Veteran real estate broker Deanne Esses, who plies her trade as a senior vice president at one of the city’s biggest firms, Bellmarc Realty, said eight people in her Upper East Side office on Madison Avenue are leaving their jobs for alternative careers. Those eight represent 20% of the office’s sales staff of 40.

That’s only the beginning. Ms. Esses said she thinks more New York City brokers will be leaving the scene. “Business here is just not quiet; it has dropped dead over the past few weeks,” she said. “At the same time, there’s a flood of inventory on the market. We run open houses, we run advertisements, but nothing works. There are no buyers, and without buyers, there are no sales.”

Given the housing slump, such departures — the latest wrinkle in a once-booming real estate market — could become a lot more conspicuous. In recent years it’s estimated that the ranks of brokers expanded nationally by more than 200,000 at new and existing real estate firms. With the housing slowdown accelerating, many more career changes are likely.

In effect, the end of the current real estate boom is also signaling the end of the seemingly nonstop national flight into the real estate brokerage business by those folks who figured such an entry was practically a guarantee of a lucrative six- or seven-figure annual income.

In the 1960s, there was a popular Peter, Paul & Mary song: “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” Don’t be surprised, judging from the weakening housing picture, if New Yorkers aren’t soon humming: “Where have all the brokers gone?”

Indeed, the plethora of inventory on the market can be seen in the outburst of open houses. In a Sunday advertisement earlier this week, for example, one Bellmarc ad featured 87 open houses. In contrast, two years ago there were virtually none as brisk demand quickly snapped up any available inventory.

Amid the city’s rapidly faltering real estate business, a principal of Bellmarc, Neil Binder, visited an Upper East Side branch last Thursday and delivered a 40-minute pep talk to the staff. That was unusual, because the last time he did so was shortly after September 11, 2001, when the city’s real estate business, accompanied by the economy and Wall Street, fell out of bed in response to the terrorist attacks.

Ms. Esses made these noteworthy observations:

• Everything now is negotiated downward from the initial asking price, by a minimum of 5% to 7%.

• Prices are down at least 10% from a year ago on practically everything.

• While American buyers are hesitant and reluctant, “the Chinese and Russians are coming into the market like crazy.”

• Three- and four-bedroom apartments on Fifth and Park avenues are still being quoted at $15 million and $16 million, but there are a lot more of them on the market.

• Chelsea and the West Village are the hottest areas in the market, while the Upper West Side — where prices have risen out of sight — is moving very slowly. The Hamptons have turned especially soft.

• Look for boards to become much more lenient and flexible. It’s only a matter of time.

“We’re in a transition stage where sellers will have to come down in price, and right now it’s a waiting game to see what the buyer will do,” Ms. Esses said. “Since there’s only one Manhattan, I don’t see a crash. But who knows?”

Real estate appraiser Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel, also cites a sharply slowing trend, with actual sales activity flat. There’s a big gap between buyers and the sellers, and more realism will be required by the sellers, he said. His reasoning: swelling inventories, especially condominiums, which he notes increased nearly 6% between the end of June and the end of August. He largely attributes this to new development, which he says is adding product to the market faster than it can be absorbed.

Early in 2004, Mark Clemente left his uncle’s dry-cleaning plant in Detroit to go east and, hopefully, make his fortune in real estate. Shortly thereafter, he became a broker at E&G Realty, a small firm in Newark, N.J., where he earned a respectable $195,000 in his first year.

But it has been downhill ever since. The housing slump and fierce brokerage competition led to the demise of E&G. Mr. Clemente’s income collapsed, and over the past six months he has held a number of part-time jobs, including one making sandwiches at a Queens delicatessen that paid him $100 a week. “I’m going home; my real estate career is over,” he said the other day.

Coldwell Banker broker Elayne Riemer contends the market is by no means tanking. The only slowdown she says she sees is in inflated new construction, where prices have fallen 10% to 15% from ridiculously overpriced levels.

She noted that developers in many of these buildings are already offering brokers special perks, like trips and higher commissions.

The market, she adds, is very unpredictable — slow one week and active the next — helped by a high rental market and hurt by the press’s creation of a bubble that isn’t there.”Once people realize the bubble talk is a lot of nonsense,” she said, “they come back and buy.”