Do we need a smaller crowd of Realtors?
The membership of the National Association of Realtors now stands at 1.12 million. That’s a lot of real estate agents. But it’s not as many as the association claimed in October of 2007. During that month, the association counted more than 1.3 million members.
That was the high-water mark for the association. Thanks to the recession and the housing slump, the association has lost more than 200,000 real estate agents since October of 2007.
Some might view this as a bad thing. Certainly, the Realtors association would prefer its membership levels to swell eternally. But what about those real estate agents who are still working? I assume they’re glad that their competition has decreased somewhat. (Though you wonder about how much competition the real estate agents who’ve left the business really provided. I have a hunch that many of the agents who have left the field are simply those who were successful only when homes were selling within days of hitting the market. Once the business of selling homes became difficult, these agents fled. They couldn’t hack it.)
But what about home sellers and buyers? Has the drop-off in agents hurt them? I doubt it. For one thing, there are plenty of agents for every home seller and buyer in this country to choose from. It’s not difficult to find a real estate agent out there willing to work with buyers or sellers.
Secondly, the agents who remain in the business are undoubtedly the more skilled, more knowledgeable one. During the housing boom, selling homes was easy. Agents put the homes on the Multiple Listing Service, stuck a “For Sale” sign in the front lawn and waited for the showings and the offers to come in.
That’s changed today. Agents today have to work hard, and smart, to sell homes. They have to network with their fellow agents, take full advantage of the Internet and market their listings to buyers both locally, nationally and internationally. They have to continually work with sellers to make sure homes are always in prime showing condition. And they often have to dip into their own pockets to hire cleaning crews, stagers and other professionals to give their listings the best chance to sell.
I don’t envy real estate agents today. Selling real estate in 2009 is certainly no easy way to make a living. Those agents still doing so are the strongest of the bunch.
