A good agent will be previewing tons of homes on the market in the areas where he/she works - not just the ones that are competing with current listings or that current buyer clients want to see. That is time consuming.

Find new clients. Without clients they are basically unemployed. And of couse work to make sure existing deals go through.

I am not an agent, but I have worked with many in the past.

Please understand that agents hours are not normal. Yes, they can be made to be normal- but that agent won't be very successful.
During the normal hours, they arrange showings, pictures, contracts, follow-up and do paperwork.
Your agent needs to get the contracts to the other agent, to the loan officer, to the title company and followup with all parties on a regular basis.
Easy enough if you have one deal per month. Most agents (at least the ones I have worked with) do substantially more than one per month.

Then, most of their customers work from 9-5. So at night, they have to be available to answer questions, meet with people and show houses. Weekends too.

Banks (and title companies) work from 9-5 - they need to be coordinating with the appropriate parties (yes - I realized I mentioned it earlier- but it takes a LOT of time- so worth mentioning again).

You can absolutely tell the ones who have their act together and the ones who do not.

They go to networking events to get more clients.

They are photoshopping

We go to the spa, answer questions like this, and oh yes...work! We update the marketing of our active listings, follow up on open matters for our current clients, follow up with past clients, field internet inquiries about our listings or other available properties. We network to help provide better service, attend CE classes, learn about upcoming changes to the market including TRID which takes effect Saturday. As we do have more flexibility, some of us volunteer time during the day before evening appointments.

With that said, there are those that sit around and hope that the phone will ring but they are usually job hunting.

Agent here. I have a client who left her job as an associate at a high powered law firm when she had her fist child. After two months she called and asked about "shadowing" me for a week because she wanted to get into the flexible easy line of real estate sales. I did not want to allow it because it would bother me and slow me down. Because she was a good source of referrals, I agreed. She began at 8 am on a Monday and was in tears about 9:15 pm on the following Sunday she was exhausted and did not understand why I had to send a document to a client in Singapore so that it pulls be signed that night and save a deal. I suggested she leave

I dud not hear from her despite follow up calls. She finally called to tell me being a real estate agent did not suit her personality. She was returning to her firm

In real estate as in much of life, the 80/20 principle operates. 20 percent of agents do 80 percent of the business. For those agents long days are filled with a work which varies greatly and is often scheduled by the public for the last minute.

I am writing this post in front of the house belonging to ab elderly woman who just moved to her daughter's house in Front Royal. The daughter called me at 11:30 am today asking of I could meet her at 1:30 pm. Daughter is stuck on Rt 66 traffic so I wait. I made this meeting by rescheduling other activities. My last meeting tonight us at 8

I understand why the public perception is bad for agents. I have to work with them much more closely than you

I like what I do and my clients like and respect me. I wouldn't work this hard if I didn't like it and was well rewarded

Please join me at any time

Anonymous wrote:It seems like realtors must have free time to sit around or sleep for 90 percent of their day. I imagine realtors should be working to identify potential buyers (or houses if not selling) and working the phones. But I feel like they just sit around waiting for buyers' agents to call them or waiting for their clients to find houses they want to look at online.

Why do you care? Do you wonder how other professionals spend their days? What a peculiar post.

But...

Broker opens, continuing legal education, pre-inspection on homes, floor duty, closings, CMAs, etc. etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They answer emails, hold info sessions for potential clients, host open houses, get all the paperwork done, arrange for inspections, and appear at closing. Our realtor met with us one-on-one to find out what we wanted, and then made us a list of properties to look at, and drove us around in his car to make it all convenient. He knew all the keycodes for the houses, and had an info sheet for us about each house. We ended up buying something he showed us on the very first day of that. He certainly earned his commission!

That part doesn't seem very impressive.

Yeah pp seems easily impressed. Arranging for inspections is one phone call or email.

The also have CE classes.

As PP said, the works ebbs and flows. Sometimes they're really busy and other times they have lots of free time.

Anonymous wrote:They answer emails, hold info sessions for potential clients, host open houses, get all the paperwork done, arrange for inspections, and appear at closing. Our realtor met with us one-on-one to find out what we wanted, and then made us a list of properties to look at, and drove us around in his car to make it all convenient. He knew all the keycodes for the houses, and had an info sheet for us about each house. We ended up buying something he showed us on the very first day of that. He certainly earned his commission!

That part doesn't seem very impressive.

They answer emails, hold info sessions for potential clients, host open houses, get all the paperwork done, arrange for inspections, and appear at closing. Our realtor met with us one-on-one to find out what we wanted, and then made us a list of properties to look at, and drove us around in his car to make it all convenient. He knew all the keycodes for the houses, and had an info sheet for us about each house. We ended up buying something he showed us on the very first day of that. He certainly earned his commission!

Nap. Maybe blow up balloons.

They do the listing work: photography, MLS listings, schedule open houses, sometimes host weekday open houses for other agents.

They network a ton, both within the community and with other agents.

Then they do the contract-related work with regard to accepting/countering offers. Ours helped out with stuff before closing (she was present at the inspection, she went in and measured for appliances, she helped us find contractors).

I think it's a job that ebbs and flows in terms of workload: in the high season, they are very busy. In the winter, they have free time.

It seems like realtors must have free time to sit around or sleep for 90 percent of their day. I imagine realtors should be working to identify potential buyers (or houses if not selling) and working the phones. But I feel like they just sit around waiting for buyers' agents to call them or waiting for their clients to find houses they want to look at online.