We keep reading about the great resignation. People quit their jobs in record numbers during the pandemic. Some folks retired early and others are taking some time off. Some got new jobs and others started businesses. Some became real estate agents.
There was no great resignation among real estate salespeople. Retirement isn’t really a thing for real estate agents who have the option of taking time off or working fewer hours as they get older.
Nationwide there are more Realtors than there are homes for sale. That is likely true statewide here in Minnesota but I don’t have a total for how many houses are on the market. Not all real estate agents are Realtors and not all Realtors sell houses.
When I look back through the data we had the highest number of Realtors in Minnesota in 2006, at 25,429. We also had the highest number of home sales that year as far as I can tell. Currently, there are about 22,331 Realtors in Minnesota.
People are attracted to real estate sales during times when there are fewer jobs. From what I can see there are plenty of jobs right now. It isn’t hard to get a real estate license and right now homes are selling quickly. The biggest challenge right now is finding people who want to sell a house.
The data used to make the chart came from a report from the National Association of Realtors. National membership peaked last year at 1,568,556 and is 1,522,801 as last reported at the end of February 2022, which is almost twice as many members as there were when I joined 20 years ago. There were 6.1 million home sales in 2021.
