If you think everyone you meet is a real estate agent, you're not far wrong. According to new figures from ARELLO, the licensing officials, there are more than 2,636,783 licensees in the United States.

With a U.S. population of about 297,889,053, that's about one licensee for every 113 men, women and children.

The most significant increases in licensee counts from 2005 are:

State	2005	2004	% change
Utah	33,979	20,177	+68.40
South Dakota	4,969	3,395	+46.36
Rhode Island	7,561	5,339	+41.62
Massachusetts	78,204	59,043	+32.45
Nevada	33,492	25,626	+30.70
Connecticut	28,281	22,365	+26.45
Colorado	52,646	42,212	+24.72

"Things are finally starting to cool down," said ARELLO Chief Executive Officer Craig Cheatham. "Either interest in real estate as a career or sideline is waning, or we've finally given a license to everyone already. I expect 2006 numbers will continue to go up, but then 2007 to return gently to 2004 practitioner levels."

He explains, "New England -- as well as markets like Park City Utah, Las Vegas Nevada, the Rocky Mountains and the Arizona desert -- continued to see significant growth while the Northwest and the District of Columbia saw slight declines. Overall, the 4.11 percent increase in 2005 over 2004 was in line with expectations. It also should be noted that California added more than 60,000 practitioners in 2005 alone. Percentage wise that's only 15 percent growth for California, but it is interesting to look at it as more than 2 percent of all current real estate practitioners are California licensees with less than one year's experience."