The way a person finds a home these days may be somewhat generational. My mother hates computers and distrusts them in a weird way. She puts herself completely in the hands of her realtor, who she finds through referrals. A great website won’t help her much.
A friend of mine just bought a home completely over the internet (I’ve mentioned this before). I checked out her realtor’s website. It was very complex and had a lot of information. His website was instrumental in my friend using him as a realtor.
I think it is possible that the younger the buyer, the higher the probability that they are going to rely heavily on the internet for their purchasing.
As for emotion ruling the recent craziness in RE purchasing, that is very true. However, no matter how much a person may want that hard-to-care-for travertine and those stain-prone granite countertops, if no one is eager to help you get into your crushing mortgage, no sale. Further, people are not going to be able to lug their granite countertops out to the driveway and sell them to cover their insane mortgage payments. It has to stop. It will stop and the emotion is going to go the other way.