Humor

How Long Should It Take to Reach 6 Figures as an Agent? Redditors Sound Off

Reddit user negativeabsorption69 asks agents how long it took them to reach 6 figures. Dive into the heated advice and unfiltered reactions from seasoned agents.

January 11, 2025
Sarah Lentz

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Real estate agents often find themselves at a crossroads: go all-in on real estate and aim for financial freedom—or take a salaried position with a regular paycheck.

Reddit user negativeabsorption69 posted a question on Saturday, January 4th—the first weekend of the new year—to get some much-needed perspective on his current situation as a real estate agent:

“How long did it take you guys to get over $100K yearly?”

Here’s the full text of his Reddit post:

Hey all,

I guess this is a question, slightly a rant.

I’ve been in real estate 6 years now. I graduated from college and started in property management/landlord rep on the commercial side. Covid began and I quickly saw the writing on the wall that in the commercial world I would not make much money for 2 years.

I pivoted to residential with a family friend who was very successful selling and flipping. That was 2021. I made 45k that year which wasn’t that bad but honestly it was elevated by the market. 2022 I cleared 60k. 2023 was rough and back to 40k. 2024 probably 50k.

I am currently finishing a MBA as well which has taken a lot of my time. I’ve been offered two jobs in the 80-100k range. I do enjoy real estate a lot but I am curious for people in the industry that have done it 10+ years how long did it take for you to make 100k+ doing it full time. At my current splits and fees I’d have to sell roughly 8.5M in my market (average price I’m selling is in the 300-500k range).

Commenters did not mince words, with quite a few reacting strongly to the agent’s split:

Reddit-comment16-What-the-F-kind of-split

Reddit-comment9-That-split-is-wild-Leave — Many commenters favored the idea of the poster taking the lucrative job and doing real estate part-time as a side hustle:

Reddit-comment18-Take-the-job-Do-RE-on-the-side

Reddit-comment21-Take-the-job-Volume-is-way-down

Reddit-comment1-Take-the-salary-job — Then there’s this comment from _reefermadness:

Reddit-comment5-Reefermadness-Terrible-career-to-choose-if — Some commenters kept to the OP’s question, with most reaching six figures in five years or less.

Reddit-comment3-4-years-typical-agent-never-breaks-100K

Reddit-comment10-Year3 — A few reached six figures their first year as full-time agents:

Reddit-comment15-First-year-Great-team — And some acknowledged it took them longer than five years: :

Reddit-comment19-8yrs-Need-to-be-selling-20-30-homes-per-yr — So, what advice would you give negativeabsorption69? Or have any of the comments given you food for thought?

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About the Author

Sarah Lentz

Sarah Lentz started writing for BAM in late May of 2022 and quickly realized she was exactly where she wanted to be (and still is). Before BAM, she worked as a freelance writer. She lives in Minnesota with her four kids and, in her free time, is writing her next book.