This May marks Inman’s sixth annual Agent Appreciation Month. Look for profiles of top producers, opinions on the current state of the industry and tangible takeaways you can implement in your career today. Plus, the prestigious Future Leaders of Real Estate return this month, too.
This post was updated May 12, 2025.
Real estate is an interesting business that has some key differences from other businesses. The one thing that stands out the most is the fact that it can be unclear exactly what you should be doing every day to make money and be successful in the real estate business.
Let’s take, for example, a stockbroker. He has a desk and a phone, and it’s very clear what he has to do all day: make calls and sell stocks. Real estate activities are not always clear, and agents often waste a lot of time on activities that don’t lead to a paycheck.
There are so many activities that you can fill up your day with, most of which don’t produce income, and the road to success is not very clear. There are also some misconceptions about the business for those looking in from the outside. In addition, many agents are not getting any direction from anyone, and you have a very reduced chance of succeeding in this business.
Like many occupations that require a license, the material you review to study for the real estate test really does not address the actual things you need to do to succeed in real estate. Hopefully, you will hang your license with a brokerage that will point you in the direction that you need to go and give you some education to find and speed up your path to success.
Read on to discover some myths about real estate, followed by the reality.
1. Myth: Real estate is an easy business and can be done part-time.
Reality: Real estate is one of the most time-intensive businesses in the world. To be successful, you will be very busy even doing it full-time. Anyone can do a deal or two, but real financial success will take time. All of your time.
2. Myth: You work for your broker and the company with which you hang your license.
Reality: You only work for yourself. This is your own business; you’re an entrepreneur, and your brokerage is your partner.
3. Myth: Once you get your license, people will be banging down your door to list their homes and asking you to write contracts for them to buy properties.
Reality: The hardest part of the real estate business is finding customers, especially sellers. The inability to find enough customers is what ends most people’s real estate careers. Nobody will be looking for you.
4. Myth: Your broker and everyone in the office will find you customers.
Reality: The only way to find customers is for you to do lead generation activities effectively on a consistent basis to find them yourself. Nobody is coming to save you and do this for you.
5. Myth: I can work whenever I want, and I will have a lot of time off.
Reality: Since it is your own business, you decide when, where and how much you work, but if you are not putting in a lot of time, usually much more than a regular 9-to-5 job, you won’t make the money that you are expecting.
6. Myth: It takes years and a lot of education to be successful in real estate.
Reality: Years in the business mean nothing. Someone can be in real estate for 10 years and have done 10 transactions, while another person may be two years in with 40 transactions. Anyone can decide to do the work, be effective, and see success rather quickly. Education helps, but you really need to just find people who want to buy and sell real estate. You will learn things on every deal that you do.
7. Myth: It doesn’t cost any money to be a real estate agent.
Reality: Real estate is one of the least expensive businesses to get into where you can make six figures, but like every business, you have to spend money to make money.
8. Myth: You need to know many people to succeed in real estate.
Reality: Knowing a lot of people will make your real estate career much easier, but for those of you who don’t know a lot of people, good lead generation activities will overcome this.
9. Myth: Successful agents can just coast when they get to a certain level of success.
Reality: It sure looks like that, doesn’t it? But in reality, those very successful agents that you see are working harder than most to keep their business where it is. Once they stop working and lead generation, their income will quickly drop to zero.
10. Myth: Real estate is not like other sales jobs, so you don’t have to be a salesperson.
Reality: Real estate is exactly like any other sales job, and it takes the same kind of drive, determination and assertiveness. People who enter the business with prior sales experience have a much better chance of succeeding. People coming from traditional non-sales jobs will have to be ready to learn some new things and be effective at them to succeed.
So, there you have it: 10 truths about real estate that will put you on the right track and save you some time on your path to success. When we know how the business works, we can then focus on what needs to be done.
The great thing about real estate is that anyone can jump in and find success, if they are willing to do the work and be effective.
Joseph Santini is a managing broker at Coldwell Banker Realty in Boca Raton, Florida. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
