We occasionally receive some … interesting … press releases and pitches here in the Banker & Tradesman newsroom. Sometimes it’s the usual – spam from (purportedly) Amazon, BJ’s, CVS, Cigna, Samsung, Southwest and Walgreens – all in less than an hour. Deleted. Pretty typical, really.

But because we’re a newsroom, we also get pitches that don’t fit our business model. PR reps fish a wide sea, bless them, and you never know when you’ll get an unexpected nibble.

In that vein, an email pitch came through last week entitled “The Dangerous Reality of Real Estate, Ask Expert Real Estate Veteran [Name Redacted].”

Ok, Name Redacted, you got us. B&T covers the real estate industry; we’re interested in protecting agents and buyers in a dangerous world. Redacted, it turns out, espouses an interesting method of protection: forgoing an agent and listing your own home.

Forgive the B&T staff, but we fail to see how this is safer – on a number of levels – than enlisting the assistance of a professional. DIY is all well and good, until you flood your bathroom or burn down the house.

Consumers, particularly the increasingly important Millennial buyers, are already leery of the home buying process and all of its component pieces – the banks, lawyers and real estate agents so inherent in the system. Millennials aren’t generally big on “the system” to begin with, and having recently witnessed a housing market crash and perceived lack of repercussions for those responsible, are even less likely to put their trust in The Man (and his subsidiaries).

This comes as no surprise to B&T’s readers, who have no doubt felt the pressure to convince the younger generation that their services are not only needed, but valuable. Purchasing a property is one of the largest financial decisions to be made in a lifetime and it should be apparent that there are some things even the Internet cannot do, but clearly the argument continues to be made.

Alas, it’s also true that safety is a concern for brokers, agents and homebuyers, and a call from a so-called expert to remove some of the alleged safety concerns (oh, and also the commission) from the process may cause some consumers to sit up and take notice.

But not, we think, as many as Name Redacted hopes or expects. By their very nature, sellers were once buyers. They have experienced the process at least once and, if their team at that time was competent, sellers should know that professional assistance can make or break a deal. From the other side, even first-time buyers with a modicum of awareness know that the home buying process today is far more complicated than it has ever been; to go it alone is at best unwise and at worst foolish.

So good luck to you, Name Redacted; some other newspaper may bite on your hook, but not Banker & Tradesman, where we believe in the necessity of all components of the residential real estate industry – and that removing one piece of the puzzle will not make any of them safer.