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Are you afraid of failing out of real estate in 2025? If you’re not, maybe you should be. Red flags are everywhere. Case in point: an updated list of the dizzying number of Trump’s executive orders that impact housing is one of HousingWire’s most popular stories of 2025. Politics aside, If you’re not at least a little worried, you’re probably not paying attention. A storm — maybe even a perfect storm — is coming for the real estate industry.
Ricky Carruth isn’t worried. He thinks 2025 might be the best year ever for real estate agents. Once you learn his story, it’s easy to see why. Carruth built his career in real estate during the Great Recession. In 2007, he was so broke he was crashing on a friend’s couch. 17 years and over 1,000 transactions later, Carruth is one of the country’s most sought-after real estate coaches.
We sat down with Carruth to learn why he is so calm while (almost) everyone else is panicking. He gives his hard-won advice on making the most of what might be your best year ever in real estate.
Something’s gotta give, and soon
While wild cards such as on-again, off-again tariffs and the NAR lawsuits are concerns, Carruth pointed to big-picture secular market trends that indicate a deluge of homes coming onto the market soon. The takeaway: More inventory equals lower prices and more closed deals for hungry agents.
Here’s Carruth:
“The birth rate shot up in the 90s. We’ve got more 30-something-year-olds now than we’ve had in decades. You have all these sellers sitting on 3% to 4% interest rates that are dying to move. They just financially can’t. Well, that dam is going to burst when rates get to a certain point, or some mortgage product comes out to save everybody. And those sellers who are dying to move will make a move.”
Is he right? Will we see an increase in listings in 2025 and lower prices along with them? It’s hard to say. Ask five economists when they think something will shift in the housing market, and you’ll get 10 answers. If Carruth knew, he’d be retired on a private Caribbean island. His key point is that it will happen and that you need to be ready for it.
Commission rates are more likely to go up than down
Many agents are concerned that their commissions will decline in 2025. They think AI technology and regulations will shrink their future commission checks and make buyer agents obsolete. While Carruth doesn’t have a crystal ball, he was quick to point out that commission rates fluctuate over time and are more likely to rise in 2025.
You’re probably wondering how that’s possible. Aren’t homeowners armed with more of the information they need to successfully sell their homes without an agent than at any other time in history? Yes, obviously. But Carruth thinks this is precisely why they will choose to use agents more — leading to higher commissions:
“50% of buyers think their agent worked 15 hours for them on the deal. In reality, they work 87 and a half hours. So when you take a commission, take out all the expenses and divide what’s left by 87 hours, you’re not too far from minimum wage. The more buyers and sellers choose not to use an agent, the faster they learn how hard our jobs are to do on their own. A buyer or homeowner representing themselves has the skills of a brand-new agent. I always ask them, would you trust a brand new agent to sell your home? Because that’s what they’re doing. They’re hiring themselves, and they’ve never done a deal. They’re putting the transaction in the hands of someone with zero experience.”
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AI won’t replace you this year (but an agent using AI might)
Take a deep breath. Carruth thinks AI is just another tool and won’t replace agents in 2025 or any time soon. He likened agents’ paranoia over AI replacing them to the fears agents had over Zillow and iBuyers replacing agents. As someone who is old enough to remember when listings were kept in looseleaf binders, hearing this from Carruth was refreshing:
“For me, AI is like Zillow, forsalebyowner.com, social media, or even Amazon, the MLS and DocuSign. All these technological advancements just helped agents sell more property in less time. I couldn’t have sold 100 properties a year without Zillow because I would have been forced to spend my time looking for properties for my buyers. Zillow took that off my plate, and I was able to spread my time out to serve more people. So, Zillow helped me sell more property in less time. It’s the same thing with AI, the same thing with these lawsuits, the same thing with all the advancements that we’re going to see over the next five or 10 years in technology and communication; it’s going to enable agents to sell more properties in less time.”
My take? I agree with Carruth, but with one crucial caveat. AI might not replace you this year, but an agent leveraging AI the way Carruth leveraged Zillow might. Don’t get left behind. Keep up with the latest and greatest AI technology for agents here:
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Surviving a recession cycle will make you a better agent
Carruth quickly pointed out that 2025 won’t be all wine and roses for agents. Like other pundits, he mentioned we might see a 50% (or higher) reduction in agent headcount over the next few years.
However, for agents who stick to proven success formulas, 2025 will be a golden opportunity to build long-lasting careers — just like he did during the Great Recession. The job will get harder, but agents who start preparing now will thrive:
“When the market’s at its lowest point, that’s your biggest opportunity to expand your business and your footprint in the market. When the market re-expands your business, you can multiply your business by two, three, four or even five times. You can’t really get that multiple of growth on your business as an agent in a normal market.”
A market downturn will also force you to work harder to hone your branding, lead generation and marketing skills. Many of the agents you’ll compete with in 2025 started their careers on quick and easy deals in 2021. They’re in for a rude awakening. Many won’t last.
To ensure you do, hire a (good) coach and focus on scaling your business so you can handle multiple deals at once — one of the skills Carruth said was critical to scaling your business in 2025.
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Leverage technology to get to the “real” conversations faster
When the topic of lead generation came up, Carruth didn’t mince words. Like many coaches, he thinks all lead-generation strategies work. Some just work faster than others. In 2025, he recommends agents focus on strategies that get them to the “real” conversations around buying and selling before other agents do.
“Agents must learn to use technology to get to the real conversation before other agents. I don’t care what you use: Zillow, social media, door knocking, cold calling or direct mail. It just needs to produce enough conversations with the right people to grow your business.
I just pick out the exact properties I want to represent, call the property owners, have a conversation and create a relationship. I figure out what they want to do, whether now or later and start working with them. I do this over and over and over and over again.
Agents making social media content or paying Zillow hope they get to talk to the person I already spoke to. You can either put out content or pay somebody to wait to have those conversations, or you can just have the conversations right now. That’s the key to success in real estate. How many conversations are you having with the right people?”
The full picture
Are you a broker-owner or coach with actionable insights to share with our audience of agents and brokers? We’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us here: vetted@housingwire.com.Want more hard-won real estate strategies from Rick Carruth? Send him a direct message on Instagram. He answers every message personally. Interested in hiring Ricky as a coach? You can learn more about his Zero to Diamond coaching program on his website.
