What a good Real Estate agent makes

I have a little cleaning company. My wife Elsa runs the residential house cleaning side and I operate, or did operate, A Spring Cleaning which did one time cleanings. The main focus of A Spring Cleaning was to prepare properties for sale. A Spring Cleaning has been in business in it’s present form since 1988.

OK, enough of the sales pitching. Last year Keily Belfore (sp) the owner, broker, or manager of a RE Max office in North Seattle objected to me soliciting Real Estate agents as clients to our cleaning services. Her claim was that some how it was a conflict of interest for us to work on preparing a property for sale for agents in her office when in fact I am a Real Estate agent.

I am a licensed Real Estate agent in the State of Washington. I do represent clients in Real Estate transactions from time to time. The fact is that my wife and I make more money with our little cleaning companies than most Real Estate agents could hope to make in a year. The truth is that I can do Real Estate deals, but most clients just don’t get me.

The Real Estate business is brutal. It’s constant smoozing. There is no down time. You have to be on top of your game every day, because you never know who you are talking to. A bad day can cost you. Your product changes every day and most of the time three or four times a day. That super good deal is gone, goes sideways, or dies every hour of every day. People lie, cheat, steal, or go absolutely crazy before your eyes. A Real Estate deal brings out the best and the worst in every one. The best is soon forgotten, the worst can haunt you for decades.

So much for the emotional cost. Let’s talk about dollars and cents. First you have to look the part of a successful, in control, self assured, competent sales professional. It’s simple math, but expensive. Advertising is constant. News paper ads, post cards, letters, flyers or seminars need to also look professional. Today I have three web sites and this blog. I’m not even a full time real estate agent, but know I need to keep an internet presence.

My Real Estate license is in a discount desk fee office where I pay $400 per month to keep 100% of my commission. The fact is that the Real Estate company I have my license with does nothing but give me a hard time. They will take any derelict bum off the street who has a Real Estate license  and looks like they can pay the monthly fee. It cost me, remember I don’t even work in the business $24000 per year to stay afloat. That’s two thousand dollars per month to do no business.

I have a real estate license to buy or sell properties from time to time. A good real estate agent spends, in my opinion, three to five hundred dollars per month on a car, fourteen hundred dollars per month for a desk fee, and at least two thousand dollars per month on advertising. That works out to be roughly twice what I spend or $48000 per year to stay in the real estate business.

An average Real Estate agent makes $56000 per year. A good Real Estate agent makes about $180000. The increase in production is usually tied to an increase in advertising. An increase in advertising requires an increased presence in the market place. There is a time factor. Previewing property, driving clients, doing paperwork, talking with other agents, making market analysis, or dealing with mortgage, title, or escrow issues. When I work in Real Estate sixty hour weeks are common. There is a financial reward, but…

It always looks easy. There are thousands of real estate professionals who talk a good game. The realty is that thousands of real estate agents pay the forty eight thousand per year to make the fifty six thousand. They make it look really easy because they have pending wealth or a spouse that works. A good Real Estate agent, in my estimation makes about forty dollars per hour, a really good agent makes sixty.