Coming Attractions
Sep 28th, 2006 at 10:45 am by Susie
Watch for the ripple effect:
Veteran real estate broker Deanne Esses, who plies her trade as a senior vice president at one of the city’s biggest firms, Bellmarc Realty, said eight people in her Upper East Side office on Madison Avenue are leaving their jobs for alternative careers. Those eight represent 20% of the office’s sales staff of 40.
That’s only the beginning. Ms. Esses said she thinks more New York City brokers will be leaving the scene. “Business here is just not quiet; it has dropped dead over the past few weeks,” she said. “At the same time, there’s a flood of inventory on the market. We run open houses, we run advertisements, but nothing works. There are no buyers, and without buyers, there are no sales.”
Given the housing slump, such departures — the latest wrinkle in a once-booming real estate market — could become a lot more conspicuous. In recent years it’s estimated that the ranks of brokers expanded nationally by more than 200,000 at new and existing real estate firms. With the housing slowdown accelerating, many more career changes are likely.
In her book, “Bait and Switch”, Barbra Ehrenreich mentions that a lot of laid-off white collar people try to go into selling real estate when their efforts to get back into their former professions don’t work.
The question is where do they go now?