← Your Daily Real Estate Podcast with Tristan Ahumada
Your Daily Real Estate Podcast with Tristan Ahumada
Episode 853: 400,000 Agents are Quitting: Why I’m Actually Celebrating
00:09:25
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
A
Nar is projecting they could drop to 1.2 million members by the end of this year. They peaked at 1.6 million, and that's 400,000 agents gone. If they're right, and I'm sitting here telling you, that might be the best thing that's happened to our business in years. This is your daily Real estate. I'm Tristan Almada. Let's get into it foreign. Let's talk about what's actually happening right now. That isn't getting enough conversation going back and forth between agents and brokers and teams. Agents are leaving, and they've been leaving. NAR has already lost around 200,000 members since the peak of 2022, and they're planning for another big drop this year. I don't know how many, but, like, keep an eye on that, because it could be a bigger drop than we think. Brokerages are definitely shrinking. You're watching people in your office quietly let their license expire and go get a W2 job somewhere. Now, nothing is wrong with that, but I'm just telling you that that's happening, and everybody's treating this like it's bad news, like the sky is falling. And I think it's the opposite. I've been selling real estate now for 22 years, and I can tell you the years where the most agents quit were the years where the agents who stayed made the most money almost every single time. And it's not even close. Between 2008 and 2012, NAR lost about 400,000 members. And the agents who survived that, we built empires. And that's an exaggeration. You. You look at those times. The people who came out of those built teams, set examples, built the largest brokerages. Think about it like this. The number of people who want to buy and sell homes didn't go away. It shrank a little bit. Didn't go away. The demand is still there, but the number of agents fighting over that demand is shrinking every single month. So what does that mean for you and for me? More business per agent. That's it. It's just math. Now, stay with me on this, because this next part matters a lot. The Consumer Federation of America put out a report that said 49% of agents sold one home or zero home in 2023. Now, I don't know if that's accurate. That's a quite a big claim. But think about that. Half. Half of all agents did basically extremely little. And a lot of those people are the ones leaving right now. A lot of the people who are asking me About AI too, Tristan, is AI going to replace agents? And I mean, let's be real. I think AI is going to push more agents out, out. Not right now, but in the near future. Not because AI is going to sell houses. I mean, you did hear about that guy in Florida who used ChatGPT and an attorney to sell their home. But that's not the reason. It's because AI is going to make consumers smarter. Buyers and sellers are going to walk into conversations knowing more than they used to. And agents who can't add value on top of that or beyond that. Well, what are they going to do? They're done. But see, that's not you or I. You're listening to this right now. You're learning, you're growing. You're showing up at 6am or 9pm Whenever you're listening to this, or driving to show a property or maybe going to an open house, I don't know. But see, you're putting in an effort. And that already puts you ahead of most agents in this market. You want to know what separates the agents who survive from the ones who don't. And it's not technology. Surprise. It's not AI tools. It's not some great fancy CRM or beautiful website. It's showing up. I talked to one of our agents at Y Realty last week. She's in a market where a bunch of agents from 2022 are just gone. And she told me she picked up four listings in the last 60 days from people whose previous agents literally don't have a license anymore for listings. She didn't run ads. She didn't do anything fancy. She just stayed in the game and kept calling her database. And she was friendly to those other agents while they were still here. You see, there's a connection there because you know that agents are leaving. So why not be as friendly and connected to all of these different agents out there? Because once they're out, and maybe they hold on to their license as a referral agent, they can still refer you business. And that's how you have to start thinking about it, right? This is the part that most people miss too. You don't have to be the best agent in your market. You just have to be present. You have to be the one who picks up the phone. And I know you've heard this a lot. You probably hear it a lot in lab coat agents, too. The one who sends the market update, the one who shows up to the neighborhood event, the one who sends out the what I call local legends directory without Being asked. Hey, I've got this local directory for you. I just updated it. I'm going to send it over to you. Want me to text it or email it over? Because a huge chunk of your competition already quit. They already made up their mind that this is it. And I'm not saying it's easy. Okay. I know I've been through some really hard times. Rates are sitting as of today right around 6.6, 6.7, which is crazy to me. And they came down from seven just a year ago, but they're keeping back up this month. Inventory is weird depending on where you are. If you're in Florida and Texas, you've got an overflow of inventory because new construct on there to compete with you. If you're in the Northeast, you've got very little days on market. And California is mixed. I get all of that. But tough markets are where careers are built. I built mine through 2008. It was not easy and it took a hard hit on me mentally. And some of the best agents I know got started in the worst conditions because they didn't have a choice. Sometimes you do have to grind it out. That's part of it. You have to show up and you have to figure it out on the go. And these agents, they came out the other side with skills and relationships that agents in an easy market never develop. So if you're feeling the pressure right now. Good. I want you to feel that there's nothing wrong with that. It means you're still in it. It means you haven't quit. And every single month that you stay in this business while others walk away, your slice of the pie gets bigger. So stop worrying about the agents who are leaving. Start focusing on serving the people they left behind. Now, here's what I want you to do to remember, less competition doesn't mean less. Less work. It means your work actually pays off. Show up, make the calls. Be the agent people think of when they think of real estate in your area. That's the whole game. In fact, yesterday we went over part of how you should be showing up, using AI to simplify the process for you. Now, if this hit home for you, I want you to share with someone, someone in your office, someone that you know that's in real estate. And if you haven't subscribed, please subscribe here. If you're listening to the podcast, leave a review. It takes 10 seconds. And it helps us reach more agents. Because you know what my whole goal is, right? Even going back 12 years, when I built Lab Coat, agents. It's to make us a better industry. One agent at a time. That's why I show up here. Now, if you want to be around people who are showing up every single day, or at least every day, right. Come join me at a brilliant tribe. It's live coaching, accountability, scripts, AI. Everything you need to understand right now as the whole world changes around you. I'd love to have you. I'll see you tomorrow, Sam.