Real Estate's Dirty Little Secret

There’s a story making the rounds that 80 percent of Realtors didn’t close a single transaction in 2024. It sounds shocking, and it’s probably not completely accurate. But what’s worse is that the National Association of Realtors could publish the exact number anytime they want. They simply choose not to. Here’s the truth they don’t like to talk about. A huge number of people are walking around with business cards that say Realtor, not because they sell real estate, but because they pay for the privilege of saying so. To wear that title, you’ve got to pay three separate memberships: national, state, and local boards. Then you’ve got to buy MLS access. Add it up and the average cost to “belong” runs between $1,000 and $2,000 a year. You can’t pick and choose; these memberships are interlocked. On top of that, you have to maintain your license. That means continuing education, renewals every few years, a few hundred dollars here and there. And almost every state requires your license be hung under a brokerage, which adds monthly desk or transaction fees, anywhere from a token $100 to $1,000 a month or more. So there’s a very large pool of agents paying thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, each year for memberships, license renewals, tech platforms, and broker fees. Many of them generate little to no income. They’re not running a business; they’re feeding one. This is the dirty little secret: once discount and flat-fee brokerages entered the scene, many realized the real product wasn’t homes, it was agents. If you can recruit a thousand licensees who each pay small monthly fees and never sell a thing, you’ve got a cash flow machine. Those agents become the patsies who keep the lights on. And so, in an industry wrapped in regulation, ethics codes, and professional standards, we’ve built a structure that quietly depends on non-performers to survive. Brokerages preach productivity while profiting from inactivity. It’s a strange contradiction, one that erodes both credibility and morale. An ethical brokerage could change this overnight. All it would take is a minimum performance standard: say, four closed transactions per year. Fall below that, and you’re out. But most won’t do it. They can’t afford to. The silent majority of dues-paying, non-producing members are the financial backbone of the system. Without them, many offices wouldn’t last a quarter. So the next time someone quotes that “80 percent non-productive” statistic, remember: the number might be fuzzy, but the problem is real. We’ve built an industry that rewards volume of membership over volume of sales. The badge of Realtor should stand for professional achievement, not just paid subscription status. Until that changes, the house of cards we’ve built will keep leaning, propped up by well-intentioned agents paying for a dream that, for most of them, never quite makes it off the ground.