I’ve noticed a trend in the real estate market over the past 10 years in relation to gas prices.

It really makes sense that when gas prices skyrocket, the rural areas of the city take quite a hit on prices and number of showings and as a counter to that, the urban areas see much more activity—-especially if it’s a walkable city. The market starts reacting at about $3.50/gallon.

It’s also important to keep in mind that the actual real estate agents take a hit as well. How many houses do you look at before you decide on one?? Sometimes about 30 homes all over town. That’s a LOT of fuel. The lesson here is that each buyer and agent should meet before touring homes to try and really narrow down their needs and expectations. This will save everyone, not just gas money, but time as well.

The cost of being a REALTOR has increased year over year and the rising gas prices just make it that much harder to ‘afford’ the business. This also causes a decline in the number of people wanting to come into the business as a new agent. We always need new agents because of the turnover rate in the business. So, if it’s something you’ve always been interested in, I highly enourage you to start taking the steps to become licensed. This is a rare time for new agents to have almost more opportunity than they have in the past. It used to be that everyone (and their brother) had their license. Since that isn’t true anymore—-that means less competition for the new agent.