Percentage of Real Estate Agents , who have ZERO SALES in 2026

Mechanicsburg, PA · Member since 2013 · 3k+ posts · 2k+ votes

According to an AI inquiry that I did today, the answer is....

Viral claims in 2026 state that 84% of US real estate agents have closed zero transactions. Roughly 84% of NAR-registered agents (or over 1.1 million professionals) had closed zero properties. The number may be inaccurate because of Inactive Licenses, Team Colsolidation, and Off Market & Commercial Deals.

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Jay HinrichsBusiness Member

Real Estate Consultant · Summerlin, NV · Member since 2014 · 45k+ posts · 66k+ votes

having owned 3 brokerages over the decades this number does not shock me.. when I think of a small office I owned say 20 or so agents. top 3 did 80% of the volume. bottom 5 might only do one or two deals and usually with a relative or good friend.. Its a tough bizz to crack much like wholesaling . It gets good when you can make it 10 years and 90% or more of your business is referral.

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Jaron WallingPro Member
Rental Property Investor · Indianapolis, IN · Member since 2018 · 4k+ posts · 4k+ votes
3w
Based on what I'm seeing locally houses are not moving quick. Every listing I "favorited" on Zillow has high DOM, price drops, and I look at different areas. One is the starter/rental/BRRRR type neighborhood and another were we live; usually larger homes and better schools. Wouldn't surprise me if 84% of agents haven't closed anything.

Contrary to that the north side of Indy (Carmel, Westfield, Noblesville, Fishers, Zionsville) all seem to go pending quickly. A lot of those listings are luxury and priced accordingly. The ratio of cheaper property sitting and high dollar selling is way off.
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- Jay HinrichsBusiness Member
  Real Estate Consultant · Summerlin, NV · Member since 2014 · 45k+ posts · 66k+ votes
  3w
  there is no question that investor sales are way off.. those I provide funding for on the bRRR they will try to sell first if there is a nice spread and if not will then refi..
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Jay HinrichsBusiness Member
Real Estate Consultant · Summerlin, NV · Member since 2014 · 45k+ posts · 66k+ votes
3w
having owned 3 brokerages over the decades this number does not shock me.. when I think of a small office I owned say 20 or so agents. top 3 did 80% of the volume. bottom 5 might only do one or two deals and usually with a relative or good friend.. Its a tough bizz to crack much like wholesaling . It gets good when you can make it 10 years and 90% or more of your business is referral.
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David Krulac
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Mechanicsburg, PA · Member since 2013 · 3k+ posts · 2k+ votes
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@Jay Hinrichs Before I owned my own Brokerage, I worked at another Brokerage that had 30 agent licenses hanging on the wall. I was there for years and never saw some of those agents. The broker's philosophy was if they pull in 1 listing or 1 sale it was worth it to the company. But many of them never reached even the 1 transaction per year threshold.
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- Jay HinrichsBusiness Member
  Real Estate Consultant · Summerlin, NV · Member since 2014 · 45k+ posts · 66k+ votes
  3w
  industry has changed a lot with the 100% commish pay monthly model or yearly like my wife did. those brokerage would give you a choice high producers like Ms Lori could pay yearly and get 100% of the commish no other fees those with little to no volume would go on the split.. kind of a nice way for an office to have some cash flow waiting for closings.. The other thing I would see is agents who borrow against future commissions and then demands come in to pay those loans off. Or agents who never have been self employeed and dont pay 1.4 estimates and come around april 10th need and advance to pay thier tax's :)
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David Krulac
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Mechanicsburg, PA · Member since 2013 · 3k+ posts · 2k+ votes
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@Jay Hinrichs Agree investor sales are down, but also owner occupant sales are still down. All those people with 2, 3, 4% mortgages are sitting tight , "waiting for interst rates to decline." The FED held interest rates too low for too long then increased them too fast in a short peiod of time. IMHO, they were wrong both times. When I bought my first house the interst rate was 9% and later I bought a place at 15% fixed for 30 years. 6% doesn't look too bad from where I sit. And last year bought 3 new builds with 4.25%, 4.25% and 4.75%, fixed for 10 years, 10 years and 30 years. Recently saw a builder offering 3.85% interest in 2026.
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- Jay HinrichsBusiness Member
  Real Estate Consultant · Summerlin, NV · Member since 2014 · 45k+ posts · 66k+ votes
  3w
  I hear ya on slow sales.. my Ivy Ridge project up until 25 I sold everything as soon as we got C of O the last 6 houses took 14 months.. and everyone of them came in low ball and with seller credits.. no way guy like me or small builder can do buy downs like the large builders do.. so those are the companies doing well and are continuing to do well.. from what I read rates are not going to change for some time yet.. and probably will not get below 5.5 or so if ever.
  I know I fight with the mrs about a new house and I tell her I am not selling my paid for home to go into debt on 2 mil home :) So you have that same attitude in many markets all over the country. But there are still sales its just anyone who bought from about 21 to now is probably lucky to break even or will take a capital loss and its always been that way with rentals.. as buyers price rentals for a given income and rents have been pretty flat to falling the last 3 years or so.. I know i have experinced it and sold my SFR and have moved to flex industrial with credit tenants and NNN .. much eaiser than mom and pop drama.
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Adam S.
Member since 2026 · 72 posts · 30 votes
3w
It also doesn't count brokers/agents who handle rentals. It also doesn't count brokers who only handle property management. So, the numbers can be misleading.
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James Hamling
Real Estate Broker · Minneapolis, MN · Member since 2011 · 5k+ posts · 6k+ votes
3w
Is the 84% ratio of 0 sales real? Probably.
Does it mean things have collapsed for 84%? Not a chance.
What that data doesn't put into context is that at any given time in history arguably 50% of agents are 0 producers, if not more.
It's just the biz.
The bar to entry is all but on the ground. And the all too common myth that it's oh-so-easy, big $ to be made, entices in countless low effort low dedication persons chasing lotto-ticket dreams to jump in every year, month, week.
What the general public sees of an agents life is the easy part; walk a property, talki-talk about things, hang-out at a closing, this is 5% of it but yet too many assume it's the whole.
50% is just getting clients, 45% is the nighty-gritty work of the transaction from negotiations too paperwork etc..
That 95% of the work, chews people up and spits them out on a very regular basis.
Is volume down for many, heck yeah it is, big time.
But is 50% of actual producers gone to 0? Not a chance.
The reality I am seeing on the ground follows the 80/20 rule.
About 20% are doing just fine, business as usual.
Sure, business has evolved, adapted, but it's just another Tuesday. And, if anything, there growing, gobbling up market share.
The 80%, various iterations of struggling, because they didn't evolve, adapt, or not at the rate others have.
The market has changed, the tools have changed, and with that it's yet another fork in the road of those who changed with the changing environment and those who tried to keep pressing yesterdays actions today.
In Real Estate it's not true that if you keep doing what you've always done that you'll always get what you always got; you'll get less, until get nothing.
Gotta adapt to where the ball is going, not where it's been.
For me, I don't allow the brain rot of saying it's any tougher, it's just different.
'09' things got different. '12' things were different again. '17' was different as '20' got wildly different.
And here we are '26' different yet again.
The only thing that doesn't change, is change itself.
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David Krulac
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Mechanicsburg, PA · Member since 2013 · 3k+ posts · 2k+ votes
3w
@Jay Hinrichs It tore me up to give up those low interest rates too. In 2021 we sold our personal residence that had a 2.87% fixed rate interest. I hated giving up that low interst rate, but downsizing was the right thing to do. We had been there a long time, kids were grown and out of the house, never to return; so we went through the 1/3 keep, 1/3 donate, and 1/3 discard. It felt good to get rid of things we really didn't need. (We moved into a house that I bought in 2015 and had been renting. My wife had never seen it.) Then this year 2026 we sold one of our second homes in another state, which had a fixed rate mortgage of 2.5%. Over all the years of owning personal residences, only one did not have a mortgage. The first residence I bought had a 90% LTV, and the second had 97% LTV. Those personal residence mortgages were the easiest to get with the lowest fixed rate mortgages. But with their low interst rates, they the hardest personally to pay off and relinquish those low interest rates.
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Joe PryorBusiness Member
Real Estate Broker · Oklahoma City · Member since 2026 · 13 posts · 9 votes
3w
I would add into your statistic the number of licensed assistants that are NAR members who don't actively sell. On teams the head of the team typically get credit for the sale even though they are not directly involved in the sale. I think a strong case can be made for 40% to 50% of agents that are active don't make a sale. Some of those are "part time" which means there haven't quit their day job so this is more of a side hustle. Whatever the real number is, the low barrier of entry continues to plague the industry and causes some folks to put us at the level of used car salesmen.
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Adam BartomeoBusiness Member
Real Estate Broker · Cape Coral, FL · Member since 2015 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
3w
This may be right because 95% of agents are complete boobs and shouldn't be in the industry. Your best agents will always be successful.
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Drew SygitBusiness Member
Property Manager · Royal Oak, MI · Member since 2012 · 12k+ posts · 9k+ votes
3w
Hey, but those 84% are all INVESTOR-FRIENDLY agents!
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