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Not by a long shot! MSNBC enumerates the highest paying careers in America today from pharmacists to CEO's whose average salary ranges from $112k to $200k+. Contrary to popular belief, realtors don't really earn much dough. The median salary is a mere $40k, per US News. That's the same as a manager at McDonalds! 

 
 
Despite their aura of success, real estate agents frankly don't earn much. Business Journals/US Census reports average pay in Arizona is $39k. In San Francisco, it is $52k. What?! You'd make more as a Walmart manager.  

The law of averages may explain this stat. 90% of the business is done by 10% of the agents. That means full time successful agents  (10%) can indeed make a substantial living. But that also means the other 90% (part-timers, dabblers) are earning a dismal fraction of $39k! 

 
 
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image from PerezHilton.com
TMZ exclusively reports that Charlie Sheen's real estate agent (realtor to the stars Marty Trugman) is being sued by Brooke Mueller's mom (Moira Fiore), who claims she is owed a referral fee from Marty. The TMZ story says she is out of luck because she is not licensed in California, but inter-state referral agreements occur all the time between agents. The real problem for Moira is to produce a referral fee agreement signed by both Marty's brokerage and Moira's brokerage. Do you think it actually exists or do you think she is just desperate for dough (& fame!)?

 
 
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Need some extra gas money? Sell a home!
Being a realtor is as easy as 1-2-3! Just troll Craigslist for cheapo clients, put your name & license on the line, slave away, do ALL the work, and get paid pennies. There’s nothing to it!
Wut-evah!
Hilarity aside, this is an actual ad I pulled from Craigslist. So this is what its come to, eh? Our services, our knowledge, our expertise boils down to a measly 500 clams.  AG Beat writes more about this here. Have you ever sourced a Craigslist client and lived to regret it? Or post some success stories! I wanna hear...and please tell me you were paid more than $500! :-)


 
 
I just wrote an offer for my buyers on a townhouse that was For Sale By Owner (FSBO). The deal didn't come together because the sellers significantly  overpriced the house (duh, no surprise there!) They came up with a price based on the amount of money they owed on the house and how much profit they needed, when they should have based it on the current market and recent comparable closed sales. They might learn eventually...but only after wasting everyone's months of time, money & effort.

I dread FSBO's because
  1. The sellers don't really know what they are doing. They read Selling Your Home for Dummies once and  think they are experts....when in reality they are just winging it. So what ends up happening is the buyer's agents has to do double duty to hold the deal together.  They gotta do twice the work for 1/2 the pay!
  2. FSBO's are notorious for slashing commissions. They don't realize if they don't compensate agents what they are worth,  guess what, those agents are not going to show their property! Inventory of buyers plummets. The listing gets "blackballed"
  3. Selling a house is a full time job. FSBO sellers have their own jobs 40-60 hours a week. That is 40-60 hours they can not sufficiently service all the paperwork, inquiries, showings, open houses, disclosures, etc required to sell a property.
What do you guys think? Share your FSBO experiences!
 
 
Find out what Realtors really get paid.