California home sales rose in July as licensee count declined

California Home Sales Rise As Licensee Count Declines

Existing single-family home sales reached a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 263,170 in July 2026, up 1.1 percent from July 2025. This marked the fourth consecutive month that statewide sales exceeded year-ago levels, according to the California Association of Realtors' July report.

The statewide median home price was $887,680 in July 2026, up 0.3 percent from a year earlier, while sales of homes above $2 million rose 8.9 percent.

The 30-year fixed mortgage rate averaged 6.54 percent in July, still continuing to heavily weigh on demand across the state. Statewide sales have now remained even below the 300,000-home annual pace for 46 consecutive months, reflecting persistent overall market sluggishness.

The California Department of Real Estate counted 422,234 statewide total licensees as of July 2026, down roughly 10,500 or 2.4 percent from 432,777 a year earlier.

Redfin found the top 25 percent of its agents in San Francisco averaged $385,900, up 17 percent year over year. Overall nationally, the top 10 percent of Redfin agents averaged $338,100, an increase of 20 percent from the prior year.

Brokerages Urged to Rethink New Agent Launch

Alexandre Worthington is a Florida and Georgia real estate broker and the founder and lead instructor of Florida Real Estate School. He argues that the real estate industry does not have a recruiting problem nearly as much as a new-agent launch problem.

He states that licensing and career readiness are not the same thing, and brokerages must rethink what happens immediately during the critical first months after licensure.

Worthington advises brokerages to stop measuring new agents only by their production, since closings are a lagging indicator early on. Instead, he recommends that brokerages regularly ask about specific meaningful conversations, follow-up, appointments set, and what each agent learned weekly.

Brokerages should give new agents a place to practice through deliberate role-play of buyer consultations, listing presentations, and difficult client conversations before real consumers become the practice.

Additionally, Worthington says new agents need basic business education much earlier, including understanding gross revenue versus actual income, a basic budget, and how irregular commission income demands discipline.

Effective Networking Focuses on Remembering Others

Keith Robinson, President of Strategy for NextHome, Inc., argues that real estate networking is not always about making yourself memorable. Instead, he says it is about making the person you are talking to feel truly genuinely memorable and valued and heard.

Robinson advises agents to move past surface networking questions like where are you from and what do you do, and instead ask questions they actually want answered.

He suggests asking what is harder now than it was twenty years ago or what made someone change careers at fifty. Robinson also introduces finding "the brisket," the personal interest or hobby that is simply not typically on a name tag.

He warns against digging for personal details simply because a networking book told you it increases conversion, noting people can feel when curiosity is really just prospecting.

Robinson advises that a good conversation should leave you with something to do for the other person, like sending a recommendation. He recommends following through after the event by putting contacts in your database and reaching out occasionally with a reason.