Welcome • User Guide
ToS • Privacy • Canary
Donate • Bugs • License

©2025 Poal.co

466

I’m guessing it’s somewhere around 10 hours, but I might be wrong. The issue I’m dealing with is if a house sells for $1M (pretty low here in Marin County), and the commission for the agent is 3%, then it seems the agent is making $3,000 an hour.

We all know real estate agents are horrible for a number of reasons, but I’d like some more firm clarity on this on aspect of their evil. So if I’m incorrect about the number of hours an agent spends on selling a house, please let me know.

I’m guessing it’s somewhere around 10 hours, but I might be wrong. The issue I’m dealing with is if a house sells for $1M (pretty low here in Marin County), and the commission for the agent is 3%, then it seems the agent is making $3,000 an hour. We all know real estate agents are horrible for a number of reasons, but I’d like some more firm clarity on this on aspect of their evil. So if I’m incorrect about the number of hours an agent spends on selling a house, please let me know.
[–] • 3 pts

I've never been a real estate agent, but I've had clients who were in the top 1% of real estate agents.

They had a whole team of people to make deals go through smoothly. They had engineers on staff who would do a full inspection of the property and point out things like thermal evidence of water damage behind walls, tilting/sinking foundations. If it was all good, they'd sign off saying so., if not, it was brought forward and had to be disclosed.

They had friends who worked in the city zoning dept. and would find out if new buildings were going up, if something was getting rezoned etc.

They had a team of assistants who were masters at filling out paperwork and getting the right people to sign on the right spots and at the right time.

The agents had regular meetings with their teams to let them know what deals were coming in and what was needed.

Without the team, they would have to manage that all by themselves and go out and find new leads. That last part, finding new people, they tell me is where the most of their tike is spent. They are always looking for new people who want to buy or sell, and convincing people that you are the one to represent them was the real work. They were always holding events, taking clients out and asking them to bring a friend etc. It is a lot of keeping track of small pieces of information, keeping in touch with a lot of people so that you can send them through the process you have set up in order to generate sales to pay your staff and keep your operation growing.

So a REALLY good real estate agent is going to demonstrate their value by making sure that when you buy a house from them, you're not going to have any surprises spring up right after you take possession.

[–] • 1 pt

It’s nice to know they need a buyer to be satisfied to help them generate new sales leads, ie. their reputation matters. I still don’t trust these people though. They represent both sides of the transaction, the seller and the buyer. That’s a conflict of interest. Their commission depends on the sale price of the house, which means they want to sell it to you at the highest price possible, so by coincidence they are on the side of the seller and not the buyer.

When you are buying they are like any big ticket sales person. They act like they’re your best friend who is looking out for you, but they’re really trying to get as much money out of you as possible. Don’t trust anything they say. Check everything yourself. Shop around on your own to see what your options are. They will only show you properties they can profit from.

[–] • 1 pt

There are a lot of shitty ones put there for sure. I always laugh when I see their bil cards that say something like "I'll sell your house for the most amount of money possible". I just think "why would I ever buy from you then?"

[–] • 0 pt

All good information, but how many hours does a real estate agent actually put in on the sale of a property?

[–] • 0 pt

For a good one it is tought to say. They are ALWAYS dealing with people. I could not meet with them for more than 10 consecutive minutes before they would have to excuse themselves to take a call.

[–] • 0 pt

There is another thought I had about this. The number of hours it took the agent to become excellent. If I'm hiring a handyman, I want a guy who has done and seen it all, who will know to ask me questions on details I didn't consider or know about. If I design a custom made shelf, I want the guy who will look at the plans and instantly realize I didn't put a back on it and ask me about it, to which I will say it is for better ventilation for my kids consoles. Then he will tell me that if there is no back, it is going to be flimsy, then he'll suggest some corner brackets or strips across the back at strategic places to secure the entire thing together and make it stable.

Same deal with a real estate transaction. I want to be able to tell the guy why I want a property, what I will use it for, and then he can help me avoid things like buying a property at the edge of town where he knows there is a good chance that property will be close to a new dump because the old one is approaching capacity, or some city ordinance that will prevent me from doing what I want to. Shit like that.

[–] • 1 pt

Depends. My mother in law's house was on the market for 7 months. It was worth around $450-k which was a lot back then. The realtors had many many open houses and would drive way out there to meet people.

[–] • 0 pt

Each sale varies in time and effort. The listing agent and buyers broker are facilitators. My personal opinion, yes they are somewhat overpaid but are a necessary evil for a relatively fast sale.

The listing agent meets with client, views property, makes recommendations, helps with loose ends, holds sellers hand, facilitates photos, real estate research, creates listing, promotes listing, fields realtor/buyers questions, screens contacts, meets with potential buyers for showings, helps in negotiations, assists with banks and closings.

In your example, that $30K commission might be split between a listing agent and a buyers agent, or, if the listing agent finds an unrepresented buyer then he gets the whole commission.

[–] • 0 pt

No. The $30,000 is just for one side of the deal. Usually the total commission on a deal is 6%, split between the selling and buying agents. Keep in mind that a house selling for $1M is low for the area in which I live. So $30,000 to a selling agent is totally common, if not low. And while I know what the agents do, I'm trying to quantify just how many hours an agent spends actually working on selling a property? Sure it varies. But there must be a normal range. And I'm guessing it's not very much time.

[–] • 0 pt

usually the total commission on a deal is 6%

Homes are virtually all 4% combined commission in my state. Land sales can be 6% or higher.

6% for homes sounds really excessive especially in a sellers market.

[–] • 1 pt

Yeah, it's stupid out here. 6% is the normal rate for the combined commission. I think it's way WAY too much.

[–] • 0 pt

Depends on how "high profile" the agent is and how "high-profile" the agency they are with, as well how "desirable" the home is (location, condition, etc.).

If you have a "big name" at a well-known agency, the "big name" agent actually does near to no "work" at all to sell a house as they have "a team" filled with agents who are trying to get up in the business. Basically under-paid or unpaid interns. If the "big name" does anything at all, it is one brief visit with the homeowner to put in face time with them and boast about how great they are at selling homes, then they hand it off to "their team". Though, usually it is yet another low-level agent on "their team" that visits with the homeowner because the "big name" is too busy with getting cosmetic surgery or out buying a 5th BMW.

However, I know a licensed agent at a not-well-known agency who has had some homes require 40-80 hours of actual effort a week for multiple weeks or months to get a house sold.

[–] • 0 pt

40-80 hours of actual effort? What? I'm calling bullshit on that. I can see that work might need to be done on the property and the real estate agent coordinates that work. But that work is billed at an hourly rate and while it might come out of the agent's commission, it usually doesn't. Finally, let's say a house needs 80 hours of work. At what rate? $50/hour? So that's $4,000. If the work is paid from the agent's commission, and the agent still gets about $30,000 for the sale, they're still getting $26,000 - and for how much work does the AGENT actually put in? Again, I'm guessing the AGENT only puts in maybe 10 hours per sale. That's still $2,600/hour and it's ridiculous.

[–] • 0 pt

Speaking as a former Realtor ™, it's not BS. If an agent is lucky, he can get a sale closed with 10-15 hrs invested. What usually happens is he hauls his buyers around two counties to view a few or many properties, and he does that for free, hoping to get a sale. He may also be responsible for getting the lawn mowed or he may need to shovel the snow off the sidewalk himself to show a house. He also burns time prospecting for clients and being interviewed by sellers or buyers shopping for an agent. What you see on "Selling Sunset" is fiction.

[–] • 0 pt

Okay, I get that. But I'm looking for the number of hours per sale. If a real estate agent is selling 5 houses and spends 100 hours total working on them, then the number of hours they spend on average per house is 20. And even at that, with a $1M house, and a 3% commission, that agent is earning $1,500 per hour of actual work. I think that's way WAY too much by a couple of orders of magnitude given the level of education a person needs to do that job. It's an affront and an insult to people with advanced educations and levels of intelligence doing far more complicated and honestly more important work than selling houses.

[–] • 0 pt

Call bullshit if you wish. You seem to have your mind made up about what you want to be true based on your load of assumptions that you also assume to be accurate and true because it is you that is making the assumption.

I've described an actual agent I know and how much effort they have had to put in toward getting one or more homes sold. Why ask a question if you are just going to shit on an answer that tells you what you have asked and discard the information shared and instead double-down on your uninformed assumptions as what is true?

Tried to help and you've shown you're not worth my time. Noted for the future.

[–] • 0 pt

I'm calling bullshit because I KNOW the agents themselves don't put in 80 hours of work per week to sell ONE house. That makes absolutely no sense. Maybe their whole team put in that much time (though I doubt that too), but not the AGENT.

[–] • 0 pt

I’ve bought and sold a handful of properties with and without an agent and I’m convinced they don’t really do anything but add extra paperwork into the mix the title company does all of the real work for a few hundred dollars.

[–] • 0 pt

I’ve suspected as much. Thanks.

[–] • 0 pt

If it was as easy as you say everyone would be real estate agents. It takes long hours, you're never truly off the clock, and if people aren't buying houses agents aren't making money.

It's not a job I'm interested in doing. I want a job that's over when I get home and doesn't start until I'm at work.

[–] • -1 pt

Trust the markets. If all of the real estate agents are charging 3%, there's a reason for it. Hopefully it's not price fixing.