The Hardest Part About Being a Real Estate Agent

Brotherly Love for the Realtors

The 6th most populous city in the United States in 2024 was Philadelphia, coming in at 1,573,916. That same year, in 2024, there were 1,554,604 Realtors. If you took all the Realtors and put us into one spot (lots of ADHD), we’d be the 7th largest city in the United States!

So, why are there so many Realtors? One reason is the number 70. While 70 makes for a beautiful autumn day for Northerners, it also represents the 70% passing grade for the real estate exam. You heard that right. The lowest of the C-’s gives you a license and designation (half fail the exam, by the way). But half of the Realtors (777,300) made one sale or less. Realtors the size of Seattle—coming in as the 19th largest city—can’t even do two sales.

The truth of the matter is, despite the easy entry, it’s a much more skill-filled job than it looks from the outside. Street smarts, people skills, strategic thinking, and the ability to process quickly on one’s feet don’t exactly correlate to the useless metes and bounds the examiners want you to know on the real estate exam. I’ve never used metes and bounds ever! Last year, I added up 151 job duties a real estate agent does on the purchasing side of things to dispel the notion that all a real estate agent does is open the door. I titled it Nobody Reads This. If you do read it, you’ll get an idea of why the job is so demanding—and why 90% drop out in two years!

You know many of us Realtors, we are everywhere. So, I thought it might be intriguing to know what our Realtors go through. Here are the eleven hardest parts of the job that have nothing to do with contracts, searches, and knowledge of real estate:

Hours – 168
People text and call at all sorts of crazy hours. It’s literally 24-7. A decade ago, there were still some boundaries. The texting protocol has gone out the window. People just text at late-night hours or wee hours of the morning.
Crazy People
The most normal of folk can go insane when buying or selling a home. People have no druthers about taking everything out on you after the 10-day honeymoon list period. Helping them through it can be challenging but its also rewarding at the same time.It’s our job to help them weather the storm.
Do-it-Yourselfers
Once in a blue moon we’ll get a client who wants to do everything themselves and then accuse us of not doing it before we had a chance. You think you’re going batty.
Loyalty
Much less so than before the buyer’s broker agreement. And most people are terrific. But you do get people who couldn’t care less about the time you put into a sale. For most Realtors this can be the most disheartening part.
Inconsistent Pay
When it rains, it pours. Then you can have a drought and have to make it through the slow summer and fall months with little pay.
Hurt Balloons
If a sale takes a long time or gets beaten up in the process, clients can become “hurt balloons.” You know, when you get a helium balloon and it starts to deflate and is all sad. It’s part of our job to nurse them through the process and hold it together. In the Big Short, this was common place as people were in tough financial shape and taking severe losses. I actually had one this week where I talked with one of our agents clients late at night giving some guidance to make sure a deal held together. While hard at the time, the biggest hugs and most gratifying sales were from helping people through that time period.
No Insurance
Realtors are 1099. Insurance benefits. Ha!!!
No 401k
Ditto.
90% Dropout Rate
Within two years, 90% of new agents drop out. Think about that. We had one Harvard double major whose skill sets were dwarfed when it came to meeting a Chris Farley Tommy Boy type salesperson. Our Harvard double major didn’t make it incidentally! There are lot of highly educated successful Realtors but sales is not a skill set that is measured well in college or a traditional IQ test. For the amount of people in all sales professions in the United States, its astounding that more schooling attention wouldn’t be drawn to it along with measuring and treating it as a proper intelligence. It’s a combination of not knowing the area, the business, not doing the hard grind it out work, and lacking a pipeline. Just as critical, many don’t have the skill set to read people, communicate well, and empathize with emotions. “Tommy want wingy”, is our genius. Is there not a better sales movie than Tommy Boy?
Freedom
Major culprit. Realtors don’t have to show up for work. There is no set schedule and if you don’t have a client, there’s no one to report to. It takes discipline to be successful.
Personality Disorders
This is different from the normies who become crazy. Four percent of the population is estimated to be sociopathic. I had years where I did 100 transactions. Multiply that by two people if a spouse is involved and you have 200. Same 200 for the other side. That’s 400 people. You do the math. I usually could weed out the nutcases, but you don’t have a choice once you are in a deal on the other side other than communicating erratic behavior to your client. My Grandpa had a saying. “You can’t do a good deal with a bad guy”. If we see difficult people, we always communicate that to our clients. We want to let them know in advance that they could be in for a rocky road.