Luxury Real Estate: This also a very nice niche once you obtain your license. There are pros and cons as there is with Property Management. When speaking about Luxury Real Estate we are speaking about homes from 1M and up. The obvious benefit to this is the amount of money you earn on each transaction. Example, 1M sale at 3% commission gets you 30K income, now subtract your splits with your broker, let says 80/20 split, agent would receive $24k commission, do that 4 times a year and you are at 96K. Not bad at all for going to a pre licensing 65 hour course. Let’s point out the cons. It’s not as easy as it sounds or as seen on TV. This market is more of a referral based market. You can definitely do it without referral, but at some point, you need to have those buyers or sellers in your sphere. The cost to reach this price range is very costly upfront. We are talking about a marketing campaign in the range of 4k to 5k a month at least in advertising within those areas. After a few months of the campaign you might receive a few calls from sellers or buyers. There is a lot more to it than just mailing, it needs to be done the proper way. Thus a large investment is needed to start right of the bat in that price range.
Real Estate Agent: The two previous paths don’t appear to everyone, I would say 90% of agents go with the traditional Real Estate Agent path. This path in a sense leads to the two previous ones as well. As you are in the field, you’ll be learning from other agents, property managers and so on. Why so many agents go with the traditional Real Estate Agent is due to its training and perhaps generate real estate leads quicker income earning. If you put in the work, you can earning income in as little as 30 days, while property management and Luxury Real Estate does take its time for the business to start coming in. The cons of this path is the amount of training, start up and hard work you will need to put upfront due to inexperience and mistakes you will make before have a steady and stable income (whatever stable means to you). Agents usually earn 3% of whatever the sale amount of the home is. Example, 200K home, commission would be 6K, let’s take the same split as before 80/20, agent receives $4,800 X 1 a month X 12, agent would earn $57,600 yearly. Not bad at all. Do keep in mind that some, the majority or most Real Estate companies do charge a transaction fee, desk if, yearly fee and so on.
All In all, the path when you obtain your Real Estate Licenses totally depends on you. Do note that whichever you decide on will require hard work, countless hours of training and possibly working Saturdays and Sundays. All of these have their pros and cons. There is a lot more to each of these then I described and you should research more shall you want a Real Estate Career.