How to Find Happiness in Your Real Estate Career

When the editors at Business Insider wanted to determine which jobs were the most fulfilling, they commissioned a study through CareerBliss.com. Lo and behold, “Realtor®” came in third on their list of “The 20 Happiest Jobs in America.” This didn’t surprise us one bit. In fact, we already knew, from our own study, that agents are typically glad they chose the career they did.

The results can be found in our “Happiest Agent on the Block” survey. More than 3,000 real estate professionals responded by opening up to us about their careers and their lives. We asked agents about how happy they are with their careers, incomes, daily tasks and life in general.

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Interesting Findings

Some of the results were expected while others caught us by surprise. For instance, it’s no surprise that the agents that earn the most are the happiest both in their careers and in their lives overall. Most of the surprising tidbits are in the survey section regarding the habits and traits of the happiest agents.

For instance, did you know that if you use Apple products you are likely to be happier than an agent who doesn’t use them? Likewise, married agents and those with a higher education are generally more fulfilled than others. One of the shockers in the survey was that agents who put in long hours – at least 60 a week – are among the happiest.

Of course, we should mention that if you follow the money, you’ll find a happy agent. That a higher income correlates with a higher degree of happiness in both career and life isn’t really all that shocking. So, we drilled down to determine the amount of leads per month, the number of transactions per year, and the commission split that provides the dividing line between the contented and the discontented.

Helping People Makes Agents Happy

Overall, agents who joined the real estate industry to meet and work with people tend to be the most fulfilled. In fact, 37.1 percent of survey respondents say that meeting and helping people is their favorite part of their jobs.

Conversely, working with certain types of people is one of the more onerous aspects of their work. Almost 12 percent of respondents claim the worst part of their real estate careers is working with “rude, disloyal, and uncooperative clients.” An additional 10.7 percent said they found working with “rude, immoral and unprofessional agents” the most distasteful aspect of their real estate careers.

Becoming a Happy Agent

Psychologists say that humans tend to do what feels good and avoid what doesn’t. Thankfully, real estate agents are business owners and have the freedom to do just that during the course of business every day. Agents are also fortunate in that the types of activities that create job fulfillment are also those that help create wealth.

For instance, working directly with people – whether it’s networking, showing houses or having coffee with a former client – helps build your pipeline. While escrow coordination and other paperwork are necessary, they typically aren’t fulfilling activities, nor do they contribute to an increase in transactions.

To maximize your happiness at work, then, you’ll need to free your time to get out of the office and around other people. There are lots of ways to do this, from hiring an assistant and delegating less-fulfilling tasks to automating tasks or a combination of both.

If you do nothing else, get a website that generates business, a CRM to stay organized, and a robust email marketing system. Those three items, and perhaps an assistant to set them up and monitor them, will free you to get out and get the “boost” that human relationships and helping others provides.

Imagine, getting paid – and paid well – to help people realize their dream of homeownership and making yourself happy to boot. It doesn’t get better than that.