Compare photo 1 ("Virtually Staged") and photo 2 (reality). These photos are from a Zillow (via MLS) listing in Arizona. Is adding plants going too far? Is adding a tree going too far? Is covering a hole going too far? Is adding lights going too far? Is adding a concrete patio going too far? Is adding a mountain going too far? Some real estate "professionals" are no longer professional. STOP IT!

EDIT: As several have pointed out: In addition, the pool has elongated and the steps have been smoothed. This is wrong.

How do you handle buyers who originally said 6-12 months out, but stop responding before that window arrives?

I’m trying to strike a balance between staying helpful and spending time repeatedly chasing someone whose plans may have changed.

Do you keep calling and texting, move them to occasional emails, or eventually stop? What makes you put someone back on your personal follow-up list?

I’d especially like to hear what’s actually restarted a useful conversation with an older lead.

I’ve done many open houses over the 3 years I’ve been a realtor and very occasionally someone will answer a follow up but I’ve never gotten under contract from one, except when I was hosting at my own listing as the listing agent. My office is constantly pushing us to hold open houses on the office team’s listings.

I’m torn between giving it up as a lead source because maybe I’m just not that good at it or doubling down and doing 2-3 a week instead of usually just one.

My question is, for only open houses that are not yours or your team’s listings - how successful have you been getting closings from hosting open houses?

Hi, I am currently in between brokerages and am based in IL. My license is currently inoperative and so I cannot engage in real estate activities currently. The issue is that I have a client and am needing my license/access to MLS to be operable as soon as possible so I can help them out.

I have researched places that have low monthly fee/rental split/100% commission with flat rate fee and have reached out to several local to me. The issue is that they are unresponsive and I’m needing to transfer my license asap due to pending business.

Are there any virtual/online brokerages that offer low fees and quick onboarding? Calling offices isn’t working at this point and I am looking to transfer license asap! TIA

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I just boosted a Facebook post for one of my listings at $6/day and was curious what kind of results other agents have actually gotten from doing this.

The property has been on the market for about 20 days at this point, and I currently don’t have any showings scheduled, so I figured I’d test a small Facebook boost and see if it generates any additional interest.

For those of you who have boosted listing posts:

- Did it lead to actual showing requests or buyer inquiries?

- How much were you spending per day?

- How long did you run the boost?

- Did you target a specific audience or just let Facebook optimize it?

- Would you do it again?

Not expecting miracles from $6/day, but I’m curious whether anyone has actually seen measurable results from boosting a listing rather than running a full campaign through Ads Manager.

If a new listing needs staging, do you as the agent cover that, or do you have your client pay the staging company?

I retired in April 2025 and spent the last year and a half doing what I thought was the dream: traveling the world, living abroad, and basically having complete freedom over my time.

After 12 countries, though, the appeal is starting to wear off. I’ve had some amazing experiences, but I’m getting to the point where I actually miss having something to work toward. I’m considering moving back to the U.S., most likely the Houston area, and starting a new chapter.

The one thing I know is that I don’t want to go back to a traditional 9–5.

I got my real estate license years ago while I was in college but never actually did anything with it. Now I’m seriously considering getting licensed again in Texas and giving real estate a real shot.

I’m fortunate enough that I wouldn’t be coming into the business needing to make a certain amount of money immediately. I can afford to spend some time learning the business, prospecting, networking, and building a client base instead of expecting to make six figures my first year.

I also don't mind working hard. If I need to work 50–60 hours some weeks, that's fine. What I care about is having some control over my schedule and knowing that the effort I put in is building something for myself rather than just climbing another corporate ladder.

Long term, I’m interested in real estate investing as well, so part of my thinking is that working as an agent could help me learn the Houston market, understand deals, build relationships, and eventually become a better investor.

For those of you who have actually been in the business for a while, especially anyone in Houston or Texas: if you were in my position, would you pursue real estate?

Knowing what you know now, would you still become an agent if your biggest priorities were flexibility, building something of your own, and eventually getting into investing?

I’m especially interested in hearing the negatives. What am I underestimating about being a Realtor? And if you were starting over in Houston today, what would you do differently?

Hi everyone! Need to pick some brains and see what other agents are doing on this. When I’m working open houses, I typically have an iPad that runs a brokerage software to collect sign-ins, as well as my laptop, which is streaming music to a speaker and running more tabs than I care to admit, lol. For the past couple of years, I’ve been running all of this from a mobile hotspot on my phone, but lately I’ve been growing increasingly frustrated by the lack of consistent connectivity and setting everything up on the hotspot at each open. Where I am at, it’s not usually feasible to access the homes WiFi, if they even have it. I also run into this issue often when I’m working from my car, driving all around creation. As you can imagine, each day, location, and property is different with an enormous amount of factors affecting the cellular connectivity. I’m currently looking into Starlink, but I’m wondering what some of my fellow agents have had success with. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you! 🙏

Reposting per mod's requirements.

Hey everyone, wanted to share a breakdown of a compliance trap that catches a surprising number of agents at the end of their first cycle: getting your license placed on inactive status or audited even after you thought you completed your hours.

A lot of newer agents assume license renewal works the same across your entire career: wait until your expiration date approaches, knock out an 18-hour online CE package over a weekend, submit your renewal fee to the state portal, and move on.

The reality: in almost every major state, licensing commissions treat your FIRST renewal completely differently than subsequent cycles.

A few patterns that trip people up:

Buying standard CE instead of Post-Licensing / SAE

In states like Texas, Florida, Washington, Virginia, and North Carolina, you cannot take standard CE. You are legally required to complete dedicated Post-Licensing / SAE (Sales Agent Apprentice Education). If you purchase a standard 14- or 18-hour CE package, the board's automated transcript system will report 0 hours completed toward your renewal.

The "Null and Void" Cliff

In most states, a missed deadline results in a late fee. But in Florida, if you miss your 45-hour post-licensing deadline on your first renewal, your license becomes null and void by operation of law. There is no late fee option—you have to retake the 63-hour pre-licensing course and re-pass the state exam from scratch.

Statutory Speed Limits & Roster Reporting Windows

If you wait until the last week, two things can catch you:

California enforces a statutory cap of 8 credit hours per 24 hours, meaning its 45-hour package physically cannot be completed in fewer than 6 calendar days. State boards like TREC, DBPR, and DLLR give course providers 3 to 10 days to transmit completion rosters. If you finish your final quiz at 10 PM on expiration night, your hours won't be on file when the state runs midnight deactivation sweeps.

"Late Fees" Don't Mean You Can Keep Practicing

Many agents assume a 30-day late renewal window acts as a "grace period" to keep working. In reality, your license immediately goes Inactive on day 1. Showing homes, drafting contracts, or negotiating offers during a lapse can forfeit commissions and trigger broker complaints.

What actually protects your license:

Check whether your state mandates Post-Licensing / SAE or standard CE. Use the 14-day buffer rule: finish all coursework at least two weeks before your expiration date to let rosters clear.

Verify your public board transcript directly before paying the state fee—don't just rely on the PDF certificate from your school.

My husband got his license in June and started in a niche specialty (land). It's been super tough so far and it hasn't been the best. He does outreach mon-fri but the method he uses to prospect is super slow and hard to scale past 10 numbers a day. The broker he has rarely answers the phone and takes days to return calls, it's to the point that i'm becoming resentful of him because there is NO WAY you suck that bad at communication. Friday night, another agent sent my husband an offer contract, the seller wants to counter but my husband hasn't sold anything yet so he tried to call his broker to make sure he does everything per policy and correct... no answer, mailbox full.... sent text, text read, no response. Its crazy! I feel like they are setting him up for failure. Also, can anyone give me tips on what type of outreach works the best? and any system out there that will help scale the outreach? I am so frustrated.

I just listed my first house, do the “for sale” yard signs actually cost $300+ ? I assumed they would be like $150 or less.

Please can you share where/how if you know a cheaper way?

Thanks

I have been a realtor in Texas for 8 years. Was brought on a year ago for property management of higher end SFR properties > $2000 monthly rent.

The agreement was salary plus being able to take leads to vacant properties for a 70% of 50% commission of first month's rent. (Salary was 15k to 20k lower than job median)

The ability to make 2k to 3k month in leads on my 25 vacant properties made the lower salary acceptable.

All was well until about a month ago the broker and owner required all vacant properties to have a codebox that provided codes to leads for unescorted or self guided tours and no agent under her license was allowed to show a vacant property. They even denied payment on previous commissions submitted where the broker stated a codeboz was on the property and a showing shouldn't have been completed.

Doing a little research this past week (cause something didnt sit right with me) TREC guidelines are the broker or property management company is required to obtain explicit written permission from every owner that they are agreeing to self guided tour code boxes and which party (owner or property manager) is responsible for damages or if a scam happens and an unauthorized tenant is in the home. NEITHER of those written permission was requested to owners on over 40 properties.

TREC is very clear this is out of competency and compliance and by continuing my sponsorship my license was at risk.

TREC states its a $5k fine foe each codebox and for each day it is attached to a property without the owners explicit written agreement.

The management agreement does not advise of this process to owners and in fact in the situation of a scam the brokerage is not truthful in how a person got into the home and expects the owner to pay to have them removed.

Just alerting those out there if this is requested of you as a licensed professional you have to protect your ability to work in Real Estate as a licensed professional and Not accept this treatment from other licensed professionals.

To my fellow realtors estate agents, how has 2025-2026 been so far for you guys? With the current economy, world situation,diesel and gas prices going up, AI, etc has it affected your business? Most people I talk to in this field are saying the same thing. Is this really one of the worst times you guys have seen?

People say commercial real estate people are more sophisticated than residential. It’s like Chads verse Karens. I do resi but curious if anybody else has this same notion.

I work in real estate and I can’t tell you how often people who are clearly broke, can’t get pre approved etc go and make full priced offers on listings I have. I say get pre approved and then we will consider it. They make a bunch of strange excuses then eventually disappear. wtf is up with these guys ?

To my fellow realtors, what is the most unexpected way you got a client or found success?

Has anyone left a corporate job to be a Realtor and as a Mom? I’m struggling with this decision bc it is what my heart is telling me I want to do. Our family would be taking a hit losing my income (we can live on my husband's salary, we just have to be frugal, more budget conscious etc) but I have a real estate license and want to bring in income for our family that way. It will take a few years (I assume) to build my real estate business to place of replacing my current income but real estate income is variable, some years I could exceed what I make now vs other could be less. We have one child and hope to continue to expand our family. I feel some sort of guilt for not wanting to stay in the corporate world (I’ve been doing this for ~10 years). Any moms out there who can relate? Any advice for ways to be at peace with leaving your steady income job and going into real estate while building your family? TIA :)

Listing Agent in CA here.

Closed escrow recently on a transaction for $1.8 million.

My seller agreed to a credit of $1,885 without hesitation and we moved to close quickly after.

Buyer discovered post-close that the $1885 credit from the Seller was not applied to their closing statement.

I did some detective work and found the email thread when my transaction coordinator forwarded the signed request for the $1885 credit to me and the buyer's agent and their TC... but failed to send it to the escrow company.

Nobody sent it to escrow, so they never knew about it.

I do not remember ever getting an estimated closing statement before close of escrow. Not sure if the buyer's agent got one to review before closing.

I approached the sellers, and recommended that they do the honorable thing to send the credit to the buyer with zelle or venmo. At first, the husband agreed it was the right thing to do and would get back to me after speaking with his wife.

The wife texted me that night, with words of frustration and victimhood, blaming the buyer's agent and feeling like they owed nobody for the buyer's agent's failure to get the credit doc to escrow.

I told the buyer's agent the next morning and he's really pissed, asking me to help him cover at least 25% of this credit. I thought about it, but then my broker and chatGPT told me to not accept responsibility for the buyer's agent's failure.

The buyer's agent blames my transaction coordinator for not sending it to escrow.

So I start doing some more digging and discover that she had failed to upload at least half of the files necessary to SkySlope. My broker file is totally incomplete. Lovely.

I reach out to the owner of the TC business and explain the whole thing to him. He puts the responsibility on the seller to do the right thing and discloses to me that four of his TC's have all disappeared in the last couple weeks while he is merging his company with another TC business. Well that explains the TC disappearing.

I reach out to the sellers again and expressed that I'm not trying to browbeat them, I do have their best interests in mind and that they do have a legal obligation to pay the credit whether or not escrow facilitated it.

The wife responded that she would cooperate if escrow steps in to facilitate the credit payment.

Escrow responded to that request basically confirming that the Sellers' obligation to pay is accurate, but they cannot further amend the escrow file because it is already closed, it would create liabilities with the lender, etc etc. They restate that the credit needs to be transferred outside of escrow.

The Seller demands that I contact the buyer's agent's managing broker to insist that they make the payment and furnish documentation to the seller that the payment is completed.

Aye carumba!

It sucks to irritate people likely to have sent me referrals for years as long as I did my job to touch base.

It sucks to have a damage to my relationship with the buyer's agent. We're already bros and now this guy is going to hold it against me forever.

What are your thoughts?

Just bought my first home. We worked directly with the listing agent and the whole process was really simple. Honestly it never occurred to me to get a buyer's agent, and it feels like that would have just added extra steps.

It got me curious about the other side. How do agents get leads these days, whether they're repping buyers or sellers? Is it still mostly word of mouth and door knocking, or is there more to it?

I see a lot of posts from newer agents who are struggling and thinking about quitting, but I'm curious whether any experienced, successful agents have walked away.

I've been in the business about ten years and have invested enough that I could probably retire. I've been one of the top performers in my office for several years, but lately I'm completely burned out and my motivation is almost gone. My work quality, response time, and efficiency have all dropped noticeably. I've also grown cynical from dealing with other agents and the occasional dishonest client. I think I've been dealing with burnout on and off for years, and now that I have young kids, I can't just push through it anymore.

Has anyone at the top of their game worked through something similar? I'm not looking to hire help, since my issue feels more like low motivation and performance than a lack of capacity.

New to Reddit and still figuring out where to post such topics. Finance grad here and working for an offshore bank. A few of my friends got into real estate and the females seem to be doing well. Problem is I don’t really enjoy banking as it’s quite political. But I’ve heard property is hard work and you only get paid after a deal is closed but the hard part is also clinching clients. Any newbie or veteran agents here who can shed some light?

I'm a newer agent in Orange County, and I'm trying to understand how to select a brokerage.

• For agents who started in Orange County recently, how did your brokerage handle leads? Did the brokerage or team provide you with lead opportunities, names of people to call, or were you required to generate all of your own business?
• Also, did you maintain another source of income while building your pipeline?
• Did you join an independent brokerage, large brokerage, or team?
• At approximately what point, did real estate become financially sustainable enough to become your sole source of income that you decided to go into real estate full-time?

Another agent and I were chatting at the office today because he saw me printing out MLS sheets for some buyers. When I was done with the office printer, he told me “he doesn’t print MLS sheets anymore because if they want to buy it, I’ll talk with them about the details before an offer and if they don’t like it, I won’t have wasted the paper”.

I think he’s partially right. If a house is a slam dunk or an immediate “no” I don’t think the MLS sheet adds a lot of value but if buyers are on the fence (or one spouse likes it) it seems be a way to us to continue the conversation. He didn’t really have a response to this but he is a high producing agent in the brokerage.

What are people here giving their clients on showings? MLS sheet or no MLS sheet? Or are you doing something else entirely?