A Question For Real Estate Agents/Investors

[Mike Harris]

Can any of you real estate agents tell me if it is honestly worth it? As someone who wants to get into real estate investing I am looking for ways to acquire more knowledge. My current employment situation has nothing to do with real estate and takes about 50 hours of my week. Becoming a real estate agent seems like a good idea because it allows my job to also focus on my interests. By working I'll be increasing my knowledge at the same time. That said, does it pay enough to do full time? If I were to quit a steady job to pursue a passion in real estate, is an agent a smart way to go about it? I'm looking to increase my seed money for my first investment as well as pay my bills. Is this feasible as new agent? Any and all input would be greatly appreciated.

[Polo Vazquez]

@Mike Harris
As a real estate agent you will usually be getting anywhere from 2% to 3% of the sales price of the homes you help someone sell or buy. If you live on a market where the average home price is $200k, that means that if you sell 1 property a month you woudl have sold $2.4 Million in RE and will make in income anywhere from $48k to $72k per year.

I know agents that sell/buy $10million in real state and others that barely sell anything. So it just depends on how much effort you want to put into it. Of course it usually also takes time to build a large client base. Once you have a big enough client base you can even start hiring agents under you and take some of their commission in return for clients (that you can no longer help because you are too busy) and experience. So yes, you can make A LOT of money, but you can also make none and quit your first year like 80% of people do.

If you are weary of doing the change I would suggest you invest first, get some passive income flowing then do the transition to agent. This way the passive income can help you endure the first few years while you build clientel. After year five, more than half of you sales will come from previous clients/relations you've had.

Hope it helps!