Signs Of Things To Come
Wednesday, August 13th, 2008
There are signs that the market is slowly slowly coming back: Last week the National Association of Realtors reported that the pending sales index was up 5.3% in June from the prior month, but remains 12.3 percent below June 2007. Pending sales are up 3.4% in the Northeast, down 15% from June 2007. The Pending Home Sales Index is a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed in June, of couse it will take a few months of positive growth for this to be a trend, but there are glimmers of recovery. Sales of Multi-families in Rhode Island were up 20% in the second quarter , mostly due to investors getting back in the game, and inventories are going down.
One statistic that is going down is the number of Realtors in the United States: Membership in the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® declined 1.5 % in 2007, from 1.4 million to 1.34 million and as of July 2008, there were 1.26 million members. Rhode Island had a net loss of about 1,300. Now while this may seem like bad news, it is really good news, with sales activity trending at 10-year lows in recent months, the market is getting brutally competitive.
Entrepreneurial businesses tend to follow the 80-20 rule, 80 percent of the business activity being conducted by 20 percent of the people. The top 20 percent of REALTORS® earned a median income of $175,000 while the bottom 20 percent earned less than $10,000.
This Week’s Real Estate Insight:
Perhaps this is what is needed to boost the overall professionalism of members, the downturn in the market is shaking out the marginal and bad agents, the part timers, and those whose only claim to fame is a single listing from a relative.
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