Wordpress themes: Free vs Premium

[Cornelius Charles]

Are there any IT people out there who can tell me if there really is a difference between free and premium WordPress themes?  I am looking for real estate themes, and i have found several free ones and a lot of premium ones.  I have read a few articles that mentioned premium themes are the way to go, but the arguments didn't seem too compelling to me (besides maybe the technical support that comes with paid themes), and they also seemed to be a year or two old.  Not sure if this was before free real estate themes were available, as I am fairly new to WordPress. Does anyone have any insight as to whether a premium real estate theme would be more beneficial than a free one?  As far as i can tell, I am just looking for perks that both free and premium seem to offer (color and layout editing, option for slider, unlimited pages, blogging capability, videos, pixs, etc). Thank you.