Interesting post by a realtor on r/vancouver. Obviously, we need to take what they're saying with a grain of salt, though. The truth about being a realtor... (self.vancouver) Quote:
Hi everyone, I am a realtor in Vancouver and it makes me sad to see all the hate for our profession on this subreddit. Here is my reality and the reality for many of my friends and colleagues that I hope will clear up some misconceptions and stereotypes. Like every profession, there are many of us who care deeply, take our work seriously and try to go above and beyond in our professionalism and service, and then there are many who make the rest look bad.
Misconceptions:
- Income: My income before tax this year will be $30,000 and I work full time as a real estate agent in a team. I had a good year compared to many realtors and am very happy with this. This salary is the norm for many of us working 60 hours a week and what a moderately successful working realtor can expect (under 50k per year), especially in the beginning and depending on the market. Gaining this success as a new realtor without connections will take all of your blood, sweat and tears to gain any kind of client base and trust as the competition is immense.
On a sale of $1,000,000 which is still a luxury property and very hard to obtain, the selling commission is approximately $20,000. As a new realtor or to remain competitive, you often have to discount your service 10 to 25% as well. 25% goes to our brokerage so now we're at $15,000. I work in a team so I get 50% of the commission, now we are at $7500. I pay out of pocket for all expenses with no guarantee of a sale, and my typical individual expenses per listing $1500 but can easily be more, so now we are at 6000$. If it was discounted which half are in the beginning, I'd end up with about $4000. Most listings don't sell overnight, and many can last two months or more months. I will put approximately 200 overall hours of work into a listing over this time frame with no guarantee of any return. My last two listings didn't sell so I worked about 400 hours and lost $5000 dollars with no income over a 4 month period. Of every 100 leads you managed to generate you will be lucky to get a couple listing appts., and you will be lucky if one of these becomes a real listing, regardless of whether it sells.
- Marketing expenses: Please note that to obtain new business, realtors pay marketing expenses out of pocket, along with expenses for their listings from their own savings, and all realtors, especially newer ones, have no guarantee of any return. Many realtors I know work full time and then nights at a restaurant and other retail jobs but don't advertise this of course as it would look bad to their clients. No realtor wants to tell people they have a second job but it's very, very common. It's extremely expensive to do any kind of outbound marketing and most newer realtors cannot.
The realtors you see who gets licensed just to sell a friends multimillion dollar house and gets a quick windfall, or is able to make hundreds of thousands seemingly doing no work are not at all the norm but perhaps the most hyped and shared.
The realtors I see and work with care DEEPLY about real estate, the home buying and selling process and about the happiness of their clients. I am a realtor because I love selling homes and helping my clients find the perfect home for their family. I do not do it for the riches, but of course I always want to grow my income, and I know many times will be hard, rough and unprofitable and there will also be great years with hard work and dedication.
Expenses: Our yearly fees are thousands of dollars and getting licensed also costs about $5,000 overall. Again, this has to be paid out of pocket from your savings, often while doing other jobs to get by, with no guarantee of a return. You need to spend at least $1000 a month on advertising, including website expenses, signs, flyers etc. just to get by, so you're looking at likely 15k a year minimum. If you are newer, the market is slow or you are struggling, it will be VERY difficult to stay afloat and that's why the majority of realtors cannot last. The top 1% you see are either the hardest working, the longest in the business or the luckiest in their existing networks...very few of these realtors use the terrible tactics you hear of to pressure and deceive. A successful realtor lives off of referrals and their client base they build. To be successful in the long-term, you cannot deceive your clients, pressure them into bad purchases etc., otherwise they will not be repeat clients, and repeat clients and referrals are a requirement to succeed.
- Working with buyers: We can work with buyers for 6 months to a year with no income until they purchase (if they purchase). Our last buyers we showed them approximately 30 units and researched each building and strata for them to ensure they were protected and making a secure purchase. Buyers agents will care deeply about the success of their buyers and protecting the most important purchase of their life. We love working with buyers and will provide full service with no expectation of a return. We encourage them to take their time, learn as much as possible and consider all the options. I would lose sleep at night thinking a buyer was either unhappy with their purchase or with our service.
- Safeguarding data and tax measures: I have truly not met one realtor who has been against making sales data public or the new measures by the government to try to combat the housing madness and stabilize prices. It is not the norm.
- Making 100k on a sale etc. Yes this does happen, but please understand luxury realtors selling multi-million dollars houses are the TOP of their profession. Newer realtors have no opportunities to get these listings and some may never. The most expensive house in Vancouver I've had a listing appointment for was 1.2 million and I've had many listing appointments... People with a house over 2 million will not consider a new or unknown realtor without an extremely established history, or someone without experience selling luxury real estate. Obviously if you get a 4 million dollar listing and sell it overnight, it's an insane windfall and many realtors have been able to do this successfully. But how many?
There are 20,000 realtors in BC amounting to an insane amount of competition. Imagine the income distribution among these....there are only so many houses and condos selling over $2,000,000 and many are repeat luxury agents. This is not the norm and you are seeing the top .01%. A vast majority have 0 sales, 1 or 2 sales, or under 10. Even with over 10 sales my income before tax is $30,000 and I am a successful (self-sustaining, not out of business), full-time realtor.
Anyway, I hope this sheds some light on the other side of the equation. I would love for our profession and its oversight to continue evolving and for the ones with bad practices to face discipline and consequences. The vast majority agree with this but the bad apples are the most public.
Thanks very much for reading and all the best.
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