Commercial prices continue to head up, at least among smaller properties in secondary and tertiary markets. As a result, the typical commercial agent is making $120,800, an 11 percent increase from the previous year, when the median income was $108,500. The income gains come even as agents on average are doing fewer deals, eight as opposed to nine. These are among the findings from NAR’s 2017 Commercial Member Profile. Another finding: Agents are more experienced. The typical agent has been working in the business 24 years now.
The profile just looks at commercial agents who are members of NAR. These are not typically agents who work on big transactions, like those involving skyscrapers in big cities. Rather, these are agents who do smaller deals, typically under $2 million.
Details of the commercial profile are a top story in the latest Voice for Real Estate news video from NAR. Another story looks at sustainability. That’s a topic that seems remote to many agents. While promoting sustainability might be a good thing in the abstract, why would an agent care about it from a business point of view?
That’s a good question, and that’s one of the questions NAR was trying to answer when it hosted a sustainability summit two weeks ago in Washington. The summit was a typical Washington event, in which experts from around the country are brought in to talk about an issue. In this case, though, there was an emphasis on the concrete: how does sustainability affect the business agents are in. Do they make more money? Are households demanding sustainability in their housing choices? The answer appears to be yes on both counts. Research shows houses with green features, like solar panels, fetch higher prices in the market. And consumers are increasingly asking to look at listings that showcase green features.
The video also looks at the bipartisan cooperation on an issue of vital importance to residential home sales: the availability of federal flood insurance. Although there are several hurdles that have to be gotten over before federal flood insurance is renewed, NAR and lawmakers on the House Financial Services Committee agreed to improvements to the bill that will reauthorize the National Flood Insurance Program. Under the agreement, home owners who live in an area that’s been newly designated as a high risk for flooding won’t find their insurance premiums suddenly going up. Instead, they’ll be grandfather in under their old rates. The agreement also imposes a cap on how much existing owner’s premiums can increase at any one time.
Other stories in the video look at the latest home sales trends, how you can connect to NAR’s new CEO, and how you can stay safe while meeting new clients . Access the video now.
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