Facing a tough market and new rules, some real estate agents quit

For Nina Katsov, a real estate agent in Chicago, it was the hours. The nights and weekends showing houses. Always being on call. She recently had a baby, and on her husband’s first Father’s Day, she had to bail on brunch for a showing.

“It was a little bit of a heartbreak,” she said. “Coming out of a really slow spring and also having taken my maternity leave over the fall winter, I really couldn’t turn business down.”

Slower business also made it harder to justify the hours. With so few houses for sale and the cost of borrowing so high, several of Katsov’s clients gave up after months of searching.

“I only get paid when I close on a deal,” Katsov said. “That’s time I don’t get paid for.”

Then came new rules from the National Association of Realtors that could reduce her commission on sales. In the past, home sellers typically covered the commission for both their own agent and the agent representing the buyer. But under a legal settlement, sellers would no longer have to offer the buyer’s agent’s commission.

“It was that last nail in the coffin where I was like, ‘You know what? There’s just way too much that’s outside of my control in this job,’” Katsov said.

So, before the new rules kicked in August, Katsov found another job, working nine to five for a commercial real estate firm, though she said she’ll still handle occasional sales for friends and former clients.

In Boulder, Colorado, Eliza Wright recently quit after more than a decade as a real estate agent. In the first two years of the pandemic, when people were clamoring for more space and interest rates were low, business was great.

“Houses just selling themselves, people just coming out of the woodwork,” she said. “I made more money in 2020 and 2021 than I ever made in my life.”

Then the Fed started raising interest rates to fight inflation, and Wright saw too many families stretching every last dollar to buy.

“Unfortunately, it’s not affordable, and it’s hard to tell people that it is,” she said. “It just felt icky to me.”

She was already disillusioned when the settlement kicked in. Now, if home sellers opted not to cover her compensation from the proceeds of the sale, she would have to ask buyers to pay her out of pocket.

“The buyers that I’ve seen in the past year and a half, they don’t have it,” Wright said. “I just felt like it was a message that I’m done for sure.”

She bought a camper van, fixed it up, and is heading out on the road for at least a year.

It’s hard to say how many others will follow Wright and Katsov out the door. In a recent study, Flatworld Mortgage Solutions, a mortgage processing company, found that between 2022 and 2023 the number of agents dropped sharply in California, Texas, Florida and North Carolina, but grew in many other states.

“It’s not a surprise to me that as the overall inventory went down, overall real estate transactions went down, there are more realtors in those states that you know are no longer active,” said Flatworld executive vice president Rajeev Kumar.  

Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed that the number of people working in the offices of real estate agents and brokers, which does not include self-employed workers, has dipped so far this year by almost 3%. Meanwhile, the National Association of Realtors itself has projected its membership could fall by as much as 10% as a result of the cooler market.

Because annual membership fees are due in January, more fallout from the settlement could be felt in 2025.

Bo Bromhal is a long-time Realtor in Raleigh, North Carolina. He said the number of licensed brokers has dropped in his state by almost 5% since May. He’d like to see even more agents leave what he sees as a bloated industry, and hopes the commission changes might put off newcomers.

“If we can stem the tide of people coming in and maybe — if this is what scares them from doing it — that would be great,” he said. 

But if interest rates continue falling and the market picks back up, it could lure more people in.

“I would not be surprised if a lot of these people who may or may not be active today, become active again in six to eight months,” Kumar said.