Realtors quit too early
After a few years in the hotel and grocery business I decided to seek the independence and financial freedom that selling real estate can bring. Selling real estate may appear to be a glamorous business with lots of money to be made but most who enter this industry get out quick.
More than half of California's real estate agents take their job and shelve it after discovering the Golden State's housing boom doesn't make selling homes a walk on the beach. In 2000, the California Association of Realtors selected 100 new Realtors and followed them through the first years of their career. By the fifth year, only 43 percent of the original agents stayed the course. The other 57 percent went searching for greener pastures.
The association found that many left the industry because of a lack of support from their brokers, (you didn’t think they would take responsibility for their failure did you) but others said they left because of the inability to make a decent living.
The association's membership is at a record level at more than 161,000 members and rising. A quarter of the current total membership, 42,000, came on board just in 2004 on the heels of one of the state's hottest housing markets.
Home prices in California increased nearly 110 percent during the five-year study period -- the biggest jump of any state, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight.
A job selling homes in the Golden State appears to have the potential for a six figure income -- a necessary income level to afford housing in many of the state's markets. Unfortunately, with so many real estate agents with the same idea, competition has become fierce. Productivity among CAR members is the lowest its been since the boom of the mid-1990s, CAR says. Association members average only 8 "transaction sides" per year -- what amounts to only one side or half of eight commissions a year and, with the growth in discount brokerages, that half isn't always what it used to be. And then, of course, there are operating costs, overhead and now a sales decline.
I have always said that success and longevity are partners. If you keep doing something long enough, your skill level will either increase or you will get promoted to management. I have had the opportunity to experience both over the last 30 years.
More than half of California's real estate agents take their job and shelve it after discovering the Golden State's housing boom doesn't make selling homes a walk on the beach. In 2000, the California Association of Realtors selected 100 new Realtors and followed them through the first years of their career. By the fifth year, only 43 percent of the original agents stayed the course. The other 57 percent went searching for greener pastures.
The association found that many left the industry because of a lack of support from their brokers, (you didn’t think they would take responsibility for their failure did you) but others said they left because of the inability to make a decent living.
The association's membership is at a record level at more than 161,000 members and rising. A quarter of the current total membership, 42,000, came on board just in 2004 on the heels of one of the state's hottest housing markets.
Home prices in California increased nearly 110 percent during the five-year study period -- the biggest jump of any state, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight.
A job selling homes in the Golden State appears to have the potential for a six figure income -- a necessary income level to afford housing in many of the state's markets. Unfortunately, with so many real estate agents with the same idea, competition has become fierce. Productivity among CAR members is the lowest its been since the boom of the mid-1990s, CAR says. Association members average only 8 "transaction sides" per year -- what amounts to only one side or half of eight commissions a year and, with the growth in discount brokerages, that half isn't always what it used to be. And then, of course, there are operating costs, overhead and now a sales decline.
I have always said that success and longevity are partners. If you keep doing something long enough, your skill level will either increase or you will get promoted to management. I have had the opportunity to experience both over the last 30 years.
posted by Ken Calhoon at 8:51 AM
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