The Bryan Ellis Investing Letter – More than a third (40 percent) of all real estate agents failed to close a single transaction during the first half of 2014, according to a newly-released realtor-productivity study of Multiple Listing Service (MLS) activity. Although the company conducting the survey expected the “80/20 rule,” which says that 80 percent of positive outcomes can usually be attributed to about 20 percent of a given population, “It looks like a new 60-percent rule is the true standard for real estate,” said researcher Marilyn Wilson. Wilson is a founding partner at the WAV group, which sponsored the study and surveyed about 335,000 realtors for the project[1].
The study also revealed that about 60 percent of realtors log onto MLS daily, which Wilson took to indicate that about 40 percent of all realtors are likely not “seeking out and adopting new technologies beyond MLS.” That 40 percent, she said, are likely the same 40 percent that are not closing deals. While 40 percent may sound like a lot, given that the researchers expected 20 percent of realtors to be doing nearly all of the deals the numbers may not be that bad. Furthermore, 100 percent of realtors said that they were optimistic to some degree about their local markets, indicating a rise in confidence in the sector. Perhaps not surprisingly, not one respondent said that he or she was “not at all optimistic” about their local real estate market[2].
Do you think that these numbers are positive or negative? Are you optimistic about your local market? Share with us on Facebook or Twitter.
photo credit: Images_of_Money via photopin cc
