Florida Real Estate Agents: After the Bubble Bursts

Marc Stern was a commercial airline pilot for 29 years. In 2005, the year homes sold in a day and buyers lined up at the door, Stern did what lots of career professionals did: He ditched his occupation to sell Florida real estate.

He set up shop in the manicured suburbs of New Tampa. In similar communities across the bay area, real estate agents were making a lot of money, and those who had toyed with career changes took the plunge.

As a result, agents popped up almost as quickly as homes were selling. Now, they’re dying under the collapse of the real estate bubble. Some who left their longtime professions are either going back to their old lives or finding different ways to stand apart from the rest of the crowded realty field.

“We’re dealing with higher-end properties, so we may be able to weather the storm, ” said Stern, who works for Florida Executive Realty, but still pilots on occasion. “But I may have to pick up some more flying shifts.”

Today, competition for Florida mortgage loan clients is fierce. The Greater Tampa Association of Realtors does not track previous careers, but said its membership doubled during the real estate boom.

In five years beginning in 2002, it jumped from about 4, 500 members to about 9, 500 real estate agents, said the group’s president, Carlos Fuentes. So far this year, the number has remained steady, even with the Florida housing market shift, although its leaders braced for about a 10 percent drop in membership this year.

“Houses are on the market for more days, and the inventory is growing, ” Fuentes said. “I imagine many of our members who have other careers will go back to them and sell real estate part time.”

A career change
Real estate is the first career for just 4 percent of the nation’s Realtors, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Stern, who never fully left the airline business “because pilots like to have a backup, ” is glad he didn’t walk away. He had sold real estate for 10 years, in addition to flying, before making it his full-time job during the boom.

“We’re making less money now, ” he said. “We hope and pray that the market turns by next year. Obviously, having a another career as a backup is always good.”

According to the National Association of Realtors, the median income of Realtors last year was $47, 700, down from $49, 300 in 2004. And Realtors with two years or experience or less earned a median of $15, 300.

To rise above the rest, some agents offer free home staging for sellers, decorating empty homes to make them more appealing. Anything to make a sale to a Florida home mortgage loan borrower. No new business
Jack Soifer, a 51-year-old real estate agent from Seminole, used to own an RV dealership in Pinellas County. He became a real estate agent in 2004. While he learned the ropes, he witnessed his colleagues raking in the money. Investors were their biggest clients.

Some Realtors he knows are making $400, 000 this year, but that’s because they’re finally closing on preconstruction sales that they made two to three years ago, he said.

“Investors have left the marketplace, and real estate agents aren’t getting any new business” he said. “People think we’re making all this money, and we’re not.”

SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times