The number of Realtors (membership in the National Association of Realtors) in the United States fell again in February. At the end of February the membership stood at
1,316,060. During February, their
membership fell 20,795 or 1.58%. It was the
largest percentage decrease for the month of February since 1982.
As the housing market continues to decline the number of Realtors
will continue to fall. In some of the
bubblicious states the percentage lost in February (which is usually a weak month for Realtor membership) was really high:
- California: -9.21%
- New Jersey: -1.32%
- Colorado: -1.97%
- Massachusetts: -3.85%
- Florida: -.76%
Back on September 20
th, 2006 I asked
Is There a Realtor Bubble? Also see
Monitoring The Realtor Bubble. You can view the
Realtor's membership stats.
Posts
LOL ... gotta luv that chart! It manages to make 1.58% look like "a helluva lot"! I guess it would have been hard to have it to scale ... since the 1.58% wouldn't have shown up on our screens ...
ReplyDeleteRealtor friend of mine told me he hasn't had a listing in months, and hasn't sold for over a year. He's "thinking about" getting a job... in his words, "to support my real estate habit".
ReplyDeleteHow long can these realtors-without-properties continue to call themselves realtors?
The point is that 1.58% IS a "helluva lot" compared to membership fluctuation in prior February's, and that graph IS the appropriate scale to show the change. Who says all graphs have to have the same Y-axis scale?
ReplyDeleteThe big brokers have it made with no taxes or social security to pay for these so called independant contractors - what a racket. It encourages the brokers to bring in the big numbers of agents so hopefully one of them will sell something. What does it cost the broker - hardly anything, they even charge desk fees for the non producers. The public suffers because of all the incompetence and the greedy agents chasing the commissions and bonuses instead of looking out for the consumer.
ReplyDeleteLook at the trouble with the sub prime loans made, all of these buyers who should not have been buying artifically created a huge sellers market and price rises through the roof. Agents chasing big commissions put these unqualified buyers into homes they cannot afford. And this is ethical??
The public is wising up and I predict the landscape for agents will look much differently in the future.
It really sucks being in the most hated profession as well as not making any money.
ReplyDeletebaaaawahahahahaha
It really sucks being in the most hated profession as well as not making any money.
ReplyDeleteROTFL
Yea, it wasn't exactly a suprise when realtors (tm) overtook used car salespeople in the least surveys for "professional respect."
Got popcorn?
Neil
This is what David Lereah, scumbag that he is, fears the most. And he fears this more than people being swindled out of their money with subprime loans. Realtors first, and the public can eat cake.
ReplyDeleteA 1.58% drop in 1 month is an annual drop of 17.4%. (Since February is supposedly an especially bad month for Realtor membership, the membership probably won't drop by that much in 1 year.) But how is it not a lot?
ReplyDeleteEven better, look at the April 2007 numbers versus January 2007. Many local boards don't drop non payers until a few months into the year.
ReplyDeleteDropping numbers are not necessarily bad....
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