One of the tools that I use is a stats/analysis program that ranks area Realtors by their sales and recent ability to close deals.

Based on what I am seeing, many agents are not making it.

Not even close to making it.

A cursory read of the Toledo Legal News usually shows one or more real estate agents being foreclosed with each passing week.

And if you visit enough local stores . . . you will see real estate agents, busy as greeters, cashiers, sample ladies, and other retail jobs.   (As Seinfeld says . . . “Not that there’s anything wrong with that” – there isn’t)

But many of these same real estate agents are still working as “full time agents”.

I am skeptical of the service level they provide.  And I am skeptical that their new employers know what they are doing on the job . . . “I will get you the price on that home – can you wait a minute while I ring up this customer?”

I also know that it takes a lot of time and energy and effort to manage a transaction, sell a house today, and to prospect and market for buyers and sellers.

Leave out the fact that agents working “real jobs” cannot find time to be trained or coached.  They cannot learn from and interact with other full-time agents.  They are, by nature, divided in their loyalties and time commitiments.

I was at a two day training meeting last week in Arizona.

There was not one single part-time real estate agent there.

Not one.

Pretty soon the bills must be paid for real estate agents to remain members of the local Board of Realtors.

I suspect that there will be some big changes at that time – who is in and who is out.    Not just in Toledo, but all around the country.