The real estate world is keeping an eye out for more young people to become part of this industry.
Twenty-nine real estate industry organizations have joined forces to launch an effort to bring more young professionals into this career path. The first initiative of this collaboration is a new website entitled
Careers Building Communities which details the multiple career paths across all sectors of real estate. Students in high school, college, technical programs and community colleges that come to this website can take an interactive quiz related to this field and discover potential future opportunities.
“Many, if not most, of us who work in real estate ‘happened into it’, but once there, few ever leave,” said Doug Bibby, president and CEO, National Multifamily Housing Council, one of the organizations within this collaborative effort. “I congratulate my peers in the participating trade groups for collaborating in such a meaningful way. Our talent pipeline is vitally important to us, and we hope that ‘Careers Building Communities’ will help steer more people to our dynamic industry.”
Other organizations in this collaboration include American Institute of Architects, The Appraisal Institute, Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate, International Council of Shopping Centers, Mortgage Bankers Association, NAIOP: Commercial Real Estate Development, The Real Estate Roundtable and Urban Land Institute Worldwide.
Separately, the National Association of Realtors’ (
NAR) latest membership profile report found an increase in new members from 1.22 million in March 2017 to 1.30 million in April 2018. Twenty-nine percent of NAR members have less than two years of experience, up slightly from last year’s level of 28 percent.
“While inventory shortages continue and home prices remain high, NAR has seen a whopping 6 percent increase in membership over the last year,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. “Younger Americans are seeking business opportunities that working in real estate provides, but the overall trend is a slightly older age profile.”
Indeed, the real estate profession and the mortgage profession share a similar characteristic: the median age of a professional in both fields is 54. Only 5 percent of NAR members said real estate sales was their initial career choice, and 72 percent said the industry was their only profession. NAR determined that 63 percent of its realtors are female, while 44 percent of members worked at one office firm while 25 percent of members worked at a firm with two to four offices. The typical member had been with their current firm for four years.
