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There was a time in America when becoming a real estate agent seemed like a perfectly sensible career choice.
You got a blazer, a stack of business cards, your photograph on a bus bench, and spent weekends driving strangers through split-level ranch homes while explaining that avocado-green kitchens were “making a comeback.”
Today, however, the real estate business increasingly resembles one of those old Beaver County steel mills after the shutdown notices went up: plenty of people standing around, very little moving through the gates.
The latest numbers are enough to make a mortgage broker reach for the antacids. According to industry reports, roughly 71 percent of active real estate agents failed to close a single home sale in 2024. Meanwhile, the housing market is grinding through its fourth consecutive year of sluggish transaction volume, and agents are leaving the profession by the hundreds of thousands.
In Fort Worth, Texas, one brokerage profiled by The Wall Street Journal struggled so badly that its owner eventually shut the operation down. The problem wasn’t enthusiasm. America still possesses an endless supply of enthusiastic people willing to pose for smiling headshots beside the words “Your Trusted Real Estate Professional.” The problem was that nobody was buying houses.
This is not entirely surprising.
When mortgage rates climbed from the bargain-basement levels of the pandemic years, millions of homeowners discovered they were effectively handcuffed to their existing homes. If you’re sitting comfortably in a three-percent mortgage, moving to a seven-percent mortgage feels a little like trading a reliable pickup truck for a wheelbarrow.
So they stayed put.
The result has been fewer listings, fewer sales, fewer commissions, and more agents discovering that “flexible schedule” is another way of saying “unexpected free time.”
Beaver County offers a fine local example.
Not long ago, houses in Beaver, Bridgewater, Brighton Township, and parts of Center Township were selling almost before the lawn signs hit the ground. Folks fleeing higher-priced markets viewed our county as one of the last places in America where a middle-class family could still buy a decent home without auctioning off a kidney.
Then the market slowed.
The homes are still here. The rivers are still here. The coffee still costs less than it does in Sewickley. But transactions have become more cautious. Buyers are calculating monthly payments the way accountants calculate depreciation schedules.
Even the optimism surrounding data centers, energy projects, and manufacturing investments hasn’t yet translated into the sort of housing frenzy that makes real estate agents order new BMWs.
Meanwhile, the economics of the profession have become brutal.
One widely circulated statistic showed many newer agents earning astonishingly little money. In fact, Realtors with two years or less experience reported a median income of just $8,100 annually. That’s not enough to support a family. It’s barely enough to support a golden retriever with expensive tastes.
Of course, the veterans continue to do reasonably well. The real estate business increasingly resembles baseball. A handful of stars earn impressive incomes. Everybody else is wondering whether the concession stand is hiring.
Adding to the fun are changes stemming from the National Association of Realtors commission settlement, which altered how buyer-agent compensation is negotiated. Technology and artificial intelligence are also making it easier for some consumers to navigate parts of the process themselves.
This does not mean real estate agents are disappearing.
People have predicted that for years.
They also predicted paper books would disappear, newspapers would disappear, and that Zoom meetings would permanently replace human beings. So far, humanity continues to display a stubborn preference for talking to other humans before making six-figure decisions.
Buying a home remains one of the most emotionally complicated transactions in American life. People don’t just purchase square footage. They buy dreams, schools, neighborhoods, commutes, and occasionally a garage large enough to hide from their relatives.
That sort of thing still benefits from professional guidance.
The larger lesson may be economic rather than real estate-related.
Across the country, Americans increasingly feel as though ordinary necessities are becoming luxury goods. Houses cost more. Insurance costs more. Groceries cost more. Some days even a tomato seems to require financing.
When the basics become expensive, people postpone major decisions.
They move less.
Spend less.
Risk less.
And entire industries feel the consequences.
Which brings us back to Beaver County.
If our future really does include billions of dollars in data centers, expanded manufacturing, nuclear energy projects, and freight moving once again through the Ohio Valley, then eventually people will need places to live. Houses will sell. Neighborhoods will grow. Real estate agents will once again begin answering their phones with something other than quiet desperation.
Until then, many of them are discovering an old Western Pennsylvania business principle:
If nobody’s buying, it doesn’t matter how nice your business card looks.
Or, as my late Beaver County relatives might have put it:
“The real estate business? Fuggedaboutit.”
