If you’re like most people who want a career change, you might’ve considered a career in real estate. But you might not be well-versed in exactly why it would make a great second (or first) career choice. In fact, 95 percent of real estate agents choose a career in real estate after leaving one or two previous careers, according to the National Association of REALTORS.
So if you’ve been on the fence about a career in real estate, here are a few reasons why you should at least consider a career in real estate.
A career in real estate means you can be your own boss – and that’s appealing to a lot of people who don’t really like the whole 9 to 5 mold or who don’t really like sitting in the same office day after day.
Real estate agents are considered independent contractors so you’ll only get paid on commission and you’ll have to pay your own expenses, but you get the freedom to work when you want and decide whether you’ll be full-time or part-time.
It’s important to note that most part-time real estate agents generally don’t see as much success as full-timers.
In most states, you’ll only have to take a 75-hour course. It might vary from state to state, but in New York State, the course is 75 hours and self-paced. But you still have to take it within a certain time frame before you have to pay all over again. If you dedicate a few hours each day to your studies, you could be prepared for the test in as little as two weeks.
Working at any other job, there’s a cap on how much you can earn, depending on how many hours you work. But in real estate, there’s really no cap on how much you can earn in a year. The average salary for full-time real estate agents across the country is $75,102. But that’s just the average. You could make even more than that in a year as a real estate agent or you could make less – it’s all up to you.
Becoming a real estate professional gives you more flexibility than other careers. As mentioned above, it means you can decide how many hours you want to work and in what areas you want to work. For example, if you get your license in your hometown in an Upstate New York suburb, but you want to work in NYC, you can do that. You’d just need to find a brokerage firm that handles the kind of property you want to help sell.
A career in real estate is perfect for:
So now you’ve got an idea of the perks of choosing a career in real estate. You can see that it’s a career seriously worth considering if you want flexibility, independence & unlimited earning potential. If you want all of the above, a career in real estate could be exactly the right move for you.