Jonathan J Miller, Columnist

Real-Estate Agents Ride High Again

There are fewer real-estate agents than a few years ago and their incomes are rising as the housing market recovers.

February 27, 2015 at 12:00 PM UTC

Jonathan Miller writes about the housing economy and other aspects of real estate. He began a real estate blog, the Matrix, in 2005, and has written a column for Curbed.com. He is co-founder of Miller Samuel, a residential real estate appraisal company, and the commercial valuation firm Miller Cicero.

Planting the sign.
Photographer: Tim Boyle/Getty Images

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This is turning out to be a pretty nice time to be a residential real-estate agent. As the housing market recovers, average income has been rising faster than sales largely because there are fewer agents planting for-sale signs.

It's mostly the result of the agent shakeout after the financial crisis began, when both sales and prices collapsed. Today, even after steady improvement in the housing market, the number of agents registered with the National Association of Realtors is more than 8 percent lower than in 2008.