New to the Business

The barrier to entry into the real estate market is very low. In fact, that is probably the easiest part of the business.  The general perception seems to be that once you get your license that you can start selling. You cannot. Real estate school teaches you a lot of things most of it useless.  They should focus less on hectare and more on contracts, inspection issues, negotiating marketing and other things you will need to learn.  Your real estate license will get you in the door to an agency. It will not get you a sale or money right away.

IF you are:

• ready to jump in with two feet
• ready to work full time as a REALTOR
• willing to join the MLS
• willing to join the local real estate association
• willing to join NAR (National Association of Realtors)
• ready to commit to an ample marketing budget and....
• ready to hear "no" from your family and friends

THEN you might be ready to become a realtor.

The anecdotal perception is that hundreds of thousands people become realtors every year and hundreds of thousands quit.

To my knowledge, there are no formal attrition rates for new realtors. The only organization that could possibly document the number is NAR (National Association of Realtors) but they do not track this number.  From personal experience and observation I think that attrition rate is probably accurate.  I'll even go a little further and guess that 1 in 20 people will stick around as a realtor for more than a few years.

Why is the attrition rate so high?  I'll offer some guesses:

• Being a realtor is hard work.  It can destroy your weekends, your evenings, your daylight hours.
• The perception is that the job is easy. However the devil is in the details.  If all you did was show houses then it would be easy.  But showing houses is the easy (and dare I say fun) part.
• It can be expensive to maintain your license, pay board dues, continuing education fees, MLS fees, NAR dues and more requirements for keeping your license.
• Prediction - your family and friends will not use you to sell their most valuable resource and you will feel ostracized and upset.
• Reverse prediction - if you become a realtor and then quit, you will not use a newly licensed realtor to buy or sell real estate.
• It will likely take you at least 4 or 5 months to earn any substantive money.
• Advertising is not cheap.  You are starting a business and you have to treat it like a business.  Most businesses fail.

eXp Realty offers tons of support for all REALTORS.  We MIGHT be right for you if you work hard and apply yourself. However, it is just as likely that the real estate industry may be a wrong fit for you in general.  If you have your license, interview different firms and figure out where you are comfortable.