I agree with Marlow, some of us put in a tremendous amount of time, have years in, market experience and have built sites and businesses that are simply worth it. As far as a deal taking 10 to 15 hours and earning an average of $12k goes, well I have to tell you I would kill for a bunch of deals that take 10 to 15 hours and would take less than the $12k to accommodate those deals. Working with buyers in today’s market – for months before they buy, then handling the escrow, my staffs time, the transaction coordinators time (whom I pay) the hours add up very quickly. It would not be unfair to say that often 100′s of hours are put into a deal from start to finish. It’s not like the old days when we would show a buyer a few properties and they would buy quickly, they just don’t do that often anymore. Often those checks are very low, sometimes not. Listings, handled properly in today’s market are not a short term deal either. Many hours are put in marketing online, and handling phones, educating and negotiating with agents and potential buyers calling to inquire.

It’s easy to put down the entire Realtor community, but not a smart thing to do. There are some of us who do not fit the statements made and it is insulting to us.

There are few agents that are savvy enough to be able to run a consultative real estate business and have the tech that many of the agents commenting here have. The knowledge that we have built up over the years, our familiarity with our markets and our expertise DO make us worth the fees that we earn.

M-F 9-5 is when calls are routed live to me, but I work many hours online responding to requests and inquiries, updating my website/blog, and acquiring new business. This is a business, I treat it as such, and have a regular family life, very different from when I was doing traditional realty.

Back then I was always working, sometimes for nothing, and wasting lots of time with buyers that didn’t buy. I work smarter now, not harder… That’s what my mama always told me to do!

Benn and Marlow both are right about Redfin. Marlow is in Redfin’s backyard as am I, working on Seattle’s eastside.

Since I work in Redfin and Zillowland, there was concern back in 2007, but things have changed dramatically and both companies have morphed into distinctly different business models than originally planned. I clearly remember the early Redfin days when buyers were instructed to call the listing agent to gain access to the house and then have Redfin write up the contract. I work in the area around Microsoft, so this happened to me all the time.

Nowadays, I rarely get these phone calls as Redfin handles the property showings. I’ve sold many listings with Redfin agents and have found the level of expertise and cooperation with me as the listing agent has also grown. I’ve had some very smooth transactions with Redfin agents in the past year or so.

Do I like the past history of bashing the traditional real estate companies and agents? No, but the company has to live with their first message to the real estate industry. It’s not something I will forget. As Lani has said, we Realtors just have to keep moving forward, doing what we do best by selling a homes in a full service manner.

There’s room for all business models and I think everyone has grown to realize that and no bashing needs to happen.

I guess you think of your time in terms of an hourly wage, but as a professional, I think of my earnings as “salary” and don’t break it down in an hourly fashion. The business executive is usually hired for the job and paid “X”, no matter how long it takes. My business functions the same way. The buyer and seller are not paying me for the actual hours it takes to assist them. They are paying me for my years of experience, my negotiation skills, my education, the website and real estate blog I’ve created, and the network of friends and acquaintances I’ve developed over the years to assist me in putting buyers and sellers together.

I have put 100′s, maybe 1000′s of hours into making my website interesting and to getting and keep it high in the search engines. I can’t charge individual sellers for that work. But I can make my fee high enough that it covers not just the actual hours I spend writing up a contract, but all those other marketing, research and development costs, the costs of building our brand (important for marketing and trust-building), and all the other costs that we can lump into “overhead”.

You’ve got a great website there. An online advertising website. You don’t really want to get out there and sell real estate and that’s cool. But a lot of us do and many of us have put a lot of time and effort into it. After over 20 years in the business, I do think I’m worth my salary and I guess my clients do too. Your business model relies on convincing sellers that hiring traditional real estate agents costs too much. My job is to show them otherwise.

You sound pretty savvy. I see on your website that your hours are M-F 9-5. Most agents I know work 24/7. Perhaps if you changed your attitude or your business model you could make a salary too

So you make 10k – 12k then split that with your broker 60/40 Do the math. You know the results.

Maybe homes in your area are less expensive, I don’t know. But for many sellers the agent’s commission is obscene.

On most of the transactions we have had over the last 2 years, the amount of time spent vs commission earned is no where near what you are representing.

What normal person makes this kind of cash? How much do we really think we’re worth?

Seriously now, so you have expenses … blah blah, we all do, but you and I know the Internet has helped to reduce them substantially. Forget the print ads, forget the magazines, you only do them to collect buyer “leads”, not to sell the listed house.

The high cost of selling through a traditional broker is why many sellers are simply seeking alternatives like ours.