Housing Slump has Some Real Estate Agents Hitting the Highway

TheDay.com reports that the number of licensed real estate agents in Connecticut is declining as single family home sales continue to drop. According to the states real estate division, around 200 brokers and more than 1,300 salespeople have left the real estate field within the past 10 months alone. Though some are saying that the local real estate market is still over saturated with agents. ”If people have only one, two or three sales a year, it really takes away from those who work at it full time,” said Norm Krayem, owner of Realty Estates in Groton and a local Realtor for 35 years. “It makes you wonder whether those who aren't doing well should, in fact, pull out.” Surprisingly, with the dropping numbers of agents, license renewals are actually up several hundred from last year, meaning the agents packing up are primarily new to the field. ”There used to be an 80-20 rule, which said that 80 percent of the business is done by 20 percent of the agents,” said John Bolduc, executive vice president of the local Realtors group. “Now it's more like 90-10. Ten percent of the agents do about 90 percent of the sales.” Although only working part-time, Ruth Smith, who received her real estate license lat year, has only managed to sell one property and list another for sale. With these home sales slowing, the minimal costs of getting a license and continuing education fees leave some would-be agents looking for other career choices. ”No one is doing that much business; you just make people think you are,” said Geoff Hausmann, a top agent with RE/MAX Property Consultants in Groton. “Am I hurting? Of course I am. I wish I was doing the business I was doing two years ago. But you do what you can do.” While the housing market in Connecticut seems to be going down in flames, other states are reporting higher sales and according to a recent press release by Real Estate License, a leading source for real estate licensing resources, information seekers hitting the search engines to find out how to become a real estate agent are at an all time high. ”When everything is going well, everyone gets into it, and when things stop, the professionals still survive,” said Bruce Baratz, owner of Baratz Realty in New London.