After years of inactivity, real estate agents are going back to work. But technology has changed the business, and they are facing a . . . : Brave New World

With the housing market heating up again, would-be agents are starting to stream into real estate schools and former agents are renewing their licenses. But many are in for a shock.

Gone are the big cars, splashy lifestyles and smug attitudes of the last real estate boom. Now, the hours are longer and the demands are greater than the heady days of the late ‘80s. Technology has taken away some of the agent’s mystique and proprietary edge, and exchanged it for higher overhead.

“The early ‘90s humbled a lot of people,” said James Righeimer, an agent with Fountain Valley-based ERA Rafferty & Lloyd. “They all prayed: ‘Dear Lord, please give me another real estate boom. I promise I won’t screw it up this time.’ ”

Indeed, many agents didn’t survive the harsh six-year California housing slump. As sales dried up, part-timers and inexperienced agents dropped out, thinning the California Assn. of Realtors’ ranks about 40%.

Those who survived learned to adapt by working longer hours or selling commercial real estate to make ends meet.

“I just concentrated on what put food on the table,” Righeimer said.

It’s been a familiar refrain in the cyclical California real estate market. A similar drought in the early ‘80s slashed the number of agents and real estate offices across Southern California.

Now, agents are starting to trickle back in. The number of people taking the real estate sales exam was up 12% in the year ending June 30, to 22,640 from 20,301 the year before, according to the California Department of Real Estate.

And enrollment and inquiries are up at many real estate schools like Tarzana-based Anthony Schools, which closed 10 of its 19 Southern California schools in recent years, said Stephen Crane, regional manager.

Agents are using words like “wonderful” and “exciting” again to describe their jobs. Low mortgage rates and increasing economic confidence have spurred people to buy. With 3,726 Orange County home sales, June was the second briskest month since 1990, according to real estate data firm Acxiom/DataQuick.

And this year, prices are beginning to rise, reaching a median of $201,000 countywide--the highest in three years--giving agents bigger commissions and, eventually, more listings.

“The market conditions are going to make being a Realtor more pleasant than it was three or four years go,” said Richard Peiser, director of the Lusk Center for Real Estate Development at USC. But, he cautions, “it’s not a get-rich-quick scheme, by any means.”

Analysts say we are in for a slow and steady rise in the market, after hitting bottom last year.

And agents say it’s going to be harder for everyone to make the big bucks if more houses don’t come on the market soon.

Said Jim Hamilton, an office manager with Re/Max Execs in Redondo Beach: “Just because the market is better doesn’t necessarily make it easier to make a living in real estate.”

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Today, only a small group of mostly experienced agents pull in the big money. Analysts estimate that about 30% of licensed agents are handling 70% of all deals.

The rest make more modest wages, from which they must take all of their expenses--the car, cell phones, pagers, laptop computers and advertising. In 1995, the last year surveyed, the median income for agents nationwide was $33,500, before taxes and expenses, according to the National Assn. of Realtors. In California, median net income was $30,000 in 1996, according to a study of all licensees by the California Assn. of Realtors.

And there’s a new wrinkle for agents to contend with this time around: Experts predict technology will change real estate agents’ jobs significantly over the next few years.

Buyers can already access much of the same information the agent used to provide exclusively: home listings, comparable sales prices, school information and even aerial maps. Instead of just being whisked around from property to property, buyers are now only wanting to see a few select homes they have picked out. Some even want to negotiate the commission.

Having that kind of information online is unsettling for some agents who are used to calling the shots.

But others see technology as less of a threat and more of a tool. “Computers don’t negotiate deals for you,” Hamilton said. “It hasn’t gotten away from being a people-oriented business.”

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Still, it’s a very different environment from the mid-1980s, when as one agent put it, “anyone who walks could sell a home,” buyers were lining up eagerly and real estate agents were making money hand over fist. That era had ended by 1992, and many agents were forced out.

The only winners in this slump were those agents who capitalized on the misfortune, listing foreclosure properties for banks. They had their hands full as many homeowners with negative equity simply walked away from their properties.

Without any other advertising than his signs, Leroy Salvato, an agent with Century 21 Wise Old Owl Realty in Cerritos, sold 358 homes last year, worth about $36 million. To handle the calls and process the paperwork, he had to take on a staff of five and work 55 to 70 hours a week.

But it was worth it, he said. These property sales gave him commissions totaling $1.1 million, almost enough to round out his retirement fund. “It’s a little tiring, but I’m making a lot of money,” Salvato said.

Most agents weren’t as lucky. When sales plummeted, many were forced to pare back their lifestyle.

“I don’t drive a Mercedes anymore,” Righeimer said. “Attitudes have shifted and I found most baby boomers aren’t all that impressed with that.” Righeimer now drives a 1986 BMW with 279,000 miles on it.

Other agents are selecting more modest Chryslers or Toyotas when they get new cars. And many say they are now consulting financial planners to sock away some of their earnings into retirement accounts and mutual funds.

An increasing share of agents’ commissions are going to technology. Most stay in touch by carrying pagers and cellular phones and they bring along laptop computers to access multiple listing information. Many also have multiple phone lines at their homes for modems and faxes.

“There’s much more emphasis on total and instant access to a Realtor,” said Barbara Amstadter, an agent with Ellis Realty Group in Newport Beach.

Amstadter works out of what she calls her “virtual office.” Clients call a toll-free number that rings all of her phones and her pager. She can send and receive electronic sales documents through her e-mail.

“People can get in touch with me anyplace. I’m in the office at all times,” she said.

Greater accessibility often means agents are working longer hours. According to the 1995 NAR study, more than half of all real estate agents work at least 50 hours a week. Many work much longer, especially new agents, struggling to build a clientele.

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Ramona Cirivello, 27, began selling houses last year after leaving her job as a manager at a real estate auction company. Since the beginning, she has worked six or seven days a week, pounding the pavement, networking and sitting at Century 21’s front desk in Irvine intercepting calls on real estate ads.

The hectic pace of the job has meant missing church on Sundays and weekend outings with friends, but Cirivello said she’s determined to strike while the market is hot. She’s trying to make as much money as she can in the next few years, before starting a family.

“I’m going for it,” Cirivello said.

The hard work is already paying off. After only nine months, Cirivello has made about $90,000 in commissions, which makes her one of the top agents in her Century 21 office.

“I like the idea that my income is limitless. It’s all in my hands; I don’t have to go into someone’s office and ask for a raise,” she said. She said she has made enough money so far to allow her fiance, Dominic, a mortgage broker, to quit his job and begin selling houses too.

Good luck stories like Cirivello’s are also bringing former agents back into the business, hoping to make big bucks. But these agents could be surprised by the new and more complex rules of the game.

One-page sales documents are now much longer and stacked with disclosures. Agents are expected to be knowledgeable enough to discuss the differences between key financing options, and know how to negotiate important contract contingencies that protect buyer and seller.

“Now spreading the word that a home is for sale is no longer difficult,” said Norman Miller, head of the University of Cincinnati’s real estate program and author of a book on real estate and technology. “The real estate agent is having to concentrate on other ways to add value to the transaction.”

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Dwindling Numbers

California’s real estate sales ranks have declined by more than 64,000 in the last five years. Real estate licensees, for fiscal years ended June 30:

1988-89: 341,071

1996-97: 306,939

Source: California Dept. of Real Estate