As a mountain resort town, Jackson Hole has a high cost of living. It's expensive to live here, primarily because housing is (or was) so expensive, and because you can't actually grow food here. We do brew really good beer though. But I digress.
My last blog rambled a bit about hitting cats with a dead Realtor® and about how easy that was here, because there are so many of us. But why are there so many? Is it something in the water?
Word on the street is that it's an easy living. And with a median home price north of $1,200,000 in 2010 (less for condos and vacant lots), it's true that the average sale is going to make good money for that hard working Realtor.
But how many sales are there in a year? And how many agents are there? Hmmmm. Let's look.
The number of licensed agents in Jackson Hole more than tripled from January 1996 to January 2008. The number of sales doubled over that time frame, which means that each agent was making fewer sales. Then....well, we know what happened then. The banking system collapsed, and real estate transactions stopped dead in the water.
Since 2008, there have been fewer sales each year in this market than there are agents! Ouch.
And when you consider that the 20/80 rule is at work here (20% of the agents making 80% of the deals), I expect we've still got quite a few agents who will exit the business in the next couple of years. That's tough.
How's your market look?
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