and sending them postings as soon as a property is listed, a price changes or a home went under contract (71%).
“This is the biggest financial transaction of someone’s life, and so you want to make sure you’re doing everything correctly—that’s not something that Google or ChatGPT can tell you,” Lautz says. “You want to be able to ask questions about your particular transaction. … Everything about a transaction is going to be different than your next-door neighbor’s. It’s even more important to have a representative on your side.”
