WASHINGTON - Ray Booth is a kidder, a flirt and a consummate raconteur. With an easy grin and a deep laugh, he keeps his clients entertained.

But the Annandale, Va., real estate agent gets serious when it comes to a transaction, and when he's asked if his age might ever be an issue for him.

"I don't find it a hindrance at all. Or a help either," said Booth, who turns 81 next month. "I'm not interested in retiring because I really enjoy what I'm doing. I enjoy working with people, talking with them. And you feel good when you manage to get people in a house."

Real estate agents older than 65 are relatively rare - about 1 in 10 of all sales agents - but the percentage has grown steadily in recent years, according to surveys by the National Association of Realtors. Eighty-year-olds are rarer still.

But Booth is not the only longtime agent in his office, which makes for an even more unusual situation. Five agents in the Annandale office of Coldwell Banker Residential have hit or are about to hit the big 8-0. Besides Booth, they are Gordon Frederick, 80 in December; Esmond Stanton, 80 next month; Helen Susko, 81; and Gwendalyn Cody, who admits only that "I'm 29 and I have been for many years."

While many Americans want to exit the workaday world as early as possible to move into that vacation home full time or to relax in luxury active-adult communities, the 80s bunch in Annandale says the sedentary life is not for them. Their focus, instead, is on keeping busy, and avoiding the other A's associated with aging: Alzheimer's disease and assisted living.

"I can't imagine retiring," said Cody, who has been in the real estate business since 1986, after serving in Paris as an Army cartographer in World War II, meeting her husband-to-be, Robert Cody, on the day the war ended, touring overseas and in San Francisco as a civilian, raising a family, traveling to foreign countries and then serving in the 1980s as a Republican member of Virginia's House of Delegates.

"I'm in great health, I know what I'm doing. And I love people," Cody said. "And I plan on doing it as long as I can. I have longevity in my veins. My mother is 101-and-a-half and she still lives on her own and does not want anyone telling her what to do."

The views these agents hold of the future are reflected in AARP surveys showing that more people older than 65 are choosing to stay on the job. The real estate association also is finding from its surveys that more agents are keeping their hand in well into their golden years.

While the typical sales agent was 42 in 1978, the median age in 2003 was 49, according to the most recent survey by the National Association of Realtors. The percentage older than 55 jumped during that time to 34 percent from 21 percent. And the share that was 65 and older doubled.

The nation's unprecedented housing boom, with its three-year string of record sales and record prices, might be the biggest reason the average age is increasing. It also helps explain the flood of new agents into the business.

But the boom isn't the only reason, according to the Annandale agents. They all say they stay in the game because they love the work, the camaraderie and the ability to set their own hours.

And they note that with so many agents out there, the game isn't easy these days.

"This kind of market is not always fun," Booth said. "When there are 17 agents working to get the same property ... you've got to explain to your buyer why they didn't get it. ... And for the listing agent, it's a lot of work, too. They've got to study all these offers. ... And if you have a case where a deal falls apart, you've got to do it all over again."

Frederick, who retired to real estate at age 65 after a career as a technical engineer at Unisys, said: "I'm not out to make a lot of money. I do it to have something to do that I like, to meet people and to build relationships."

Frederick, who started in 1989, when business was "fairly lean," said he moved into real estate after retirement because "you get to choose your own hours. When I retired I didn't want to do an 8-to-5 type job, I wanted to do something where I had basic control over my job."

Frederick, a slight white-haired man, is still on the job almost every day except Sunday. "You gotta keep busy; otherwise you would retire where you wouldn't want to be," he said.

He added, "If you don't do anything, what are you going to do? You just sit around, you deteriorate."

None of the five are working just for the money, said Marty Seidman, the broker who runs the Annandale office. "They just seem to like doing it."

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Seidman said younger agents frequently consult with the three men, who are often in the office, because of their experience and knowledge. "It's their personalities, their concern for people. You learn with years how to deal with people, how to understand them.

Frederick, he said, represents the office during meetings with top Coldwell staff. Stanton, Cody and Susko, he said, have been top producers, with million-dollar years.

While the three men have been upfront about their ages, the two ladies only fessed up recently when pressed. "Nobody in my office knew until today, although they may have speculated," Cody said last week. "But as a longtime Rotarian, I have to tell the truth."

Cody, known as a big kidder to her colleagues, admonished: "Nobody who is properly brought up would ever ask a woman her age, her weight or how much she makes."

Susko, who started in real estate 43 years ago, has the longest string of million-dollar sales years. There have been 26 or 27 during her career, many of them with Town & Country Properties Inc., which was bought by Coldwell Banker a decade ago.

Susko is not about to quit, unless she has to, but she said she did "slow down" a lot after her husband died in 2001. She had already moved her office home so she could work while he was ill, though - that's consistent with her philosophy that real estate is a full-time job.

Susko, who returned to work last Friday after taking a couple days off following minor spinal surgery, said she learned her lesson about the work ethic early on.

"I got into it because I thought I could do it part time and still take care of my daughter," she recalled. "I soon found out that there is no such thing as part time, if you're doing your job well."