A short monologue about the economics of paying real-estate showing agents in a major metro market. The speaker argues showing work is low-paid, gives market figures (18,000 agents; ~75% don't sell homes), and describes an experiment where showing agents were paid $50,000/year for ~2,500 hours (≈$20/hour) with gas reimbursed—calling that rate too low despite agents being 'world class.'
Let's say showing homes. I could argue that it's. It's super low pay. In our market, we have 18,000 agents that 75% of them don't sell homes. And they're good showing homes. They're not business savvy. I wouldn't trust them to write a contract, but I would trust them to open a door and be friendly and follow my system for showing homes. So I could pay that person, at scale, 50,000 for the whole year to work about 50 hours a week, just showing homes, not writing any contracts at all. And we've done it before in my market, major metro market. So they're working about 50 hours a week, 2,500 hours a year. We paid their gas. If they're making 50 grand, so that's 20 bucks an hour. That's not the kind of pay that I want to make. And our showing agents are world class showing agents.
