Race to sell leads to lessons in patience

Fairfield County added more than 2,100 “lone wolf” real estate professionals during the home-sales boom between 2002 and 2005, a new study shows, and, despite the tight housing market today, the ranks of new agents locally continues to swell.
The U.S. Census Bureau documented a 20 percent increase in the number of real estate professionals operating sole proprietorships in Fairfield County between 2002 and 2005.
While the number likely includes property owners dependent on lease income, real estate agencies locally say the pattern fits with new agencies they have seen enter the market this decade.
Despite skyrocketing real estate prices that are increasing commissions, the rapid influx of competition contributed to a slight decline in average income among real estate sole proprietors during the period.
While the familiar signs of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage and Prudential Connecticut Realty pepper property listings throughout the county, four in five agents are independent contractors, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
While the residential real estate industry features relatively low barriers to entry compared with many other industries with six-digit earnings potential, it also is a difficult “startup” career given that it can take months for an agent to make initial commissions from the sale of homes.
In the first two years working in real estate sales, agents make a third what their colleagues with three-to-five years experience pull in, according to survey results released in May by the NAR. With newcomers suddenly confronted by a cold market, NAR cites studies showing that turnover in the real estate industry may hit 50 percent in the next few years.
One new agent contacted for this story declined an interview on the fears that being branded an industry rookie might shy clients away from hiring him.
Given the high turnover rate among new agents, increasingly residential real estate firms are creating boutique teams, pairing rainmaker brokers with “subagents” including rookies, according to Vickie Kelley, president of the Mid-Fairfield County Association of Realtors and principal of Camelot Real Estate in Weston.
In such arrangements, the new agent can expect to make between 10 percent and 15 percent of the master agent”™s commission, Kelley said. Given that fact, Kelley says she would take her chances as an independent agent if entering the field for the first time.
“The large firms that take the majority of the beginners ”¦ are tough on (them),” Kelley said.
Still, the larger firms also offer vastly superior marketing and training to what an agent can expect to get on their own or at a tiny firm, said Phil Caruso, co-owner of Stamford-based Marr & Caruso Realty Group and president of the Stamford Board of Realtors. And they offer the lure of “floor time” handling telephone and e-mail inquiries, when listing opportunities can fall into the lap of the person putting in the hours, though any deal involving a sizeable commission is typically steered to a more experienced broker”™s oversight, Caruso said.
That can discourage new agents, particularly in a market that is off the blistering pace of a few years ago, but those that learn the business in a down market fare all the better when things pick up ”“ provided they stick with it.
“It”™s an easy business to get into,” Caruso said, “and it”™s an easy business to get out of.”