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My clients have also covered a wide range of funding sources on either side of a home purchase or sale, including investors and cash buyers, conventional, FHA, and VA financing, as well as 203K rehabilitation loans. These have been for new homes, models, and standing inventory with a variety of builders,  traditional resales, and Bank Owned foreclosures. Now to be a good agent, it’s more than taking classes and passing a test. If you want to be successful and truly representing your client’s interests, it takes a wealth of experience.  The market changes, regulation changes, and no two home sales from either side of the closing table are the same. Without being truly full time, dedicated, and knowledgeable in a variety of situations, it’s impossible to offer quality customer service.   Researching and Choosing Your Agent Let me repeat what was on my home page.  From the National Association of REALTORS® 2015 industry D.A.N.G.E.R. report stating; “The real estate industry is saddled with a large number of part-time, untrained, unethical, and/or incompetent agents. This knowledge gap threatens the credibility of the industry.”  Let me explain why I believe this happens and how it affects you. Agent schools are inexpensive, and testing and licensing as a salesperson isn’t as difficult or have the secondary education requirements of a broker license.  This ease of entry is the reason why there was an increase in agents during the boom years, and again now as the market has become more stable and with steady, but more moderate, price increases.  Desirable and well priced homes can move quickly. This is what attracts the part-timers and the return of those who dropped out of the industry.  It’s not a desire to make this a profession, it’s more about their focus on dollar signs.  This lack of industry focus is what leads to that knowledge gap of untrained and incompetent agents.  Their lack of business experience also explains their ebb and flow into real estate, and what creates their unethical issues. For those like myself who are experienced in business, investment, expenses, and a lack of guaranteed steady income are easy to understand.  There is no weekly paycheck or expenses.  A commission check only happens days after a home sale actually closes.  Out of that, brokerage fees of up to 36% or more can be deducted, and if a referral, another 25% less to you.  You could also work for weeks or months with a buyer or seller, and even through no fault of your own, never get paid for your time or have your expenses reimbursed.  Again, a cost of doing business, and not unlike spending time and money to prepare a bid, but not get a contract because a buyer’s financing fell through. Benefits like health care, unemployment compensation, workman’s comp, paid vacation, sick days and the like, don’t exist, you’re on your own.  Those FICA and Medicaid paycheck deductions as an employee are at 7.65% of your income, but being self employed it jumps to the full 15.3%.  You, as your employer, pay the other half.  You can also be effected by economic slowdowns, interest rates, seasonal slow periods and many other outside forces.  All the while expenses remain.  State and local business and real estate licensing and  membership dues for access to the MLS.  Continuing education classes, whether in a classroom or online.   Tack on office expenses, both at a brokerage and at home if you want to be efficient, and the numbers continue to climb.  Plus photography, various technology, for sale signs and electronic lock boxes.  Then the marketing, so that you can be found, as being with a brokerage doesn’t mean you’re handed clients.  Anyone who is a business owner naturally expect these expenses and situations, knows how to budget for them and offers a a quality product to survive these issues, but many who enter the industry, do not.  I believe this is what can cause the unethical behavior as mentioned in this report.   Again, their focus isn’t on the business, it’s the lure of cash, and it doesn’t matter what corners are cut to get it. Then there is work schedule, as there really is none.  While this can offer some flexibility, you can’t drop the ball when clients are at the door. Yet it’s almost unimaginable, even a large national chain actually professes having “Business Hours” as a way of gaining respect from clients.  Good to know that they don’t operate in fields where clients may need them beyond banker’s hours.  Professionals such as doctors, lawyers, to even a plumber don’t gain respect this way.  Having a heart attack?  Wait until tomorrow, it’s after 5pm.  You were arrested?  Sorry, I’m not taking your calls, I have family time.  Your pipe broke and is flooding your house?  Sorry, I’m off for the weekend.  I feel your investment, that can be hundreds of thousands of dollars, can be just as important to you. I think now you can understand the why of part time agents and those more concerned with their interests, than yours.  I also believe you can see there are those that cut corners and replace quality service, that can cost you in the long run,  with the lure of discounts. To me, that means you’re going to be  lost in the crowd of the volume they must do to stay alive, and the quality of service you receive, suffers.  Unfortunately they may be the agent on the other side of your transaction.  For your major investment, and quality of life, I believe you can visualize why you really need a professional real estate agent on your side.