What kind of effect do you think it has on you as a consumer to have all the real estate agents leaving the business?
The San Diego real estate market has changed significantly since 2004 and 2005. Homes were selling like hotcakes, bulders were building everywhere, and the first words off of everyone’s lips were that real estate “never goes down.” Each listing would recieve 20 offers per day – everyone was buying a home!
Where are we now? Well in San Diego County the numbers have been down since the big boom, and here is what they look like: According to DataQuick, the median price in August 2007 for San Diegan real estate was at $475,000.00 – not a bad number all things considered. As of August 2008 what has changed? In one year’s time the sales volume has gone up 1.4%, what has happened to the median price? It is now at $350,000.0 A figure that no consumer could have believed in 2004 and 2005.
How does this effect the number of real estate agents?
In Januarty of 2008 the San Diego Association of Realtors had announced that out of 29,000 people in the County who held a real estate license, only 4,000 had represented either a buyer of a seller on at least one side of a transaction in the first quarter of the year.
The obvious conclusion is that agents are dropping out of the business. You can see it all over, people that had their licenses have not renewed or have gotten a full-time job and hope to snag a friend or two when they consider buying or selling their homes. Help U Sell could not handle the lower volume and went out of business.
How does this relate to the you
During the boom EVERYONE said that they were selling real estate in San Diego – including those that had never been to a home inspection, did not know what granite is, had never heard the term “escrow” before and many other horror stories.
The question is: do agents in today’s market require higher commissions than during the boom when it was standard to negotiate commissions more. And if so, is it worth the .5% or 1% commission to have a more experienced agent?
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If an agent didn’t know what a home inspection was, they shouldn’t have charged any commission at all!