COLLEGE-BOUND students are deserting property-related courses – and now property courses are being cut.

Estate agents’ body IAVI isn’t admitting any first-years into its four-year BSc and two-year higher certificate courses in property studies, the two part-time courses it runs in Bolton Street.

And GMIT has suspended the first year intake of its BSc in property studies on the basis of insufficient CAO demand. Students already following all these courses will be able to complete them.

Part of the IAVI’s funding comes from running courses, but much more, of course, comes from membership fees, and these could fall sharply next year.

Membership stands at around 2,000 says the IAVI’s chief executive Alan Cooke, although there are reports that numbers are already down around 15 per cent to 1,700.

Just 70 agents who lost their jobs – and hundreds more than that lost them this year – took the IAVI up on its offer of free membership.

Agents have until the end of September to renew membership for 2010, so by then the institute will have a clearer idea of how many are sticking with the industry.

In the meantime, the other auctioneering body, the IPAV, says its membership this year is down 7 per cent, to around 800 members.