Voluntary deregistrations among real estate agents

Sammanfattning: The primary purpose of the study is to investigate the main reasons why real estate brokers voluntarily choose to de-‐egister themselves after a short time in the profession and to come up with suggestions in order to prevent it. The sudy entails both a quantitative and a qualitative method. The first was conducted  hrough a survey to gather information about de--‐registrations throughout the last three years. The qualitative method  was  applied to reinforce the quantitative survey. This was conducted through interviewing people in the industry. In total, 58  de--‐registrated real estate brokers and  six people from the industry participated in the study. Of the 58 who participated in the survey, 81% were women and the remaining 19% men. 97% of participants were less than 30 years old. All were operating as a real estate agent in less than five years. One cannot claim that the deregistration is due to only  one reason,   the motives for  cancellation can be many. However, the tree main reasons are the following; working hours and availability, the salary structure and the pressure and the stress that these factors contribute to. The survey also shows that contributing factors are false expectations about the profession and partly a lack of information from the institutions. Finally, the experience is that there is a gap between the theoretical school and the practical profession. The conclusion of the research is that the internship that is compulsory to do in order to be able to work as a broker should be implemented as an educational requirement, preferably in the beginning  of the educational program. Moreover, in order to retain skilled labour, the industry has to improve the working conditions. We believe that the industry winners in the long run will be the companies who focuses on flexibility and differentiated working methods regarding salary and ways of working. In the end of the study it is discussed whether a potential change in the Swedish law, adjusting the work of real estate brokers, would reduce the stress and the pressure about the availability due to the brokers.