Can’t Take a Step Without Meeting a Realtor?

In New York City, at least, it sometimes seems that way. Not long ago, we wrote a column about how a real-estate boom actually lowers median Realtor income because of all the new agents who rush in to join the boom.

Homethinking.com, a new website that allows customers to rate Realtors, has posted an interesting item on Realtor density. It shows how many Realtors there are per capita in the 25 most expensive real-estate markets (as identified by CNN). Here’s a sample:

City/People per Realtor:

Bethesda, Md.: 37
Newport Beach, Ca.: 45
Greenwich, Ct.: 73

Unfortunately, Homethinking doesn’t yet have data for NYC. But according to the website, Miami — which didn’t make the list of the 25 most expensive cities — has one Realtor for every 17 people. No wonder the sales of Freakonomics have always lagged in Miami.