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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tradelite who wrote (34679)	6/30/2005 12:40:22 AM
From: Mike Johnston	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

Real estate commissions will either stay the same or go up. It takes a lot of work and marketing money to sell homes when properties don't sell in a week or two, and the clients will pay. IMO some homeowners might try to go without an agent in a slow market. If the prices are stagnant, they might try to squeeze a little bit more from the sale by eliminating the agent, putting signs on the front lawn and waiting. This could be more true in cases where they have a loss and are not in a rush to sell.

To: Tradelite who wrote (34679)	6/30/2005 2:09:20 AM
From: mishedlo	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

Answers to both your questions look pretty easy, in my humble opinion. You lose: there is something like 1 real estate agent for every 3-4 sales in CAlifornia. No way in hell when real estate turns down that 1/3 to 1/2 of those agents (if not more) are in deep shit. California may be the worst but it is not unique. As for HVAC there are those that service older houses and there are those who primarily depend on servicing the homebuilders. Again I say that it is only logical that one hell of a lot of those trades (espcially the contractors used to making and blowing overtime pay to support lifestyles dependent on a full boom) are going to have severe problems in a prolonged downturn. As for newbies finding other lines of work... where? Walmart? At what pay reduction. A housing turndown will also affect truckers, dock workers, parts distributors, etc etc etc. It seems to me you seriously underestimate the affects that a housing downturn will have. Mish