From time to time I like to do a little public awareness post. I have posted before on how real estate agents get paid (straight commission for the vast majority of us), but Eric Smith in a January 29 Article in The DAILY NEWS addresses how much money we make. I will spare myself the math and use his figures, which came from the Memphis Area Association of REALTORS. It seems that as a group of over 5000 full-time, part-time and occasional licensees in the Memphis area, we made an average of $36,270 in 2007. That is a gross commission figure (remember we work on straight commission), so from that figure, subtract the company’s share (25%), Uncle Sam’s share (at lowest bracket 20% to cover income and self-employment), general overhead (insurance, dues, fees, advertising – 10%), bringing the average agent take home pay to around $19,586. Of course every new agent comes into the business thinking they will be the top 20% that do 80% of the total business in keeping with the Pareto Principle.
Maybe we experienced real estate professionals make it look too easy.