Men occupy most of the jobs centered around building homes in the United States, such as carpentry, bricklaying and plumbing. The selling of residential real estate, however, is mostly handled by the opposite gender.
That's the major takeaway from a National Association of Realtors (NAR) study that detailed the personal and financial demographics of U.S. real estate agents. The study, released Aug. 6, found that 57% of agents are women. The typical agent is a college-educated woman who started her career in another field — like sales, retail, or finance — and then turned to selling homes.
Those findings ring true, women real estate agents told Homes.com.
"I was in the corporate world for 12 years prior to real estate," said Keller Williams agent Tezeta Roro of New Jersey, who holds a master's degree in business administration. "I started off in retail operations, then business-to-business sales, then finance, product and project management, supplier management, capital planning."
Hannelore Kaplan of William Raveis Real Estate said selling homes was not her first career choice, but she turned to the profession in part "so I could be with my kids and also have a career."
"I was a teacher in New York City P.S. 171 in Spanish Harlem and taught in an elementary school," said Kaplan, who works in Connecticut. "Then I left to start a headhunting business."
Cindy Chen, a New York City agent for Compass, worked in vaccine development at a large biotech firm before selling real estate. That line of work was "intellectually fulfilling," but Chen, who holds a master's degree from Johns Hopkins University, said she wanted a new role that made an immediate human impact. The "fast-paced, dynamic, people-centric nature of real estate really clicked for me," she said.
Barriers to more clients
NAR's study is based on a 98-question survey emailed to real estate agents in March. The group said nearly 4,950 agents responded.
Other key findings from the survey include:
- The median age of a real estate agent is 57.
- The median years of experience of a real estate agent is 12.
- The typical agent works as an independent contractor, not tied to a major brokerage.
- The typical agent closed 10 real estate deals in 2024 that amounted to $2.5 million in sales.
NAR also asked agents what they felt was keeping them from acquiring more clients.
Nearly one in five agents said waiting for mortgage rates to fall was the biggest barrier, while another one in four agents blamed housing affordability. Inventory was another culprit, the study found, with 17% of agents saying a lack of homes available on the market has hamstringed their work.
"There are less leads when there’s less inventory," said Kaplan. "There are less buyers when there’s less inventory to choose from. Yes, home prices are high, but this is an area that’s always had high prices. So, that’s a factor that definitely limits the buyers that can come to the area I work."
Mortgage rates and home prices are for sure a factor, but Chen said a third element is blocking her from getting more clients: seller hesitancy.
"Some potential sellers are holding off on listing their homes, fearing they won’t get what they want due to market conditions, which limits the overall available supply," she told Homes.com. "Some sellers, on the other hand, have low interest on their mortgage, so they want to hold on to it for longer if they are able to rent it out."
The NAR study also tallied the typical annual income for real estate agents, concluding that agents made a median net income of $36,600 in 2024 across all types of agents. The figure jumped to $55,400 if the agent is licensed and has a broker or associate broker title. Real estate brokers who own their own firm and do not actively sell properties brought home a median $210,900 after taxes in 2024 while broker-owners who did sell properties brought in a median $63,500, the NAR study found.
All told, the income for real estate agents grows the longer they remain in the profession — reaching a plateau after 16 years, the study found. There's a reason someone's income increases after so many years, said Talia McKinney, an agent in New York City for Serhant.
"Over time, your network grows, referrals start coming in, and you develop the skills to handle more complex transactions," McKinney said. "Each year builds on the last. I’ve gone from celebrating my first small rental deal to closing multimillion-dollar sales."
