Real Estate Agent
Also known as: Realtor, Real Estate Salesperson
Help people buy, sell, and rent properties, building relationships and negotiating deals. Every state requires a license.
Salary Range
The highest-paid specialization or seniority level for real estate agents.
About 1 in 1,000 reaches this level
About 427,000 real estate sales agents in the US (BLS Employment Projections, SOC 41-9022, 2025); the median wage is ~$53K and the 90th percentile only ~$124K (BLS OEWS, May 2025). At least ~470 agents consistently earn $500K+ in commissions: the 466 solo agents in RealTrends Verified's "The Thousand" averaged $123M in 2025 sales (the ranking also includes brokers, whom BLS counts separately). That is at least 0.1% of the field; the true share is likely several times higher, but no public count exists for the $500K tier.
Salary data based on 2025 BLS, Glassdoor, and industry reports. Actual compensation varies by location, experience, and employer.
How to Become One
Complete state-required pre-licensing coursework (60–180 hours depending on state) and pass the state real estate licensing exam.
For more information: National Association of Realtors (NAR) ↗
A degree isn't required, but these programs can strengthen your career prospects:
Cost to Qualify
No degree is required - just a state pre-licensing course (40-180 hours depending on the state), a licensing exam fee, and an application and fingerprinting fee. The state's own charges are small and published: in Texas, the Real Estate Commission charges $206 for the sales agent application, $43 for the exam and $37 for fingerprints, so $286 in government fees. The pre-licensing course is the variable part and is sold by private schools, which is why the all-in figure differs so much from state to state; Texas is a high outlier at roughly $800-$1,300 because it requires 180 hours of coursework. We do not currently have a sourced national average. Real estate agents are also normally independent contractors paid entirely by commission, so there is no wage at all during this stage, paid or otherwise.
Sticker price, not what most people pay — scholarships, aid and in-state status all move it. Room and board is shown separately on each college's page.
AI Risk Assessment
AI already handles a lot of the desk work around selling homes: writing listing descriptions, following up with leads, scheduling showings, matching buyers to listings, and drafting routine paperwork. A 2025 Microsoft Research study measured how much of each job's tasks AI chatbots can help with, using 200,000 real conversations. Real estate sales agents came out 129th of 785 jobs, in the top 17%. The industry outlet Real Estate News noted that the same study found the parts of the job built on sales and customer service are well within AI's reach, but that people are less satisfied when AI tries to give support or advice directly. Buying or selling a home is one of the biggest money decisions most people make, and clients still want a trusted person on their side.
The bigger forces on this job are the housing market and interest rates, not AI. BLS projects real estate broker and agent jobs to grow just 2% from 2025 to 2035, slower than the average for all jobs, with about 40,400 openings a year, and says the work slows when interest rates rise or the economy weakens. With little growth, there is not much extra demand to absorb the time AI saves, and experienced agents using AI can handle more clients. That makes it harder for new agents, who usually build a business one client at a time. That is the rubric's "3 Moderate".
What would change this score. If AI tools let buyers and sellers complete more deals without an agent, or the number of working agents falls while home sales hold steady, it goes to 4. If clients keep insisting on a human agent and new agents keep entering at the same rate, it could drop to 2.
Sources
Ratings reflect a 10-year outlook based on 2025-2026 research, weighted toward entry-level impact. Individual outcomes will vary.
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