With total home sales expected to grow modestly in 2017, following a banner year for the housing industry, the personal-finance website WalletHub conducted an in-depth analysis of 2017’s Best Places to Be a Real-Estate Agent.
To determine best markets for realtors, WalletHub’s analysts compared 150 of the largest U.S. cities across 14 key indicators of a healthy housing market, ranging from “sales per agent” to “annual median wage for real-estate agents” to “housing-market health index.”
- Oxnard, Calif., has the most homes sold in the past year per real-estate agent, 114.09, which is 14.2 times more than in Houston, the city with the fewest at 8.05.
- San Francisco has the highest median house price, $799,600, which is 18.9 times higher than in Detroit, the city with the lowest at $42,300.
- Bakersfield, Calif., has the highest annual median wage for real-estate agents, $89,890, which is 4.2 times higher than in Laredo, Texas, the city with the lowest at $21,060.
- Oxnard, Calif., has the lowest real-estate job density, 1.28, which is 19.7 times lower than in Orlando, Fla., the city with the highest at 25.16.
- Sioux Falls, S.D., has the lowest unemployment rate, 2.3 percent, which is 4.5 times lower than in Detroit, the city with the highest at 10.40 percent.
- Henderson, Nev., has the highest home turnover rate, 9.87 percent, which is 4.9 times higher than in Detroit, the city with the lowest at 2.00 percent.
- San Francisco listings have the fewest days on the market, 47, which is 3.4 times fewer than listings in New York, the city with the most at 162.
- Yonkers, N.Y., has the highest average ratio of home sale price to home list price, 2.03, which is five times higher than in Fayetteville, N.C., the city with the lowest at 0.41.
To determine the best cities for real-estate agents, WalletHub’s analysts compared 150 of the most populated U.S. cities across two aspects, including “Job Opportunity & Competition” and “Real-Estate Market Health.” WalletHub’s sample considers only city proper in each case and excludes cities in the surrounding metro area.
Next, WalletHub assessed the two dimensions using 14 relevant metrics, such as home turnover weight, unemployment rate, and average ratio of home sale price to home list price. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with 100 representing the most favorable conditions for real-estate agents. WalletHub then calculated the overall score for each city based on its weighted average across all metrics and used the outcome to rank the cities.
WalletHub used data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Zillow, Indeed, Projections Central – State Occupational Projections and ATTOM Data Solutions (RealtyTrac).
Photo credit to WalletHub.com
