100 suburbs with the highest gross value of home sales

February 10, 2012 By Blogs

The real estate industry is doing it tough. Transaction volumes last year were about 13% lower than 2010, 26% lower than 2009 and 33% lower than the recent highs of 2007. A slightly larger decrease applies to real estate agent commissions, due to the fact that agents are generally paid based on percentage of the sale price; falls in home values have compounded the pain already caused by slow market conditions. Based on the total value of sales in 2011, which were down 18.3% compared with 2010; agent commissions are likely to be down about the same amount. At the same time, according to the latest IBISWorld Real Estate Industry report, the number of people employed in the industry has fallen by around 1,800 over the past year after rising by 940 employees in 2010/11. The reduced number of agents suggests the commission pie needs to be cut into fewer slices, which is likely to have eased the income fall on a per agent basis. In fact, the report suggests that income per employee in the real estate industry hasn’t change a great deal over the past four years, remaining around $59,000 since 2008 after generally trending down since 2002