Jonathan correctly pointed out that a third of of the members of NAR sold nothing last year. Amazingly, that isn’t new – that has been true for as long as such stats have been kept on how much is being sold.
In a solicitation email I received from Dirk Zeller he talked about the Pareto Principle – better known as the 80-20 rule. This would suggest that 20% of the agents do 80% of the business and that 80% of the agents do the remaining 20%. Dirk did some research for his area (Bend, Oregon) and concluded that Bend matched the NAR numbers which are even more astounding than the 80-20 rule. Dirk’s conclusion: 7% of Realtors control about 93% of the total business. Pretty amazing. I have not verified this number but I know it is close, if not exact. For the Phoenix area here is what I found: there are about 40,000 members of the MLS (ARMLS). Only 4.50% of the total members of ARMLS had six sales or more (buyer or seller sides) in the past twelve months. This is not an "average", this is flatly stating that less than 5% of all Realtors (selling homes through the MLS) made at least 6 sales in the past year. I don’t have an easy way of deleting those Realtors who work for builders, etc., but I can say the number with six or more sales is about 1,800 agents.
Dirk goes on to say that the 7% of agents who are doing all the business do things differently:
How do they do it?
Well, quite simply, I’d have to say differently. That’s right… they do more business than everyone else because they do business differently.
That they do things differently than the 93% who don’t do much business is pretty obvious. That would have to be a true statement. However, I don’t believe the successful agents do things much differently than any successful small business does them. Main job is still: get and keep customers. This never changes. In the residential brokerage business there is one thing that is "different" than most other businesses. Listings. If you will take the time to really learn to list you can make more money than most people you will ever know. And it isn’t hard either. In fact, so simple, even a Realtor can do it.
Recommendations: Read to the point of understanding, The Millionaire Real Estate Agent. Go to this page and spend some time. It’s free and it is all about getting and getting rid of listings.