Slight increase in property transactions
Figures showing the number of homes changing hands increased for the second month running during October offered a glimmer of hope to struggling estate agents this week.
As a profession that relies on sales commission for its income, estate agents currently find themselves at the sharp end of the housing market slowdown.
Property transactions are running at around half last year’s level, with Government figures showing that there were only 59,000 sales in September.
But it is not until the figures are split down to individual estate agents that the real impact of the stagnant market is seen.
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) said its member estate agents sold an average of just 10.9 properties each during the three months to the end of October, the lowest level it has recorded since it began collecting data in 1978.
The situation was even more dire in London, where the average estate agent sold only six homes during the same period - less than one a fortnight.
The National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) is slightly more optimistic, claiming its members made seven agreed sales each during October, but this is still only slightly up on an all time low of five reached in August, and half the level seen during the boom years of 2006 and early 2007.
Unsurprisingly, the low level of transactions is leading to the sector haemorrhaging jobs.
It is hard to say exactly how many jobs have been lost as there is no body that monitors employment levels among estate agents, but some estimates put the figure at between 5,000 to 7,000 since the downturn began.
Some of these will be through compulsory redundancies, while others will be due to resignations as people find they cannot live on their basic salary without the boost they previously received from sales commission.
The Centre for Economics and Business Research recently predicted that up to a further 50,000 estate agents could lose their jobs during the coming year as the housing market continues to struggle.
The figure is well up on its previous estimate of 15,000 job losses by the autumn of 2009.
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