On 31 January, there were 1.04 million homes for sale in the U.S., according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), 26 percent fewer than a year earlier and the lowest on record since at least 1982.
On the same date, the NAR listed 1.45 million members.
The only other time agents have outnumbered houses was briefly in December 2019.
The current lopsided ratio took hold in October 2020 and has persisted since then.
The NAR’s membership reached 1.37 million in October 2006, shortly after the housing bubble swelled to its largest. It then shrank by about a third to 960,000 in March 2012 in the wake of the real estate crash that set off the Great Recession.
The NAR’s membership has grown every year since.
A large number of new agents joined the profession last year as people laid off from other jobs saw an opportunity: the housing market was booming and, in most states, becoming a residential real estate agent requires only taking a course and passing a test.
Real estate brokerage Redfin Corp. is adding an average of 162 new agents a week to its national network, the company told the Wall Street Journal.
TREND FORECAST: This is reminiscent of the Dotcom boom when people were flooding into the sector selling and marketing what was being invented, real or fake. Then when the Dotcom busted, they jumped into the real estate market as it took off in the early 2000s.
As for now, yes, the real estate market (not commercial and/or big city urban) will continue to expand so long as interest rates stay low. However, when the equity markets crash, so, too, will there be a drastic cut back in the real estate housing market.
