The Real Estate Agent Response to COVID-19: Examining the Impact of Race and Gender on Entry and Exit Patterns
Kaiser, Jackson
Kaiser, Jackson
Citations
Altmetric:
Soloist
Composer
Publisher
Date
2025-05-19
Additional date(s)
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic drastically changed the housing market and consumer behaviors. While anyone looking to buy or sell a home was affected by these changes, one group was particularly vulnerable to these swings. Real estate agents, whose incomes are largely based on commissions gained from home sales, responded quickly to changing conditions. In one of the largest housing markets in the nation, the Texas Real Estate Commission (TREC) recorded steep drops in agent licensing at the start of the pandemic, and large gains as economic conditions became more favorable again. Acknowledging that different demographics are not affected equally when it comes to economics, this study seeks to examine which specific market changes affected real estate agent licensing numbers, also determining if different impacts occur at the level of gender and race. More specifically, this study will use the licensing information of real estate agents in Texas from November 2018, before the pandemic, to August 2023, the date this dataset was last fully available from TREC. Results will show that different political and economic factors evoked dissimilar responses from agents of different gender and race. Preliminary analyses suggest that more economically vulnerable populations of real estate agents were more responsive to changing market conditions and incentives.