Considering getting into Real Estate as an agent

Depends on how saturated your location is. Get ready to not make any money for a few months until you get the hang of things though.

You'll work a lot of hours if you're driven. If you're not putting in 50+ hours a week you probably won't be very successful. Clients are very unstable. They can work with you for weeks and just drop the dime and say we're not interested anymore. The money is there, just depends how hard you're willing to work.

Realistic pay is about 35-40k (depending on location) some make way more, some less.

If you can live on unstable income where you only sell 1-2 homes in 2 months then you can do it. But if you "have" to sell 3-4 homes a month to make ends meet, real estate isn't for you.

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Anyone have any luck or advice with making a career change like that? Is there a way to specialize in certain types of property sales?

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While there is a heavy market share of trophy wives and gaygents, there is also a market for practical, business minded, unemotional men who understand how to broker an agreement between two parties. But I will admit to be an average looking straight male you need to be smarter than the field. I've been extremely successful in new construction of custom homes. I also have built a catalog of reputable vendors for nearly every issue one may have with a house.

My advice is if you know a broker who is building a team and can bring you in, by all means take it. It is extremely difficult to gain any market presence otherwise. The other option is on site agent for production builder. Also a very tough road on many fronts.

Good luck

Colorado Springs & Denver or anywhere in between. I don't know anything about real estate, aside from what I experienced buying my first house. Would be open to either commercial or residential.

Its a hyper-competitive business, no offense but REAs are now a dime a dozen.

Look in the local phone book, I bet there are several hundreds in your area. Most markets are over-saturated with REAs.

A very few do very well in it, most end up starving and leave the industry.

There are websites like Zillow that make it more of a cut throat business.

You might do well in it, IDK. You have to stay super-motivated and you will hear 'no' many many times.

I am NOT in the RE business but know several who is/were, its a super-tough business.

Good luck.

My wife is an agent on the side here in Florida. There's a ton of agents and some certainly have more business than others. Finding a Broker is easy cause they make so much money off of you relative to what you cost them. My wife is currently working on her brokers liscense.
I find it's mostly just a networking type job. People use realtors who they know. It's a how many people you know sort of market. A few realtors seem to have a niche, but not many.

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I find it's mostly just a networking type job. People use realtors who they know. It's a how many people you know sort of market. A few realtors seem to have a niche, but not many.

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Good post. 100% of my business is referral. I know a couple agents who cold call and chase every dollar trying to rep every TD&H in our market. They get sued on average 1x year.

F all that.

What causes so many lawsuits conducting business that way?

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I predict that there will be about as many real estate agents as travel agents in a decade or so. The internet is going to kill the industry soon enough, they have hung on by getting a few protectionist laws passed but the profession is a dead man walking.

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15000 in middle tn alone. It's over saturated to say the least. The internet has changed the industry but is limited by not being tangible. Real estate at its core is tangible. You will never fully digitize real estate. You can never fully automate real estate.

Now when AI starts driving clients around, holding open houses for my builders/clients, meeting clients at my listings for showings, contacting vendors for clients for work needed/repairs, negotiating contracts between parties, & flipping property, yeah, my time is numbered.

Don't worry. He pops up in every RE thread. Agents could easily be made uneccessary. I no longer need a realtor to find houses, I no longer need a realtor to sell my house (with a guaranteed close in as quick as 3 days no less...thanks opendoor.com). Soon I will no longer need a realtor to negotiate with another adult because someone will automate the contracts and make them easily accessible to non realtors (for a fee that is minimal compared to what you'd pay an agent).

Personally, I can't wait for that day.

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Who knows exactly how the industry will morph in the digital age, what has happened to commission % in the last 10 years? The assisted FSBO market is still in its infancy, the next few years will be interesting to watch. Sorry you took it personally.

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Its my profession. I am a person. I believe my comment was based in logic and civil. Sorry if it came off any other way.

With respect to the other poster above as well, I simply don't see a world where some % of population based on a multitude of factors doesn't want a representative, human in nature, to represent their interest. Could people start trusting AI to do this is RE? Sure. Its my opinion that so much technology, then automation, then regulation has to take place that by that time Watson is potentially brokering both ends of the transaction I'll be off to greener pastures. At least in body form. But if we're going to go Kurzweil in this thread, then we might as well move it to the OT.

The fact is my book of business has never been stronger. And as fast as my market moves and the intangibles to make it happen, technology helps tremendously but is still limited by not being tangible.