re: Thoughts on real estate as a profession

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You might want to consider becoming an appraiser. The demand for their services is great and they make good money. I deal in rural real estate and sometimes wonder if I should have followed a different career path when I see what appraisers are paid.

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Appraisers and surveyors are both in high demand.

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all I see is them driving up the market price 30%

I'd rather you knock 20% off the price of the house and cut them out. I pay 20% less, you make 10% more. It's perfect.

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What agents are making 30% and 20% on houses? I need to move there.

Standard is 6% but that has really dropped to about 5% over the years.

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Only the top 1% make money.

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You mean make serious money. If you're in a big enough office, you can make money just taking phone duty.

I sold for 4 years and made $80K my first year when I was 22. I eventually started buying and building and let my license go because I was busy investing instead of selling. When doing that carrying a Realtor license doubles your liability if someone sues you.

If I had stayed with it, I see no reason I wouldn't be on the $150-$200K+ yearly income doing it. It just takes really busting your arse your first few years and working a lot. After that you can start working off of referrals and do pretty decent not working nearly as hard. By my 3rd year I was spending half my week on the golf course and still doing well. Of course, getting a lot of listings is where it's at vs driving all over showing houses constantly.

I also was lucky and got into right before the subprime bubble really took off. Made it a lot easier starting out. I left before the pop but a lot of people I knew that got in during all of that left not long after it went South because they were no longer making any money. They're the ones that didn't properly farm referrals and never established a consistent client base. They would sell someone a house and never speak to them again.

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I was told 30% of market price is driven by realtor fees/commission.

I don't care enough to check that.

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That's stupid. There are studies that show houses sold by a Realtor vs FSBO actually sell for a higher price so if anything Realtors actually pay for themselves.

ETA: It's also stupid considering Realtors only charge 6%. Where is the other 24% coming from?

Realtors are idiots. My last house sold for $40k more than what she told me to list it for. I knew what my house was worth. She thought she knew.

On the other hand, the house I bought was through the same realtor and I bought it for $30k less than what she "advised" me to offer.

I told her to just push the paperwork and schedule the closing. That's all they are good for. I ended up only paying her 2% on each house.

As far as selling it, flipping it or renting it?

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Realtors are idiots. My last house sold for $40k more than what she told me to list it for. I knew what my house was worth. She thought she knew.

On the other hand, the house I bought was through the same realtor and I bought it for $30k less than what she "advised" me to offer.

I told her to just push the paperwork and schedule the closing. That's all they are good for. I ended up only paying her 2% on each house.

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Sounds like you had a moron. I would have fired her and hired someone more competent.

ETA: Sounds like BS too because why were you paying her commission as a buyer?

Because the house was in foreclosure

I know some very successful real estate guys, but simply selling real estate isn't their only job...they sell a lot of land their family has owned, have a lot of rentals, develop houses that they sell, etc.

The crazy thing is, I have talked with, and tried to work with several realtors who know zip about their own markets and its trends....But they can still make pretty good money hustling their asses off, many times missing out on family time because evenings and weekends are the prime times to be showing houses.

The biggest advantage that realtors have is access to post your house on the MLS. That way, everybody looking for a house sees it. That advantage is dwindling away as a lot of absentee brokers will allow posting under their credentials with a flat fee.