We have all heard the tales of woe in the housing market. But for those who make their living in the world of buying and selling the aches and pains are even more acute.

“I sold a house a week ago for 30 thousand dollars,” Coldwell Banker Burnett realtor Faith McGown said. “That’s the lowest ever and I figured out the hours I put into that I made about 25 cents an hour so I could have just picked up change on the street and done just as well.”

Faith McGown has been a realtor in Minneapolis for years and news that fellow realtors are bailing in this market is good news to her.

“We needed less people in real estate. There were too many people and it was too easy to get in and people were just doing it for fun and we needed them out of the business,” McGown said.

There are 20 percent fewer realtors registered in all of Minneapolis today than there were two years ago. Kevin Knudsen is the president of the Minneapolis Realtor Association and he says that’s just another indicator of the declining housing market.

“It’s almost like a micro economy. It’s the same with lenders and title people, we are all affected by the downturn in the real estate industry,” Knudsen said.

McGown has been showing a home in the east tangle town neighborhood for more than 4 months. A few years ago it would have sold in weeks but these days, in a buyers market the sellers will be lucky to see it sell in 6 months and even then, at much less than the asking price.

“I think the average house now is selling for 8-9 percent below list price,” McGown said.