We use cookies to provide you with the best possible website experience. This includes cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site, as well as cookies used for anonymous statistics, comfort settings, or displaying personalized content. You can decide which categories you want to allow. Please note that depending on your settings, some features of the website may not be available.

Cookie settings

These necessary cookies are required to enable the core functionality of the website. Opting out of these cookies is not possible.

cb-enable
This cookie stores the user's cookie consent status for the current domain. Expiry: 1 year.
laravel_session
Stores the session ID to recognize the user when the page reloads and to restore their login session. Expiry: 2 hours.
XSRF-TOKEN
Provides CSRF protection for forms. Expiry: 2 hours.
IZA Discussion Paper No. 15300
May 2022
Real Estate Agent Earnings and Local Housing Prices
Barry Hirsch, David A. Macpherson, Zichong (Tom) Qu

Real estate agents typically receive commissions based on a fixed percentage of home price purchases. Because housing prices vary across markets, one might expect that realtors have higher earnings in high-priced markets. Prior work by Hsieh and Moretti (2003) suggests that entry among realtors leads to roughly equivalent earnings across markets. We examine evidence from U.S. metro areas during 1996-2021 using Zillow housing price indices, coupled with realtor microdata (the CPS and ACS) including realtors' location, earnings, and work hours. Realtors' earnings elasticity with respect to local home prices is roughly 0.30, so that 10 percent higher home prices lead to 3 percent higher earnings. The positive wage-price relationship is not unique to realtors. The overall workforce has wage-price elasticities (conditioned on covariates) of about 0.20, two-thirds the size of realtors' elasticity. Realtors receive slightly higher earnings in higher-priced cities, about 1 percent for each 10 percent difference in housing prices. Weekly work hours across markets vary little with respect to metro housing prices, both for realtors and non-realtors. Evidence supports Hsieh and Moretti's conclusion that "over-entry" in high-priced markets is due to the inefficiency of fixed percentage commissions. Realtors have higher hourly earnings (and variance) than do "similar" non-realtor workers within the same labor markets, on the order of 10 percent. Evidence supports the view that real estate agents (on average) realize wage premiums. We suspect that higher earnings reflects both unmeasured personal attributes and compensating differentials for risk (e.g., variable earnings).

Kommunikation
Mark Fallak
mark.fallak@liser.lu
+352 585-855-526
World of Labour
Olga Nottmeyer
olga.nottmeyer@liser.lu
+352 585-855-501
Netzwerkkoordination
Christina Gathmann
christina.gathmann@liser.lu

Das IZA@LISER-Netzwerk ist eine weltweite Gemeinschaft für exzellente Forschung in der Arbeitsmarktökonomie und angrenzenden Fachgebieten. Nach dem Wechsel von Bonn wird das Netzwerk nun am Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) koordiniert.

Über das IZA@LISER Network
Contact
IZA Network (Current Site Operator):

Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER)
11, Porte des Sciences
Maison des Sciences Humaines
L-4366 Esch-sur-Alzette / Belval, Luxembourg

IZA Institute (In Liquidation):

Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH i. L.
Schaumburg-Lippe-Str. 5-9, 53113 Bonn. Germany
Phone: +49 228 3894-0 | Fax: +49 228 3894-510
E-Mail: info@iza.org | Web: www.iza.org
Represented by: Martin T. Clemens (Liquidator)