Great blog and comments. It will be interesting to see what happens in my area this month when our annual association renewals come in. We are expecting a lot of drop-outs.

As you say, real estate consumers seem to defy logic, hiring the first agent they run into when they are looking to buy or sell a home. Of course, this does little to reward the top notch professionals for providing great service.

Maybe we could tattoo our URL’s on table dancers bellies (or other body parts).

I am having trouble getting the vision of your gyrating tassles out of my head.

Russ, I see your point…I believe it is too easy to get into this industry. In MD, we need 15 hours of Continuing Ed classes. I don’t think that’s enough. We are not practicing law, but we sure are handling a bunch of legal documents. If not handled properly, there is a lot of liability hanging out there.

I hate to see good people go…but I am not at all upset seeing the rank and file decrease.

You certainly have run into some different Realtors. I can’t say I know anyone that dances professionally let alone dances and sells homes. I guess you and I run in very different crowds. But we all know that jobs are tight in Michigan right now.

I am also glad that you appreciated the services of the Realtor that you found. I have always felt that a consumer needs to do their own due diligence before engaging the services of a Realtor. We are not all created equally. I think that the Realtor a consumer choses is the most important decision that they make in the whole process.

As for the public perception of my chosen career path, I agree. It is not the highest. Some of that is our own doing. That is one of the reasons that I volunteer to be on our Board of Realtors grievance committee, which helps consumers and Realtors deal with their complaints against Realtors. It is a self governing body and we all take our commitment to it very seriously..

As for the easy money and being in the right place at the right time, a bit of it is true. But consumers don’t see the other side. Frankly, I have had a number of well paid professional jobs (commercial lender for a large bank, consultant for Price Waterhouse, advisor to the governments of Ukraine and the US on privatization issues, etc) and I can honestly tell you that being a Realtor is the toughest of these. As much as I enjoy what I do, I feel an incredible responsibility to my clients. We’ve invested so much time in our own educations in this field. Still, we are judged by a few bad apples. Yes, I chose a field that requires me to be basically at work almost all the time. I’ve spent the majority of most of my few vacations since I started, negotiating contracts and keeping deals together. I’ve sacrificed hours of family time for people who would later go on to buy a home directly from a builder who offered them a better price if they would cut me out of the transaction. I guess you might call that the cost of doing business. But the perception that there is easy money is vastly overstated and implicitly incorrect.

I hope you find a suitable job. I hate to see people having to leave.

“I actually would just like to see the level of professionalism in this industry elevated. I am all for increasing the continuing education requirements for retaining a license in Michigan. The 6 hours we need now is inadequate, as is the 40 hours of coursework we take in order to handle most people’s largest financial transaction of their life.”

Two of the three realtors I knew in Metro Detroit are back to dancing the tables and other ’service activities’ down in Warren at some strip club where they used to work. Sorry I don’t remember what it was called. They admitted to it after discussing with me their financial problems from the slowdown. The third is the one I used to sell my own house in Royal Oak in March.. a real professional. Had more experience (in the relevant (profession) ; ) She still is a realtor. She wouldn’t do the dancing anyway.

Critically… What is it that attracts/attracted the trashy strippers to your profession? How did they get in so easily?

Ill tell you why: “Often Realtors are rewarded for being in the right place at the right time, or just for showing up.” In other words easy money. Just like the attraction to ‘dancing.’

Its hard to tell which realtors are serious and which are the opportunistic ex-table dancers, but I was able to distinguish between the two with some time and effort spent talking to them about their approaches to the market and selling my house. You are soo not going to be taken seriously as professionals until you require a little more skills and legal education to enter the ‘profession’.

I don’t hold your profession in such high esteem. most beginning raltors basically seem like clerks to me with ’sales personality’. As time goes on they become progressively more valuable. With the number of true, educated, professionals leaving Michigan in the last year or so I really can’t spare too many tears for realtors. Hope you can sort out your profession if I can later get a job in and move back to oakland coounty.

For those who won’t be dancing, ramen is cheap and yummy
http://www.ramenramenramen.net/

The figures are from NAR so must be taken with lot’s of salt since they have completely missed their predictions with the housing/credit crash. (The real numbers are probably much higher than what NAR represents.)

California has seen a small net gain in real estate licensees from 2006 to 2007. Yet anecdotally, I have seen some competent agents exit the business because they were not making enough money to support themselves or their families.

I have not yet seen many uprooting and leaving San Diego. Fortunately, other employment is available.

For great buys in four season real estate though, we’ll have buyers give you a call!

Your final paragraph says it all…not all agents are create equally.

Ines, we are seeing really good agents go. Completely leaving the state. These are some really good agents who have been doing this for a long time and well. I have done transactions with them and know that they provided their clients with excellent representation.