July 2007 Market Pulse

Women REALTORS® Outnumber Men

Among real estate practitioners with 16 years or more of experience, women outnumber men by 8 percentage points. For newbies, those with two years or less of experience, the difference is far greater: 28 percentage points.

Business Confidence: Listings to pick up

Practitioners anticipate traffic gains in the months ahead, particularly from sellers, though current markets are seen as flat. Practitioner confidence was surveyed in May and looks ahead six months.

Results are based on 363 responses to 3,000 surveys sent to large and small real estate offices. The survey asks practitioners to indicate whether conditions are strong (100 points), moderate (50), or weak (0). Responses are averaged to derive results.

Home Sales: Continued correction

Sales of existing homes took a dip in April, reflecting the impact tighter lending standards are having on sales in the wake of subprime troubles, NAR says. Total existing-home sales — including single-family houses, townhomes, condominiums, and co-ops — declined 2.6 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.99 million units. That’s down from 6.15 million† in March. Pending home sales were down, too, suggesting that the drop in sales will continue in the near term. NAR’s pending home sales index dipped to 101.4, down 3.4 percent from 104.8† in March.

*Seasonally adjusted annual rate, which is the actual rate of sales for the month, multiplied by 12 and adjusted for seasonal sales differences.†Adjusted from the figure published in the June 2007 issue.

In 2012 NAR rebenchmarked its existing-home sales data going back to 2007, so reports published between 2007 and 2011 no longer contain up-to-date figures. Find the latest existing-home sales data at REALTOR.org. You’ll find more recent editions of Market Pulse here.