Estate agent salaries are among the worst in the sales profession, with just insurance, retail and telesales seeing a lower level of guaranteed pay, according to new research.
Nested analysed the base salary, excluding commission, of 12 of the most common sales professions and found that on average, the basic take-home pay is £26,338.
However, estate agents earn a base salary of £24,817, 6% less than the average.
Just three sales professions offer up a lower rate of basic income compared to estate agency.
Insurance sales agents earn an average of £24,372, while retail sales executives earn just 323,415. At £21,323, telesales representatives earn the lowest basic salary of all sales professions.
When it comes to the highest earnings sales professions, pharmaceutical sales reps sit top of the table. On average, the guaranteed income of a pharma rep is £35,228 – 42% higher than the average estate agent.
Advertising sales reps (£30,638) and car sales execs (£30,312) also pocket a guaranteed annual income of more than £30,000.
Alice Bullard, head of commercial at Nested, said: “Sales roles are generally commission-based and while the earning potential can be high, basic salaries are fairly low, particularly if you’re an estate agent.
“When you couple this with the fact that estate agents only pocket a small slice of the fee charged to home sellers, it’s fair to say they are probably underpaid given the vital role they play in such a momentous stage in people’s lives.
“Of course, the perceived security that comes via employment is enough for some, but it’s no wonder that so many are adopting the self-employed business model in order to significantly boost their income potential.
“While letting go of a guaranteed income may have been a traditionally scary prospect, platforms such as Nested now provide the support and resources needed to make the jump, for those that have what it takes to succeed in sales.”
| Sales profession | Est ave annual salary (base salary excluding commission) |
| Pharmaceutical sales representative | £35,228 |
| Advertising sales representative | £30,638 |
| Car salesman/car sales executive | £30,312 |
| Door to door sales representative | £28,338 |
| Recruitment agent | £26,578 |
| Medical devices sales representative | £26,558 |
| Software sales representative | £25,466 |
| IT sales executive | £25,201 |
| Estate agent | £24,817 |
| Insurance sales agent | £24,372 |
| Retail sales executive | £23,415 |
| Telesales representative | £21,323 |
| Average Sales representative | £26,338 |
| Source: Indeed | |
I guess if folk don’t like their pay they can try a different career. The bigger problem in our industry is fair pay between genders. Fact:- woman doing the same job as a man (like for like) invariably do not earn the same.
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Do you have evidence of this?
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Yes
Especially when interviewing, it is most evident.
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When I was an estate agent in mid 80s on Reading I was an area manager – I had sales negs working for me who were earning 25K a year had a company car with a petrol card and pension private health care.
Looking at the inflation index 25K then would be about 85k today.
The people who worked for me were real sales people. They would be on the phone all day ringing potential vendors and buyers.
They would knock on doors of houses on the market to see if we could help.
They would go to the library and go at the electoral roll to get names of homeowners whose homes were on the market and look the number up in the phone book and ring to try to get through the door to sell our service.
That is what they were expected to do.
As a developer now I see none of this. I have had schemes ion the market and not been contacted by any other agent that the one acting.
Companies now do not want to pay a good salary.
Competition has reduced fees and I guess profitability and the ability to pay a good salary.
The result I think is that ambitious people go to other better paid professions.
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All absolutely true Jan.
I instruct an agent to sell a property and ask the agent if they have anyone for it and am told they don’t know because it hasn’t gone on Rightmove yet.
I was looking to buy once not that long ago in a very specific area and asked the agent to stop emailing me everything and just call me when something comes on in my area of interest. Sorry we don’t call out was the response and some quick research showed that was the business owner telling me that.
The vast majority of agents these days are lazy and the pay shows that.
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There are some very proactive agents out there still.
But the Return on Investment for chasing down instructions from properties that are already on the market is actually very low.
Business owners now seem either not to bother or spend their money in alternative ways – i.e. another leaflet drop, etcetera.
I blame Rightmove for the decline in “active selling”…
The number of times I heard from a seller something along the lines of “Well, you’re all on Rightmove and my house will sell itself so I just want the lowest fee possible” was ridiculous. Those were often the houses that wouldn’t sell themselves either.
And then from buyers “No, send me the details first” followed by “I haven’t looked at them yet” followed by “What do you mean you’ve already sold it?”. That blows my mind.
My favourite time as an agent was when it was me with a box of cards with people’s telephone numbers on them and the only way a property got sold is because I made it happen.
The salaries were much better back then compared to the overall cost of living too.
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Agreed AC that’s when it was fun, hard work but fun!
it’s not like that anymore.
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I don’t think £24,817 is that bad for sitting by the phone waiting for a RM/Z/OTM lead! Even better if your at home being interrupted playing a game, doing gardening or watching tv!
Plan for the day:- have a nap.
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I decided to try something different this time around, having noticed that recruitment in our sector was getting more and more difficult.
The reality is we can only pay out so much, but the overriding impression I was getting was that low salaries with an “expectation” of earning much more doesn’t really cut it, especially if they’re “expected” to earn the higher figure anyway.
So I simply raised salaries and altered the commission structure. My negs get a good salary now, but don’t get paid “bonuses” on house sales. My reasoning was that my staff are expected to sell houses irrespective, and by cutting out the cut-throat element, more emphasis can be put on customer service and collaboration with their colleagues, as opposed to feeling like they had to compete with each other.
They can still earn bonuses, but that is based on making solicitor and mortgage referrals – again, a decent cut – and also a bonus based on good reviews and personal skills development.
The result of this, is that sales, productivity and happiness is through the roof, and my colleagues don’t have to worry about earning a pittance during a challenging month, which let’s face it, is not good for mental health and stress.
Not saying this is the definitive way forward, but it works for me.
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I wonder what the average value of sales generated leads to the average wages above.
As an area manager I expected an employee to cost me a total of about 33% of the sales they generated. That included a company car, etcetera.
So a sales person generating £100,000 of sales commission could expect about £30-32k including commission before tax and a mid range company car.
The problem as far as I can see is that since 2003, the number of people employed in the estate agency industry has doubled. At the same time the total number of property transactions per year has declined significantly.
Property prices have doubled but the average commission rate has dropped off a cliff. Back in 2003 it was 2% sole agency and 3% multiple agency. All day, every day. Now it would appear that agents are lucky to get 1% multiple agency in some areas because the competition is so stiff.
That means that you have double the number of people chasing the same amount or even perhaps less commission.
No wonder the take home pay of a negotiator has stagnated at best or even declined (particularly in real terms). It’s also no wonder that it’s hard to attract and keep motivated staff when the money to keep them is so hard to generate.
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This.
Too many agents, not enough stock,
The reality is that you can hire a rookie on 50% of the wage of someone senior, and they will sell more than 50% of someone senior usually
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What did you expect would happen with the rush to the bottom of the sales commission league table and all started by PB who had the use Multi £M’s of investors money to burn and subsidise operations.
Until commission fee’s climb back to where they should be @ minimum 1.5% achieved sale price, there isn’t the viability to pay higher salaries. Salaries are the most expensive part of a business operation.
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I can’t agree with that. I worked for one of Countrywide’s subsidiaries in the North West of England and they always charged high fees. Yet their basic wage – and the commission structure – was an absolute pittance.
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I can agree with that. Countrywide are notorious for pocketing the commission and not paying the staff. So the issue is the employer salary structure. Any employer first needs to have the income in place and not rob the staff once they get it. The race to the bottom with cheap and unsustainable fees has been an issue for several years now with so many agents not standing up.
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I never earned as high as a 24k basic salary as a neg and I’ve certainly not seen any car sales basic salaries at 30k+ – perhaps I’m somewhat skewed by being in the South West.
For the job that a large number of ‘agents’ do – answer the phone, do some viewings; it’s not bad pay.
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