Today, we’re listing our favorite income streams for real estate agents!
As a real estate professional, you’re likely paid on commission for home sales or property leases. And while this can be lucrative, it can also be problematic when sales slow.
Sales might slow because of seasonal lulls or recessed markets. Or you might be a new real estate agent, who is working to build your client base before you can establish consistent income. Either way, you need supplemental income to maintain your lifestyle. And our 33 income streams for real estate agents will help you find options that will work for you!
Since 33 is a lot, we’re breaking them down into five categories:
- Traditional Income Streams for Real Estate Agents
- Online Content Income Streams
- Income Streams from Additional Client Services
- Income Streams from Products
- Investment Income Streams for Real Estate Agents
Traditional Income Streams for Real Estate Agents
Let’s start with traditional money-makers in the real estate industry.
1. Commissions on Real Estate Transactions
I know…we just opened with a section about how your commissions may be down because of market conditions or because you’re new to the industry. But this is still the primary income source for most agents, so we couldn’t not include commissions on our list of income streams for real estate agents.
2. Referrals to Other Agents
Are you an amazing lead generator? Generating leads and referring them to other agents can be a great way to earn 20-35% of a commission without investing the time in facilitating the transaction yourself!
This works especially well for agents who have developed a lead-generating blog. Buyers and sellers from all over the world can find your website when they search topics like “how to get my offer accepted” or “how to stage a home affordably.” Then you can refer these clients to agents in their local markets.
3. Residuals from Other Agents
Some brokerages now offer residuals to agents who recruit new agents. When the agent you sponsor makes a sale, you get a share of the commission.
4. Coaching Real Estate Agents
Have you developed a formula for success? Share this information with other agents and help them succeed in their markets. You can charge respectable hourly rates or flat fees for consulting services.
5. Specializing as a Transaction Coordinator
Transaction Coordinators are the detail-oriented professionals behind the deals. They’re responsible for all the paperwork and for coordinating the many tasks that take place while a property is under contract.
6. Leasing/Property Management
Property management and leasing are always lucrative because renters move far more than homeowners. In most cases, you’ll represent a property owner, helping to market available units and find qualified renters. With ongoing property management services, you also handle day-to-day operations, like rent collection and maintenance requests.
7. Home Inspection or Appraisal
Home inspectors and appraisers must be locally certified, but both professions can generate respectable incomes for real estate professionals.
8. Drone Photography / Virtual Tours
With the proper equipment and skill, you could take drone photos or create virtual tours. And this doesn’t just apply to listings. Lots of local businesses, apartments, and Airbnbs will pay big money for specialty photos and tours like this.
Online Content Income Streams for Real Estate Agents
Anyone with a website can make money from online content. As a real estate agent, you should already have a website to promote your business and generate organic online traffic (if you don’t have one yet, read up on how to launch a real estate website), so you just need to monetize your website content. Here are a few ways to do that…
9. Affiliate Links
Affiliate links allow you to earn commission on products and services that you recommend to your audience.
You can find examples of affiliate links all over this website. For example, if you check out my post on the 10 Best Books for Successful Real Estate Agents, you’ll see that I link to the Amazon.com listing for each book. If you click on one of those links and make a purchase, I get a small commission. This benefits everyone; you get easy access to the resources you’re looking for, Amazon makes a sale, and I earn a fee from Amazon. Win, win, win!
You can do the same with home improvement stores or home decor shops. Check out The Top 5 Affiliate Networks for Real Estate Agents to learn more.
10. Sponsored Content
Brands are willing to pay content creators to promote their products and services.
For example, a local builder might be willing to pay you upfront to write a blog post about how to buy a new construction home. The post still contains valuable information for your readers, and you include a mention of the sponsoring builder, along with a link to their website.
Many agents blog anyway (because regular blog posts help agents earn organic traffic from search engines like Google), so this doesn’t add to your workload, but you earn a little extra cash!
11. Members-Only Content
If you have specialized knowledge to share, you can earn regular monthly income through members-only content.
Take DRIP by Key Real Estate Resources for example. DRIP offers fresh real estate marketing materials to agents every month. For a super-affordable monthly fee, you get social media posts, a newsletter, and a content calendar. This members-only content allows me to earn a regular monthly income while offering a valuable service at a low price!
Real estate agents could offer members-only content in the form of real estate stock photos or real estate investment data.
Income Streams from Additional Client Services
Adding a service to your real estate business allows you to differentiate yourself in the market while meeting with future buyers and sellers for future real estate sales!
And you have a few different ways to incorporate these new services into your business.
You could:
- Do the work yourself. This works well when you have the time, skill, and desire to perform the work.
- Outsource the work to professionals. This is ideal when you’re available to oversee the work, but don’t have the time, skill, or desire to do it yourself.
- Create a separate company to provide the service. This option is best for work that requires a team of people. You can hire a manager to oversee the work, and as the owner, you could be involved as much or as little as you like.
Here are some of the best service income streams for real estate agents.
12. Property Tax Appeals
Tax appeals are a brilliant addition to any real estate practice! Agents already have most of the skills and knowledge to be successful in property tax appeals. And because the opportunity for tax appeals is highest in a slow real estate market, agents have the time to perform this work themselves.
Here’s how it works:
- You check the tax assessor’s value for your clients’ properties (this info is available online in most counties).
- If the value is higher than the fair market value, you file an appeal application. You often know immediately if a property is overvalued, but you can run a quick CMA if you’re not sure.
- You show your tax assessor that the property is overvalued (using a basic CMA).
- When the tax assessor corrects the value on the tax bill, your client saves money on their property taxes, and you earn a fee (usually a percentage of their savings).
You would be shocked at how often homes are overvalued for tax purposes! And, even if your client’s home is valued correctly, simply performing this check is a great service. Imagine sending your former buyers an email to say that you reviewed their property tax values and confirmed that the value is fair. No other agent in your market is performing a complimentary review of their buyers’ property tax bills!
Learn more about this service in How to Make Money with Property Tax Appeals.
13. New Home Photo Shoots
We have infant photo shoots, engagement photo shoots, and senior photo shoots. Now…new home photo shoots! This is a set of professional photos taken of buyers in their new homes.
These photos are ideal for celebrating the milestone on social media and adding to change-of-address postcards.
Help local buyers celebrate and commemorate this accomplishment! Learn how to Make Money with New Home Photo Shoots.
14. Staging
Staging services help homes sell faster and for more money. By adding staging services to your real estate business, you’re adding value for your sellers while adding to your bottom line.
15. Home Repairs
Offering home repairs services gives your homeowners a one-stop shop. They know that they can contact their real estate agent whenever they have a minor home repair project. And you stay top-of-mind!
16. Credit Repair
Credit repair services are ideal for a recessed market. During a recession, lenders tighten their loan requirements, causing potential buyers to have a harder time qualifying for a mortgage. By offering credit repair services, you can help your future buyers get to the point where they qualify for a home loan. And you will have laid the foundation to become their buyer’s agent!
Credit repair is surprisingly simple. In most cases, you contact creditors on behalf of your clients to negotiate terms. If a credit card account is in default, for example, your clients might be able to remove that default from their credit report by paying just half of the balance due. You get to help people repair their credit, which helps them become financially stable homeowners!
17. Notary Services
Becoming a notary is easy and inexpensive. And with widespread RON (Remote Online Notary) acceptance, you can often perform your notary duties from the comfort of home, using just a webcam!
18. Housesitting
Ok, housesitting might not do much to raise your credibility as an agent. But you can frame this as an ancillary service. Your marketing message can be something like…As a professional real estate agent, I understand the value of your home and the importance of trusting someone to manage the house while you’re away. That’s why I offer housesitting services at a discounted rate to local homeowners.
Huge bonus: once you get a few housesitting gigs under your belt, you’ll be a more attractive candidate as a luxury housesitter. This can allow you to travel the world without paying for accommodations!
19. Content Writing
I actually make my living as a real estate content writer. I’ve written for industry sites like Inman and Mortgage.com. I’ve been featured on Yahoo News. And I ghostwrite a ton of content for real estate agents, real estate investment firms, and real estate schools. I even wrote a book!
The pay depends on how specialized the topic is. For general real estate articles, I typically earn around 15 cents per word ($75 for a short article, $300 for a long article, and somewhere in between for mid-length content). But for specialized content, like commercial real estate investing or VA loans, the rate can go up to 25 cents a word ($500 for a long article).
Shameless plug: if you need someone to write the content for your blog, website, or marketing materials, check me out!
20. Landscape Design and Maintenance
Having in-house landscape design and maintenance is a great way to stay top-of-mind with homeowners. In this case, you may want to start a subsidiary to handle this job…unless you want to be seen as a landscaper first and an agent second.
21. Home Maintenance Services
Home maintenance services are useful to homeowners clients and investor clients alike. You can also offer these services to local homeowners in the hopes of marketing your real estate sales services for when they’re ready to sell. Consider services like:
- Cleaning
- Painting
- Organizing
- Decorating
- Roofing
- Plumbing
- Electrical
As with the landscape service, it’s generally best to hire people who will perform the work on behalf of your company.
Income Streams from Products
Selling a product might fill your mind with logistical nightmares of manufacturing and shipping, but our product ideas are much more manageable as a separate income stream for real estate agents.
22. eBooks
Selling digital copies of a book can create a comfortable passive income stream. You write the book once (or hire a ghostwriter), and make money from it for years to come. And, as long as you stick to a real estate-related topic, your book will enhance your real estate career, not detract from it.
Of course it’s not easy to write a book. And it’s even harder to get a publisher. But you can skip the publisher by self-publishing on Amazon.com or even simply selling PDF versions of your book on your website.
Learn more about Making Money with eBooks.
23. Courses
Courses are another excellent digital product option for real estate professionals. You could offer an online course for new real estate investors or a home maintenance course for first-time homeowners. You can typically charge more for a course than for a book, but you’ll also need to be more available to your students than an author would be to their readers.
By the way, offering free, local courses in real estate investing or first-time buying is a great way to generate new leads while practicing your instructor skills!
Learn More: How to Create Online Real Estate Courses
24. Stock Photos
Stock photos are the generic images used on websites, social media templates, and other marketing materials. Anyone can make money selling their photos on sites like:
Once you post a photo, you could collect royalties for years to come. I’m still earning royalties from a photo I posted five years ago! But beware: the royalties are small. You’ll usually earn somewhere between $0.20 and $1.00 each time one of your photos gets licensed.
Learn more: How to Make Money Selling Stock Photos Online
25. Other Digital Products
Digital products aren’t limited to books, courses, and photos. Templates, checklists, and printables are all selling online.
Etsy is a great place to get ideas for digital products, and it’s a great platform to sell your digital products once they’re ready. Transaction fees are minimal, and Etsy attracts a wide audience of online shoppers.
Here are just a few clever ideas from Etsy that could tie into your real estate business:
- Landlord resources (lease agreement templates, renewals, move-in/move-out inspection sheets, etc)
- Customizable change of address postcards
- House-themed kid’s game printables (perfect for keeping kids busy during showings!)
26. Equipment Rental
Thinking beyond the digital world, physical products can also bring you income without requiring manufacturing or shipping. Consider tool and equipment rental, for example.
First-time buyers in particular often need some tools for their new homes. But with the expense of buying a home, many first-timers don’t have money left to purchase a bunch of expensive DIY equipment. So they head to Home Depot to rent it.
If you have a well-stocked toolshed, you could provide this product/service hybrid better than Home Depot. You could also save your clients time and money compared to going to Home Depot. Just make sure you have a healthy deposit on hand in case anything happens to your tools or equipment while your clients have them.
Learn more: How to Make Money Renting Out Tools and Equipment.
Investment Income Streams for Real Estate Agents
Maybe you have some cash available, and you want to use it to grow your net worth or generate passive income. These investment income streams for real estate agents can do exactly that! By the way, if you’re looking for more real estate investment options (or more detailed info on some of the options listed here), check out 18 Different Ways to Invest in Real Estate.
27. Crowdfunding/Syndication
I am a big fan of crowdfunding and syndication for several reasons:
- Since your funds are pooled with other investors, you get access to high-value real estate projects with comparatively low minimum investments.
- It’s flexible. You can find fix-and-flips, new construction, and long-term rentals through crowdfunding/syndication.
- It’s entirely passive; the real estate development or rental is handled by the sponsor.
- You get to leverage the sponsor’s knowledge, experience, and connections, which minimizes risk and maximizes return potential.
Learn more about real estate syndication and crowdfunding from Gatsby Investment, the premier syndication firm in Los Angeles.
(Full disclosure: I write articles for Gatsby, which is how I’ve come to know them and appreciate their investment model.)
28. Rental Properties
Rental properties are the classic passive income model in real estate investing. You can rent out:
- Single-Family Homes
- Vacation Rentals
- Multi-Family Apartments
- Commercial Real Estate
- Industrial Properties
- Vacant Land
Hold: How to Find, Buy, and Rent Houses for Wealth by Steve Chader is a must-read if you’re interested in building a rental portfolio.
29. Fix and Flips
Buying a fixer-upper, renovating, and reselling is a popular investment strategy, particularly in growing markets. You can get in and out of a flip within 3-6 months, meaning that you don’t have to tie up your capital for long.
But, in slow or declining markets, you need to be careful because you may struggle to find a buyer, leaving you with months of extra mortgage payments that you hadn’t planned for.
I highly recommend FLIP: How to Find, Fix, and Sell Houses for Profit by Rick Villani for those who want to learn the ins and outs of flipping.
30. Wholesaling
Wholesaling is basically flipping, but for contracts rather than houses. You get a property under contract, then find someone willing to pay more for the property. You sell that person the contract at their higher price, then pocket the difference.
This can work well in hot markets for investors with strong networks of potential buyers.
To learn more, check out If You Can’t Wholesale After This: I’ve Got Nothing For You… by Todd M. Fleming.
31. REITs
REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) are companies that invest in income-generating real estate. You can invest in these companies to earn dividends.
To learn all about REITs, check out The Complete Guide to Investing in REITs – Real Estate Investment Trusts: How to Earn High Rates of Returns Safely by Mark Gordon.
32. Tax Liens and Tax Deeds
Tax liens and tax deeds allow you to invest in properties with back taxes due. Whether you invest in liens or deeds depends on your state’s system.
With tax liens: investors buy a lien on the property at a predetermined interest rate. You’re not buying the property; you’re only buying a lien against the property. At tax lien auctions, investors typically aren’t bidding up the value of the lien. The value is simply the amount of property taxes due. Instead, investors bid to see who will offer the lowest interest rate to the property owner for the lien.
With tax deeds: investors are bidding to pay the defaulted taxes and buy the property. So bidding starts at the amount of past-due taxes and investors bid up the purchase price from there. The winning bidder pays the bid amount immediately and takes possession of the property.
Tax Lien Investing Secrets by Joanne Musa (aka the Tax Lien Lady) and Zero Risk Real Estate: Creating Wealth Through Tax Liens and Tax Deeds by Chip Cummings are good resources for creating this type of investment income stream.
33. House hacking
The final entry on our list of streams of income for real estate agents is house hacking. That is, renting out your existing spaces for extra income.
There are lots of different options for house hacking. You could rent out:
- A room in your house,
- A guest house, pool house, or in-law suite on your property,
- Parking spaces, or
- Storage spaces.
Get a Small Win
Before you move on with the rest of your day, get a small win.
Today’s Small Win Challenge is to pick just one or two of these income streams for real estate agents and start learning more. Read a detailed blog post on the subject, pick up a book, or take an online class. By the end of this week, you could have a whole new stream of income added to your budget!
