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Message: <blockquote data-quote="adwyn" data-source="post: 2719454" data-attributes="member: 14083">As a Realtor for nearly fifteen years, I have to agree with Devilbat. In fact this is my third attempt to respond to the post but I keep getting called away unexpectedly by clients who A) just had to see the place they were in front of "right now" (6 PM on a Saturday), B) realized they didn't have as much down payment as they thought (11 PM Saturday night), C) Tenant locked himself out and got picked up by police trying to break in (3 PM Sunday morning, cops called at 6 AM).Now that's more than happened last week but is typical of a major part of being a real estate agent - unpredictability, both of schedule and income. Plus there are ominous changes on the horizon with the growth of banks trying to use agents as loss leaders, fear of a nation wide housing bubble, internent marketing, federal investigation of nation wide price fixing of commissions and more. Long and short, if you are either single and can live on rammen or have a spouse with an income willing to carry the family through lean periods (like your first 6-12 months), have good people skills, are willing to work long and erratic hours, have or can develop a large collection of contacts, then you you should contact some agents in your area and talk to them. The best way is to go to open houses, especially on rainy days when traffic is slow. Then agents who are actually working have some time (there often bored out of their minds) and will give you a much better perspective of what you can expect inb your market. keep in mind most of these people, no matter how honest and nice, still blow smoke, especially if you ask about income. For that find your local MLS. Get the number of homes sold last year, number of active agents, average sales price  per home. Multiply that by the average commision for your area and you'll get a good indicator of the average earnings per agent. It'll be scary - NAR estimates approximately 70% of commisions are earned by just 16% of the active agents.</blockquote>

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