What are the pros and cons of being a Real Estate Agent?

What sort of real estate agent do you want to be? There are several types of agents: residential or commercial, leasing (rentals) or sales, apartments or houses - all of these need agents.

I am currently a commercial real estate leasing broker. Some of the pros are being able to work at my own pace. I work with several awesome clients, and it's rewarding to be able to put them into space of their own. I also love real estate, and am able to learn a lot. Additionally, I'm not sitting in front of a computer all day, every day. I am able to get out of the office for tours, meetings, and industry events.

On the other hand, it can be stressful in that you really need to be aggressive in finding your clients. There are some days that are all cold calling. Until you've built a client base, you are constantly working for new leads; more often than not, they will say no. You need to be ready for that, and not let it get you down. Additionally, as a young broker, your income is not necessarily stable: it all depends on your team, and how your salary work. It can be only commission, so in order to make money, you need to close deals. Finally, it's very tough to break into commercial real estate - a lot of it depends on networking.

At the end of the day, if you enjoy "selling," are a hard worker, and are able to stick it out and stay positive, it can be a very rewarding career.

Hi there,

I'm not a real estate agent but my dad has been one for 20+ years.

I believe he enjoys the job quite a bit. It is true that you have to be flexible with your hours - he works on the weekends all the time and has shown houses on holidays such as Thanksgiving - but flexibility can also be a benefit. When I was growing up, my dad was always the one who drove us to activities because it was easy for him to take off in the middle of the day. Now he's older and it's been easy for him to scale back his hours without retiring entirely.

You do have to really enjoy people. My dad is the kind of person who starts conversations with people in the line at the grocery store or sitting next to him on the airplane, and he's found quite a few customers that way.

As far as pay, I'd say it varies a lot. He's had some great years and some not so great years. During the recent recession for example, housing sales really plummeted and it was quite hard for real estate agents. You're also basically in business for yourself - even when you work for an agency, such as Century21 or Remax, you're essentially self-employed - so you need to be a good planner, saver, and self-motivator. If you are, the independence can be really enjoyable.

It is a tough field, but some love it and do really well. You can make great money(if you work really hard, with a little bit of good luck as well), but only when the market is good. The housing market fluctuates so there will be times where you will definitely struggle. I have many friends in the real estate industry who were making great money, but also spending that money rather than saving for when things slowed down.

So, you have to be highly disciplined, not only with money, but with managing all aspects of a business. Being a people person is a must. You will have to find your own business, so networking, selling, and sometimes just picking up the phone is what it takes. From there, you have to build strong relationships to get great referrals.

It's a personal choice. Some love the idea of freedom and running their own business, where others think of having a fluctuating income and no regular/reliable paycheck terrifying.

Hi, my best friend is an agent and he just worked for us to sell our home recently so we talked a lot. I will share with you what he has told me. The pros are independence, helping people, working with a variety of people (title companies, appraisers, other agents, customers/buyers and sellers). You set your own schedule and and control your own life and income. The cons for some people (not everyone) is that you typically do not get paid unless you actually produce by working with clients that either buy a home or you sell theirs, the hours for real estate agents can be long with a lot of evenings and weekend work. Hope this helps...good luck.

I was not a real estate agent, however I worked in the Title Insurance and Escrow side of the business. You definitely need great communication and sales skills to be successful in this business. There's a great deal of feast and famine so managing your work and being self driven is also a key element. A college education is certainly helpful to this field however each state has a requirement of classes, licensure and continuing education to be able to sell property. That would be a great place to start is finding out what those requirements are and chatting with local agents in your area on how they became successful in their careers.