Market Volume vs. Agent Volume: The Shakedown Continues...

So how is the market out there? Is it good? Bad? Ugly?

I guess it depends on who you are as to how you answer this question.

As for myself things are going well. I have recently closed several large transactions after tweaking my niches a bit to compensate for market changes.

As for many other agents, I do hear a lot of whining. Sometimes I have to avoid folks in the office who have found themselves in a hole and want to pull me in with them to keep company. Oh, how Misery loves company.

As I have discussed in previous posts, we are in a shakedown of the mortgage/title/realtor services market. Transaction volume is down from record highs last year while the number of people and entities in these industries is soon to follow suit.

Here is sales volume for 2002-2003 as compared to 2008.


As you can see, there isn't a whole lot of difference between yesteryears sales and 2008's. In fact, we are selling more this year than we did back then. However, I would attribute this to population growth rather than a difference in actual demand for housing. Other than this factor, I would say that they are pretty darn close to each other. Since this is a Winter-Spring illustration, many of the individual differences may represent weather related issues. But in general, you can see that they follow an upward trend typical of this time of year.

In my opinion 2008 is a good market. Its just as healthy as 2002 or 2003 which were considered "Normal" markets. The only difference is that there are twice as many people in the RE industry than there were in 2002-2003. That means that the Not-So-Serious and the I-Sell-A-Home-Once-In-A-While Realtors out there are about to get a healthy dose of market correction. As franchise fees and board dues start adding up, I expect a major exodus to occur from the industry. In fact, I believe it has already begun.

This is and will continue be a good thing. For the Realtors associated with the Exit Realty franchise, fees are due within the week. I expect this to be a make or break moment for much of our office. Three months ago our office had 80 agents. Today it has 65. Statistically speaking, we should hit 40 and be at equilibrium. If the number settles higher than this, then it represents some changes in management, incentives, and recruiting efforts. Lets watch and see what happens.