It's usually 7% on first 100K and 2-3% on the remaining.

The other agent bringing the buyer will get usually 3.25% on first 100K and usually about 1.25% on the balance. Sometimes there is usually a bonus $1-$5 grand or so.

If you've done renovations, and took our permits, one thing that helps when you are competing with other similar houses on the same block is to have your realtor show clients the permits and let them know that all the work done meets or was above code.

Many people dont take out permits and yes the vanities and kitchen cabinets look nice, but the structure and the other materials that you cant see are all inferior. Making copies and showing the permits has swayed decisions in the pass for my friend who was competing with another property down the block who also had work done but no permits (and was done cheaply too).

Jesus...I knew realtors made good coin but that is incredible.

Average detached home in Vancouver is what? 750,000?

@ 2% plus the base, that's 13 + 7 = 21,000?

No wonder more and more people want to do it themselves. How much is a real estate license? UBC states, 1,075 for a basic program. Or take out all the books they recommend and read them yourself, following the curriculum.

That's the total for both buying and selling agent. It's not that much after taxes, transaction fees for every deal to the firm and RE board, expenses (listing fees on MLS, yearly society fee, and then desk fees per month can go as high as 800 at re-max but around 250-300 for firms like Sutton, Royal Pacific, etc), rebates (lots of people ask for a 20-25% cut back), and if the realtor on both sides have to throw in some of their commission to make the deal work (i.e. buyer is short 5k from what seller wants so the realtors split the difference using their commission). As a realtor, you also have to account for the time/expenses dealing people who don't actually buy. There are people that simply go look at houses for months but can't pull the trigger (i.e. can't get financing, have nothing to do). You also need to take 15 credits per year (~3 courses on 3 days) every 2 years for $100 per course but mainly its a time expense.

Also, the market is highly skewed. The top 10% of realtors make like 90% of the sales. Behind all the glamor and the leased cars, there are also an inflated number of realtors around so many are working second jobs. Many people I know who weren't the type to go to school got their licenses. Their in for a big surprise as many have little to no sales still while paying that desk fee. By about 3 years if you aren't making money, its time to leave (sooner if you have a family to support. You need to sell around two properties per year depending on their value to break even).

Well with a UBC Sauder school of business degree I'd hope they make that much.:troll:
A friend of mine who is in his first year of real estate pulled in 40k in one month, but who knows what will happen for the rest of the year.

You're friend was likely very charismatic and a people person with great selling techniques.

He is very much so. He's one of those people that people gravitate to wherever he goes. He told me he knows that was a freak occurrence, but I think he will make a pretty good career out of it consistently.

Definitely, his personality is incredibly invaluable. He'd succeed in any sales/marketing career. Definitely a rarity.

One thing I am happy to hear is that the # of transactions have gone down about ~30 % from the 10 year average for the last 6 months or so. So many of these realtors will be out of jobs. I know of some people who recently made a career change or are looking for at other occupations. The amount of marketing that the real estate division at sauder does is unbelievable, for the last 4-5 years they have been heavily promoting their real estate division to wanna be realtors, it will be interesting to see if enrollment has substantially dropped for this program.

As a UBC alumni, I don't like my university to be associated with this real estate licensing course. Definitely some ethics and integrity concerns. . . .

While I'm not a fan of the way many real estate agents work, that post makes it sound like you actually take pleasure in people losing their jobs.

^I agree. At the end of the day, many of those people who will be losing their jobs are just regular people trying to survive.

Im sorry if it comes across that way, and im not really happy when people are out of jobs as that person may have a family to support, but such is life, should we bring back employees that work at Video rental stores? People need to adapt. I tend to think of it more as weeding out the people that should not be realtors in the first place. The ones that are truly talented will still remain as realtors and im sure those realtors are happy that there's less "competition". This can go a whole off on a different tangent so Ill stop here.

But hey, a lot of these people SHOULD know the rewards and risks of being a realtor. For the last 10 years, many have been making a killing without doing much work. Honestly, many homes were sold over asking within a few days, and these real estate agents would make $20,000 on the sale for a weekend's work.

Many people saw this and wanted to cash in and become realtors themselves, hoping to get in on the gravy train. I've interacted with 30 + realtors in the last 2 years and I'd say that at least 20 of them provided poor service.

I can even get into the MLS and how they are trying to have a monopoly on real estate listing services. I know there are sites like zillow and for sale by owner but lets face it, real estate boards have a strangle hold on the market which allows them to have these high commision structures.

And lets not even mention the lack of regulation that realtors and real estate agent brokerages have. If this was stocks or financial regulation companies, many of these guys would have their licenses taken away immediately. Remember MAC marketing and the fake news stories on chinese investors? If this was the financial services industry,they would have been stripped of their license and sued. Not to mention how much fake and misleading advertisements the industry has, or the amount of misrepresentation.

--> It bothers me that there is such a lack of regulation for arguably the largest single investment a person will have in their life. I mean when a buyer easily pays over $500,000 for a property, you figure that that industry would be more strictly regulated.

I'm not anti-realtors or anti-real estate industry, I just want more accountability and integrity. . . . just remember folks, "it's buy now or buy never" , or "everyday is a good day to buy".

it's simple risk, reward - when a realtor can make $40K in a month with no specific skills, education, or ability, you know something is wrong.

every transaction i've dealt with in Canada, the realtor has been absolutely useless, and I could have done everything myself (although as a businessman, i do have a particularly good understanding of how 'things' work). The one's i've dealt with in the US are all specialists in distressed property and provided, what i felt, was value for money on the purchases i make down there.

they want the potential to make tonnes of money hand over fist, but that comes with the risk of going months making $0. i could never be a realtor as i need a solid 6 figure income without question, so i got educated accordingly i can't say i'm excited about the work i do at my job, but i know i'll never be unemployed & have the skill to do many other things after 6pm.

this isn't about taking pleasure from anyone's pain, it is just what it is... risk & reward

i, also, have a problem with the lack of regulation and lack of barriers to entry with respect to higher education and ethics standards, but that's a personal thing

Well if you want to look big picture, universities are just businesses like anything else. The bottom line at the end of the day is $$. The fact that they can fill these classes means there's money to be made, if they didn't offer it a different institution would and somebody else would be taking/making that money.

There are ethical concerns well above and beyond real estate licensure courses if you're worried about the integrity of a university, all the way up to the top.

Is UBC not an NPO (Not for Profit Organization)? While it is a business, not for profit... But I do agree, more bums in seats, more money for research and other stuff uni's do

reminds me of the line from repo-men "you owe it to your family, you owe it to yourself"

http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/wp-co...-schreiber.jpg

Tho I don't think being a RE agent is unethical, I do think it's sad that our city is so focused on just RE. We need business that brings money into the city not something like this that just makes most people just poorer.

And this thread, 4 pages in less than 12 hours about cheap condos isn't about "Thank God there's a place I can afford to live" but instead "I bet I can buy this and make a wack of money off it"
http://www.revscene.net/forums/68310...os-surrey.html

Thanks Renney for stating the obvious. Why dont you explain how people can afford to keep paying their mortgages with 65% of the population making 55k? Let me guess...keep asking parents for help.
A band aid for disaster.

That Rennie guy is an idiot - should be illegal what he says (would be if he were talking about shares of a company that he sells) - ppl are too stupid to realize that it's all a house of cards

The thing is by the time the house of card falls.. Rennie and most of us on the board will be long retired.

Well thanks to the conservative and their small gov policies (small Stat Canada etc).. what Rennie say cannot be illegal, because there is no authoritative gov information to debunk what he spews, so there is no easy way to make what he says is illegal.. Not to mention he sells himself as a "Marketing System".. he is just a salesperson.

Harper and his crew knows how to create a reality distortion field, so basically all his enemies are screwed no matter what they do and normal Canadians are compliant.

Oh shit...too much to type for the tablet, but rennie! What a douche.

Hey! RE prices too high? No problem, well have mom and dad downsize...bonus if we can convince them its for their own good and put them in a single level living situatin or some crap and then spend their 30 year nest egg on a sweet condo from rennie that is overpriced but livable at 300 feet.

With rennie, you are never sure that you want the lifestyle, but the builders can profit at building it for you once youve been convinced.

That article talks about the Alba project, I had pretty much landed that fucking job and then they postponed/cancelled it what a fucking piss off.

So I was thinking about this...are we like, kind of screwed?

The baby boomers paid for their parents(took them in, covered bills) paid for themselves, then paid for their children, who, I read in another article...won't fucking leave.

What a distorted system.

I don't think you should jump on the conservative's back - this isn't a stats Canada thing, as stats can be read and interpreted in many different ways.

The issue is that there is no regulation on real estate with respect to pumping, lying, dumping the stuff.

There, to my knowledge, has never been, and that's the problem