Rob Kelley’s [Real estate downturn hits real estate agents [CNN/Money]](http://money.cnn.com/2006/10/03/real_estate/real_estate_agents/index.htm?postversion=2006100312) talks about how the surge in real estate brokers during the housing boom resulted in an oversupply and now the real work begins.

Over the last 3 years, increase in NAR membership grew 26%. I always saw this as a smaller piece of the pie for everyone in NAR membership (not a good thing) and would think that experienced agents would fret about that sort of growth.

In professions with a low barrier to entry, the ebb and flow of membership is more quickly responsive to changes in volume of available work.

NAR talks about stable membership ranks for the next few years. Thats seems overly optomistic to me. I suspect a substantial shake out in response to sharp drops in existing and new home sales fairly soon.

There have been many in the profession that have never seen tough times, periods where agents have to _market and sell_ rather than be _order takers_ (I am exagerating a bit, here). You’d have to go back to brokers with at least 10 years experience to find those who qualify for that classification.

I would think many sellers, looking at increased competition, would give more weight to experience than they did before, although not completely. With the large number of agents that entered the field, there are those who can do a better job, adapting to new technology and ideas than some of the old guard.

Either way, it going to take some getting used to.

_thanks LS!_