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The Louisiana Realtors Association projects an 8% decrease in the number of licensed Realtors over the next year because of the slowdown in the housing market and increased fees and professional standards.

Mark Rodi, president of Louisiana Realtors, says he’s forecasting a decrease based on figures he’s received from associations around the state. Percentage-wise, the biggest decreases are projected for the Northshore and among at-large members, where the number of Realtors is expected to fall by 33%. Currently, there are 12,389 members of the Louisiana Realtors Association, with more than half coming from Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

Nationwide, the number of Realtors fell by 1.5% in 2007, from 1.38 million in 2006 to 1.34 million last year.

“We feel that this decline is not necessarily coming from professional Realtors,” says Rodi, a Metairie Realtor. “This is part-timers, who sell one or two houses a year. They’re not professionals developing their services.”

One of the factors for the decrease is a proposed move by the Realtors to increase state fees from $100 a year to $150. The dues hike will go toward setting up a system to offer interactive classes, so real estate agents in smaller cities will be able to get the same professional development as their counterparts in the larger cities. The new fees, which don’t cover what Realtors pay to their local or national associations, replace a $12 special assessment that was tacked on in 2007.

Rodi says another cause in the projected drop in licensed Realtors is higher professional standards. The Legislature passed a measure earlier this year that increases the amount of continuing education from eight hours a year to 12. Realtors had pushed for even more training in order to have a more professional staff, Rodi says.

A few years ago, the number of agents in Louisiana boomed because of the hot market post-Katrina and the good salaries that could be made from selling homes. According to 2006 statistics from the Louisiana Department of Labor, the average annual wage for a real estate sales agent in Baton Rouge was $42,035, about $10,000 more than the average metro-area wage. Real estate brokers, who run offices and oversee agents, have an average salary of $163,441.

In the real estate business, you have to make a sale in order to make money. And now that the housing market statewide has cooled off and other job sectors have started to surge, there’s been a shift in the number of people entering the industry.

Burk Baker is the owner of the Burk Baker School of Real Estate and Appraising, which has locations in Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Mandeville, Metairie and Monroe that train students to take the Louisiana Real Estate Examination. He says enrollment has been down more than half since the start of the year.

“There was a big rush last year, but it’s been sad this year,” says Baker, who has operated a real estate school since 1977. “I haven’t taught any appraisal courses at all because there just aren’t enough students.”

Baker says the dropoff is more than just a fadeout of the post-Katrina boom. He blames the lack of interest on the gloomy national news about the real estate market.

“The perception has become our reality,” he says. “Even though the market is good in Baton Rouge and Lafayette, people hear all the news in the national media about property prices falling and the subprime crisis. They think that people can’t even get loans to buy a house.”

Herb Gomez, executive vice president of the Greater Baton Rouge Association of Realtors, says there have been more than 50 people showing up twice a month to take orientation courses for the past two or three years. This year, those classes are attracting about 25 students each time out. “We’re expecting to get a dropoff because of this,” he says.

Because of this decline in orientation courses, the GBRAR has forecast a 13% drop in the number of licensed Realtors next year. But Gomez admits he’s a “terrible guesser” since he predicted a 5% to 8% drop this year. “So far, we’re holding at about 2,600 agents, which is pretty much the same as last year,” he says.