Top 1% Real Estate Agent in the U.S. here in Portland?
The National Association of Realtors puts out a Member report every year and the 2017 version came out recently with full 2016 results.
The Average Real Estate Agent
The numbers are fascinating. The median real estate agent (Realtor) completed 12 transactions in 2016 (that is up one transaction from 2015’s report), had 10 years of experience in the business, and had a median sales volume of 1.9 million.
The Top 5% Real Estate Agent in the U.S.
According to the same 2017 NAR report, to make it as a top 5% real estate agent (Realtor) in the country, you had to have 51 or more sales transactions in a year. To get in the top 6% of real estate agents in the country you only had to have 10 million in sales. 10 million might sound like a lot, but it is just the sales prices of sold homes put together, so you could get there by selling twenty five $400,000 homes.
How did the Stephen FitzMaurice Team do?
We completed 4X the amount of transactions (over 200) that it takes to be in the top 5% of real estate agents in the country in 2016. We completed 10X the sales volume (over 100 million) it takes to be in the top 6% of real estate agents in the country. We sold more listings than anyone else combining Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas counties together. (We recently expanded into Clark County.) So is the Stephen FitzMaurice team in the top 1% in the country? I’m not sure, but I think so. Unfortunately NAR doesn’t go past the top 5% or so in their charts and doesn’t provide the hard numbers behind the report to extrapolate. But with 10X or 4X the number of sales volume and sales transactions needed to make it into the top 5 or 6% in the U.S., it is pretty likely. We still advertise top 5% and will continue to do so, I hope in the future NAR obtains more data on the top teams and Realtors in the country. Honestly, I know this would be to satisfy my own curiosity. Real Trends, a real estate data firm, also puts out some good information on top real estate agents and teams. We submitted our 2016 data but are still waiting for their 2017 report to come out.
Why does our team perform so well?
As the team owner and still a practicing Portland listing agent myself, I’ve worked to create a Portland metro area real estate agent team that provides excellent service for less, basically a “pay less and get more” model. To sell a home in Portland we charge a max. of 4.5% commission while providing full service and paying more to market our homes for our sellers. I regularly analyze the data on what makes a home sell and we push hard to make it happen.
One the buyer’s agent side, I recruited an experienced buyer’s agent with an exceptional performance record. We created a buyers agent team that can provide near 100% availability for our buying clients, even in this hot, low inventory real estate market. Our buyer’s team structure allows for greater flexibility in showing homes and our lead buyer’s agent, Kami Price, provides incredible negotiating power (she has earned some of the highest available certificates in negotiation available).
On top of all this, I joined the business as a licensed Broker in Oregon in 2003 with a mission to provide excellent customer service. Customer service is our team focus and drives our desire to have a reasonable commission rate, stellar marketing for our homes (even if it costs us more money), along with availability, quick response times, and additional education (above and beyond our continuing education license requirements) across the board.
Where do these numbers come from?
The National Association of Realtors sent out a 98 question survey to 165,424 Realtors and received 12,685 responses. The confidence interval at a 95% level of confidence is +/- .87% based on a population of 1.2 million members. Again this information comes from the NAR Member Report 2017.
