MinnEcon: March 17, 2010 Archive

Seasoned real estate pros doing better than rookies?

Posted at 12:00 PM on March 17, 2010 by Paul Tosto (1 Comments)
Filed under: Housing & mortgages

Real estate markets in Minnesota and the nation took a hit during this recession as did the people who earn a living from them. But did experience make a difference in who got hurt and who didn't?

Survey data from St. Cloud State University suggest people with a lot of experience in the real estate business have been able to ride out the tough times better than those just starting.

"It seems the more seasoned people were more able to deal with the changing market," Steven Mooney, chair of St. Cloud State's department of finance, insurance, and real estate, said after looking at the 135 new responses from graduates of St. Cloud State's bachelor's in real estate program.

"I was a little surprised by that."

The grads are in fields from appraisal and property management to mortgage banking, commercial and residential sales.

Mooney queries students every couple years. The conclusions are anecdotal but can be revealing. The last survey two years ago showed the bite from the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

This time, he found graduates one year out of the real estate degree program reporting median income down about 7.5 percent compared to the first-year-out students surveyed in January 2008.

But real estate veterans with 20 years plus experience reported income up 13 percent compared to two years earlier.

Mooney said the surveys found the median income of property appraisers falling, although jobs were still available. "I talked to one firm that had their best year ever last year and others scrambling for business," he said.

Incomes were also down for the mortgage banking business, though many companies are gone and those that remain are getting the business that's out there, he added.

Overall, there are still job opportunities in real estate, Mooney added, but they're more focused these days on real estate management.

Mooney's also forwarded some interesting charts showing how graduates of the program have rated the real estate markets the past five years. I'll put those in a post later today.

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I'm really interested in hearing from real estate pros about whether what St. Cloud State grads are telling Mooney reflects what others are seeing in this market. Post something below or contact me directly.

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How real estate grads rate the market

Posted at 6:00 PM on March 17, 2010 by Paul Tosto (0 Comments)
Filed under: Housing & mortgages

Following up our post today on seasoned pros vs. rookies in real estate, here's a look at additional data from St. Cloud State prof Steven Mooney's survey of 135 graduates of the university's real estate program.

The data come from surveys done in early 2006, 2008 and 2010. He labels them '05, '07 and '09 because those were the years he asked graduates to reflect on. Here's the data broken down by where the graduate works and how they rated the market.

(Forgive my lousy graphic arts skills.)

"In the 2009 survey nobody thought the market was very good and only a handful thought the market was good," said Mooney.

You can almost see the real estate cycle by looking at the 2005 results where nobody thought the market was poor to the 2009 results where nobody thought the market was very good.

In 2009 the industry with the 'rosiest' outlook appears to be the property managers, with 37% thinking that the market was average to good. Only the mortgage bankers were close to that with 35% thinking the market was average to good.

It's hard to draw a lot of firm conclusions. The sample size is relatively small and limited to the grads of the St. Cloud State program. But the assessments of those surveyed matched up pretty well with reality.

Still, the grads' 2007 predictions about the future were a little, uh, optimistic.

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As noted in the early post, I'm really interested in hearing from real estate pros about whether what St. Cloud State grads are telling Mooney reflects what others are seeing in this market. Post something below or contact me directly.

Comment on this post