New Market Makes Real Estate Agents Disappear

(The new real estate market is creating a lasting impact on just home sales and prices.)

The San Diego real estate market is just one of several similar ones throughout the United States and especially in California.

While home sales have dropped by over 20 percent and year-over-year prices declines are being recorded for the first time in over 10 years, the downswing of the market is affecting people lives forever and not just buyers and sellers.

The article, “From whirlwind to tailspin” written November 19, 2006 by Emmet Pierce and published in The San Diego Union-Tribune, explains how many San Diego real estate agents have experienced the rags-to riches-to rags story.

“After two whirlwind years of million-dollar sales, professional accolades and hefty paydays, real estate agent John Leverson never expected to find himself selling power wheelchairs and scooters to make ends meet.”

Leverson’s story is like many real estate agents’ in California and San Diego. Low interest rates and escalating home prices made quick fortunes for those who studied for a couple of months. From 18-year-olds to 60-year-olds, everyone in the industry was making money.

People knew property prices were getting out of hand but who was going to do anything about it; not them. Besides, with the type of lifestyle many of them began living, when the party ends, it ends, right?

“It went gangbusters for the first two years,” Leverson said. “Of all the new agents, I had the highest sales.”

Leverson is referring to a time (about two or three years ago) when an agent would receive a new listing, put it on the active market and basically come back from lunch to about 10 plus e-mails and voice mails all expressing serious intent to buy the property.

“‘I loved it,’ he said. ‘I loved the whole real estate thing. It is basically your own business. You plan your own time. Everything about it I absolutely loved.’”

It did end, though. Buyers finally began realizing that as long as they continued to swallow properties at the outrageous prices, agents would keep rising them until you basically had to sell and give up everything just to own a one-bedroom condo. Although many buyers with insufficient funds continued to do this, the half-decade party waned and finally ended.

“Leverson's love affair with real estate began to sour in the fall of 2005, when San Diego County's housing market reached its peak. After a five-year run that saw the value of many homes double, sales began to slow. Prices flattened and then began to slowly decline as the region's inventory of unsold homes swelled.”

Real estate agents throughout the city, region and country have now been forced to find alternative ways to make the cash flow that is somewhat comparable to what they were useful. For many of them, like Leverson, this has not worked out so well.

“Leverson soon found himself struggling to pay the costs of advertising, insurance, multiple listing services, lock box fees, membership dues and gasoline. About three months ago, he called it quits, taking a full-time job at The Scooter Store in Clairemont. Although he still has one listing, he says he no longer can afford to chase the dream of a career in real estate.”

There are still an abundance of agents still chasing the dream and perhaps it will continue when the market eventually picks up again. But for the rest of the Leversons that cannot wait that long, they will always remember the “boom.”

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