May 21, 2005

anybody need an agent?

The LA Times ran A Glut in the Market for Homes last week, an article about how much interest in being a real estate agent has surged.
More than 22,000 applicants took the state's real estate exam in April, nearly three times as many as in April 2003, according to the Department of Real Estate. To handle the surge, the department has rented six test centers around the state to supplement the five it already has.
The last time so many people wanted to sell real estate in California was in 1990. In what might be an ominous sign for the current boom, that year marked a peak in the housing market.
There are 437,000 agents in California, enough to form the state's eighth-largest city. With only 680,000 home sales a year, competition for listings can be savage.
I guess all those day traders had to find something to do. So, each agent gets an average of less that 1.5 sales a year. If the average house price was $500,000, and they kept all of their 3% (which they don't), that's $20k a year. Wow. You'd think the numbers alone would be enough to discourage them. Guess all we need to do sell more houses for more money :) . Posted by dapkus at May 21, 2005 09:29 AM