Across several property-adjacent professions, practitioner headcount expanded sharply during the 2020–2022 boom, when transaction volumes were high and credit was easy to access. That expansion has not unwound at the same pace as the conditions that produced it. Transaction volumes have since contracted and macroprudential settings have tightened credit, leaving a professional workforce that is, in several sectors, structurally oversized relative to the work actually available — a mismatch that compresses commissions and fees, and points toward industry consolidation rather than a return to boom-era headcounts.

This hub gathers APN’s originating analysis of that pattern alongside the profession-specific deep-dives it produced: residential sales agency, buyers agency, and mortgage broking. A fifth report, on property valuation, is included as the series’ deliberate counterpoint — its own findings show valuer capacity is not oversized but constrained, a structurally different risk sitting underneath the same market.