[Hydroshock]

ping

[ClearCase_guy]

Real estate always comes back from any slowdown or recession and goes on to achieve higher levels

Bingo.

[AbeKrieger]

Looks like the strategic deployment of more "affordable housing" might be needed to chase people out of their neighborhoods.

[sure_fine]

like the Dot.Com thing, some hit good, some hit big, but most lost out

[RockinRight]

Works for me. I'm still doing OK, granted, I'll concede that things are tougher, but as the exodus continues, I will have a larger pool of business.

:-)

[MineralMan]

Around the metro area here in Minnesota, there are more real estate agents than houses for sale, and it's been that way for some time.

I'm expecting some to drop out of the business, at least temporarily. Lots of housewives have their real estate licence, but don't really manage to sell any houses, or maybe one a year or so. I think they're going bye-bye for now.

[stylin19a]

Cook earned up to $135,000 a year during the housing market's boom as a broker and vice president at Halstead Property, a real estate firm in New York. When her commissions fell by around 50 percent, she decided it was time to quit.

$67,500 a year in New York ? can't live on that. Might as well wear a sign
"Will work for broadband access"

The Mortgage Bankers Association, an industry trade group, expects total loan originations to fall by 18 percent in 2006 to $2.4 trillion versus 2005.

a lousy 2.4 trillion. Good Grief...we're bankrupt !

[NautiNurse]

Was there a similar article describing the flood of new realtors and mortgage brokers when the interest rates were fantastically low? Those brokers had to leave other lines of business to jump onto the gravy train. They didn't appear by spontaneous generation.

[Mogollon]

Over-supply of new homes will clear out in the next 6-9 months then demand will be up again.

[stumpy]

When the Real Estate market is good everybody and their brother/sister gets a license and makes some money in spite of themselves.

When the market slows, they go back to being teachers/housewives or whatever they were before. I've been doing this for the past sixteen years and got started in a down market.

[blam]

I have bought and sold five homes in my lifetime and have never used a real estate (realtor) company. I don't see the need.

[Fatuncle]

You know, it's kind of odd - here in this small town in NC, there are houses that have been up for sale for over a year, and they aren't moving. Yet there are more new homes being built in the same town than are up for sale. Anyone else seeing that?

Concerning too many real estate agents in the business - my stepmother once told me: "Everyone's business is no one's business." - meaning that too many people working a single market means there is not enough business to make a living for any of them.

[ex-Texan]

Get ready. The realtor and mortgage industry naysayers will probably attack again in droves. It is very easy to determine who they are because they accuse everybody that disagrees with them of being a DU Troll. In truth, they are just Trolls for the real estate crowd. The very people who are most responsible for over-inflating real estate prices. They also vandalize key words. Check my FR page if you are open minded.

[Protagoras]

I can't help but wonder why you have an obsession with this topic.

[BurbankKarl]

New home sales lowest since 1991 per WSJ flash traffic.

[longtermmemmory]

I don NOT think this has to do with the actual market as much as modernization is comming to the real estate sales system.

The old "mystrious" MLS system is going to go the way of the do do. People are protesting the rigged 6% "standard" commission.

The big boys are getting ready for the ebay sales system. They are dropping the dead weight.


(was not century 21 investigated for commission fixing?)

[Proud_USA_Republican]

It would take a countrywide recession for there to be an all and out real estate market collapse.

Isn't going to happen, unless the US hits another recession.

Some real estate markets will see some corrections, but only back to more realistic market prices given the supply/demand. The only places that might see real collapses are ones like Pheonix and Las Vegas where their were massive projects of new homes built that outstripped long term demand. But I don't see total collapses, but a return to realistic prices.

The most pumped markets have already started to correct downward slightly (New York, Boston, San Diego, Las Vegas, etc...) or most of the time, trade sideways for the next couple years.
As long as their are people moving to these places in decent numbers each year, their markets won't collapse.

[DCPatriot]

Uh...all real estate agents are fully-commissioned, independent contractors.

While they do 'cost' their brokers to provide a dial tone and electricity to run their computers, etc., they typcially get a return or 50% of an agents gross commissions earned.

If you have several inactive agents in your office, I can see how dropping them from your roster would save you money....but typically, they do not cost a broker much to carry them.

Companies such as RE/MAX, which offer their agents 100% of their gross commission get a monthly desk fee...usually about $1500. per month.

You're not going to see many RE/MAX agents stay in the business if they cannot meet their monthly bills.

[diamond6]

bump for later

[SuziQ]

Sounds like a typical real estate economic cycle to me. We've experienced them before. The market will turn around in a year or so, maybe less in some areas of the country, and in a few years the correction will happen again.