The National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) recently released its 2019 Member Profile. Here is a brief overview of this year’s report.
For the sixth year in a row, realtors said that their greatest difficulty in real estate was finding the right property for their clients. The reasons realtors cited for that difficulty were affordability and appropriate price-point inventory.
The typical real estate agent completed 11 transactions in 2018. The typical realtor’s net income increased 5% from 2017 to 2018. The median gross income for a realtor with 16+ years of experience was $71,000; the median gross income for a realtor with 2 years or less experience was $9,300. 36% of realtors earned their commissions on a fixed split basis while 23% worked on a graduated commission split basis that increased with the realtor’s productivity or success rate of closed deals.
The largest expense category for realtors was their vehicle. That expense came in at approximately $1,370/year, similar to vehicular expenses in 2017.
In terms of business activities, realtors put in 35 hours/week in 2018, down from 40 hours/week the year before. Realtors generated 13% of their business from repeat clients and 17% of their business through referrals. Realtors who also worked as property managers managed an average of 47 properties in 2018, up from 35 properties in 2017.
Demographically, the average realtor in 2018 was 54 years old, Caucasian and 67% female who is a homeowner with some college in her background. 84% of realtors owned their own home while 38% owned secondary properties.
68% of realtors were licensed as sales agents; 71% specialized in residential properties. 20% of realtors had broker licenses and 14% had broker associate licenses.
In terms of office and firm affiliations in 2018, nine in ten realtors were independent contractors and 54% of realtors worked with independent companies. The average tenure with a company/brokerage was four years, similar to 2017. Nine percent of realtors worked with a firm that was bought or merged within the last two years.
72% of realtors worked only in real estate…they were not splitting their time in another occupation. In terms of years of experience,
- 58% of realtors had two years or less in terms of experience
- 70% of realtors had 3-5 years of experience
- 75% of realtors had 6-15 years of experience
- 82% of realtors had 16 years or more of experience
51% have had a website for at least 5 years.
9% have a real estate blog.
73% use Facebook for their business.
58% use LinkedIn for their business.
