Whispers from the Edge of the Rainforest: Real estate agents quitting

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Thurs Post #2: Vancouver newspaper proclaims - "Greater Vancouver realtors are now forced to quit and find new jobs"

Speaking of Craigslist occupying the time of idle real estate agents, it seems all of them are not content to twiddle their thumbs while clicking a computer mouse.

Month after month now we have chronicled how bad the monthly real estate statistics have been.

And a sign of the turbulent times for real estate agents in the Village on the Edge of the Rainforest has to be this article in the Singtao Chinese newspaper (hat tip VMD via Vancouver Condo Info blog):

Greater Vancouver realtors are now forced to quit and find new jobs

Mr Shen, a newly minted realtor since 2011 had been working for a year without reaching a single sale. He had just quit RE and is training to be an electrician...

When interviewed by SingTao, Mr Shen said he had a university degree in business administration. Upon seeing the hot RE market in early 2011, he paid $5000 for a realtor prep-course and obtained his realtor license.

Ever since he’s working as a realtor. He’s been busy every weekend showing houses, one client even had him show 10 units.

He had a total of 20 clients in the first half year, but no sale.

Mr Shen said, in the current housing downturn, even seasoned realtors are having a hard time.

Another realtor, Mr Sun of Macdonald realty, said that in 2011 he averaged 2 sales per month, this year some months even went without a single sale.

Many realtors are leasing expensive cars, paying expensive fuel, hosting networking dinners – averaging $2000 per month of overhead. Without sufficient sales numbers, many realtors cannot survive.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) states that it has more than 11,000 real estate agents in it's association from Whistler to Maple Ridge to Tsawwassen.

With recent sales often totalling less than 100 per day, these are lean times indeed.

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