bostonbubble.com

[Hank]

I just had a Eureka moment; the best way to judge the housing market is not by what the realitors are saying (can anyone ever be more on message?), but by their employment numbers.

By tracking the number of active realitors it should be possible to defer then how well the over all market is performing.

A little digging around, and I found the state's licensing board web site and fired off an email asking for the number of licenses from 1990 to 2008 on a monthly bases. I might end up buying the CD that thy sell with just the realitors information (for $30).

The caveats are:
2 year window on the license being active, so a realitor can have moved on, but we'd only know about it when they let their license expire.

????

What's your thoughts?

[admin]

I like it - good idea. Perhaps there is a government agency that could give you similar information without the license expiration lag, perhaps for a longer time period, and probably free. I'd check out the agencies which collect employment data. Off the top of my head, the IRS, BEA, and MA DOR come to mind.

There is one issue which might complicate this approach, though. With the advent of the web, the need for Realtors is being reduced. That should act as a drag on the natural equilibrium number of Realtors, and so a decline could be partially due to that.

- admin

[Hank]

DOR- do they give out general statistics? I shall have to ask my friend who works for the DOR about that. Maybe the general employment of real estate offices, but that doesn't count for turnover.

To follow up on your point; I think the chart would show house sold, how they where sold (By Owner, By Realitor) and number of Realitors.
And as much as I think the web has helped the buyers, I don't think it's caused that big of a drag on the employment numbers; but that's my guess.

[john p]

I think these types of benchmarks (your eureka epiphany) make a whole hell of a lot of sense. I use them all the time. It takes a lot to get through my thick skull so I use any life-line available and draw from as many analogies or logical constructs to help get closer to something.

Here's one of mine I haven't mentioned: How about the median house cost verses the cost of a Honda Accord LX?

http://consumerguideauto.howstuffworks.com/all-honda-accords.htm

Look at how these things depreciate. I never understood how the asking price for the Accord has remained the same since like the late 90's and house prices have skyrocketted.

I have these eureka moments all the time, the first type is when you find the scent and I think the fun part is digging in and trying to find out why and see where the scent leads? Most people look at me and say "That dog don't hunt", but I keep catching a glimpse of this tail and the faster I whip around the faster that darn thing disappears...

[admin]

[Hank]

I wrote to the Freakemonics author Steve Levitt and he wrote back: