Markets go up, and markets go down. Shocking, I know. Lately that down direction has meant fewer sales than a normal year, and agents have noticed.
What’s interesting to me is the difference between the real math and the perceived math. Let me explain.
In Canada, annual unit sales hover around 500,000. If 500,000 homes sell in a year, that’s 1,000,000 ends (we double, assuming a buyer and a seller on each deal). CREA is a bit loose on reporting, but 155,000 agents is about the count in Canada of late. So at 1,000,000 ends every agent gets 6.45 deals. Hurray!
Now, CREA is forecasting fewer deals this year, about 889,000 ends (I’ve already doubled). If the agent count stayed the same, that means every agent gets less: 5.73 deals each. Phew. That’s not too bad. Less than one deal per agent less.
Oh wait… that’s not right. Some get more, and some get less.
Now, agent count has been sliding too, and it keeps sliding through the fall of 2026. On paper that helps you, fewer agents competing for the business. But be honest, five to ten thousand fewer agents out of 155,000 doesn’t move your world much. The real shift isn’t how many agents are in the business. It’s how few of them actually go get it.
If the market is going to be off 11% from a normal year in unit sales, there are plenty of agents who will hear that and come in 50, 60, maybe 75% down. They use that news as PERMISSION to have a bad year! Lots of agents will do far, far fewer deals than normal, because their businesses were never built to do anything but receive business, not generate it.
What this means is that when the market turns down, it hits some agents far harder than others. So even though the pie may be a bit smaller, the amount of pie actually available to a committed agent is larger, because so many agents aren’t at the table.
The pie may be smaller. The slice available to you is bigger.
The market isn’t fair. It doesn’t dole out business nice and even. It rewards the agents who earn it. They pick up the phone before they need the business, they take care of the clients they already have, and they ask for the referral instead of hoping for it.
So as you look at 2027, or any year for that matter, worry less about how many sales will happen in the market, and focus on getting your unfair share of what’s available. Make a plan, and execute it.
Scott
Scott Mills Coaching
P.S. If someone you know would find value in this, feel free to pass it along.