Job insecurity

The northern Nevada residential real estate business is losing some of its luster as a career option as the super-heated market of 2004 fades farther into the past.

But even though the market began to get back to normal a year ago, the flow of new agents into the business started to slow only in the past few months.

And the trend is fresh enough that some of the indicators remain mixed.

During the first six months of this year, for instance, the Reno/Sparks Association of Realtors accepted 263 applications from potential new members, up from 214 in the same period a year earlier.

But the 41 new applicants in May was down from the 54 who applied in the same month a year earlier, and June's figure of 41 new applicants also lagged the 49 recorded a year earlier.

The state real estate division, meanwhile, says it issued 176 licenses for real estate sales people in Washoe County during the 12 months that ended in late June.

Those newly minted salespeople accounted for nearly 8 percent of the real estate agents in the county. The number of licensed real estate salespeople in Washoe County rose to 2,231 in June from 1,911 in September 2004.

In Carson City, meanwhile, the 18 salespeople licensed in the past 12 months accounted for more than 10 percent of the 175 real estate salespeople at work.

Enrollments in real estate schools also hint that folks who might have been interested in real estate careers are beginning to look elsewhere.

At Northern Nevada Real Estate School in Reno, owner Don Braselton says classes are attracting about half as many students as a year ago.

"We tend to follow the market by about six months," Braselton says.

Enrollments in the school's 10-week training course began to slide in early January.

But across town at the Avalon School of Real Estate, owner Herb Bottomsley says he hasn't seen a slowdown.

Because his correspondence and Internet-based courses appeal to out-of-state salespeople who want Nevada licenses as well as rural residents who don't want to commute to traditional classes, Bottomsley says his school's enrollment may not be tied closely to the local real estate market.

The slowing influx of newcomers into the business provides some comfort to veteran real estate agents, even though they're having to work harder to make a living these days.

"The best agents do even better in a down market," says Amy Lessinger, broker/owner of RE/MAX Realty Affiliates in Reno. "At this point, skills are even more important."

The 40 agents in the company's Reno office average 11 years experience.

The company's business model in which agents pay a monthly fee provides some cushion to the owners of RE/MAX offices compared with companies that rely exclusively on a split of commissions generated by sales agents.

"The training offices have to be suffering," says Lessinger. "They are tied to the agents' production."

Nancy Fennell, president of Reno-based Dickson Realty, says the cooling market demands focus from sales agents as well as the willingness to adapt to new technologies and new sales techniques.

"In a strong market, there is a lot of margin for error," she says. "Those agents that have just gotten into the business in the last three to five years have never experienced a downturn."

Dickson seeks to improve the success rate of its new agents through an apprentice program that builds their skills after they complete their basic training.

And Fennell says she continues to deliver the message to the company's sales staff that the current market, while undoubtedly cooler than the red-hot days of 18 months ago, remains fundamentally strong.

Job growth and migration from California and other states continue to create demand for housing in the area, she says, even though higher interest rates and slackening investor interest have pulled the heat out of the market.