From today’s LA Times:
More than 22,000 applicants took the state’s real estate exam in April, nearly three times as many as in April 2003, according to the Department of Real Estate. To handle the surge, the department has rented six test centers around the state to supplement the five it already has.
The last time so many people wanted to sell real estate in California was in 1990. In what might be an ominous sign for the current boom, that year marked a peak in the housing market.
There are 437,000 agents in California, enough to form the state’s eighth-largest city … Only a handful of other fields is growing faster, including debt collection and waste collection, according to the state Employment Development Department.
[Emphasis added]
Related posts:
Hey Paul, its a national phenomeon:
“As of March 2004, the individual membership of the National Association of Realtors@, a trade association for those involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries, hit 1,118,201, a new record.
While that nominal gain in and of itself is not surprising, what is more interesting, perhaps, is the fact that the membership as a percentage of the total working-age and overall U.S. population has also hit new highs.
As of December 2004, NAR membership grew to more than 0.6% of the U.S. labor force, an increase of 37% over the past decade.
There’s more at the link above