The N.A.R. has been releasing their annual surveys over the last couple of weeks.  The big kahuna was the 2013 Profile of Homebuyers and Sellers, linked here:

http://www.realtor.org/news-releases/2013/11/home-buyers-and-sellers-survey-shows-lingering-impact-of-tight-credit

Watch the first minute of the video and you’ll see why N.A.R is doomed, and must be oblivious to the threat of the younger upstarts like Zillow.

Their audience is an older group, however.  Today, 11% percent of all realtors are under 40 years old, and 44% are over 60 years old!

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A quarter of the realtor population is over 65 years old!

The business hasn’t changed much since its inception, but if there was ever a time that was ripe for revolution, this would be it.  Many, and probably most, of the agents in the business today will be leaving over the next 5-10 years!

What’s going to change?

N.A.R. and the national franchisors aren’t going to rock the boat, because the current commission-based sales package works well enough for them.

What could change the process? The auction format.

All we need is for a few celebrities to successfully auction their own home, and then become spokespeople for the home-auction reality-TV show!

Those in the business would be slow to adapt, so it would take an outsider like auction.com to elbow their way in and try to take over.  But with most agents on their way out, now would be a good time for a revolution!

Here are the realtor stats from the N.A.R. website:

In 2012, the typical agent had 12 residential transaction sides – up from the previous year when the typical agent had 10 transaction sides.

  • Additionally, 24 percent of residential brokerage specialists had at least one commercial transaction side in the last year.
  • The typical agent had one transaction side involving a foreclosure and one transaction side involving a short sale.
  • The typical agent had a sales volume of $1.5 million in 2012, up from $1.3 million in 2011.
  • For the third year in a row, the difficulty in obtaining mortgage financing was the most cited reason for potential clients being limited.
  • The typical property management specialist managed 49 properties in 2012 – the highest number on record in this survey.
  • The median gross income of REALTORS® was $43,500 in 2012, up from $34,900 in 2011.

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