April has surely been an odd month and it definitely didn't help that I was sick for a big chunk of it.  I'm not going to lie - it was pretty dead for the first few weeks of the month with little or no activity on any of our listings and little to sell or show our buyer clients (at least stuff that wouldn't go into a bidding war).  Although I was still busy for the most part (since Otto and Sam were away for bits), we had a pretty dry spell and it had me really worried.

The sad truth about this business is that your compensation is all results based and unfortunately, not activity based.  You can be super duper busy, but it doesn't mean that you're making money - it's pretty simple, you don't sell and close, you don't get paid.  All the while, you're spending and investing a lot of time and money to attract and conduct business, but the returns don't always come in as fast.  I've seen quite a few agents already enter and exit the business in a short time frame - it's not as easy as people think.

Everyone likes numbers, so I'll throw some statistics at you now...

• there are 24,000+ agents registered on the Toronto Real Estate Board and the average real estate agent does only 4 deals per year.  Yes, that's keeping in mind that there are part time and non-trading agents in there, but still!  That's not too pretty. 
• when talking about the distribution of wealth in this business, forget about the 80-20 Rule, in real estate it's more like 93-7... that is, 7% of the agents make 93% of the money!  It's pretty staggering if you ask me.
• with low barriers to entry, it's an easy business to get in to... but the numbers show that they're getting out almost as fast as they're getting in!  80% of entrants subsquently leave Real Estate after the first year and/or are struggling to scrape by.  In the second year, of the 20% left, only about 7% of them renew their license and continue trading.  The numbers here are pretty consistent with new business start-ups because as a new agent, that's exactly what you are.
• the average age of a Realtor in the Toronto Real Estate Board is 54 - wowza! 

Those are interesting numbers aren't they?  I almost can't belive it sometimes, but then I can totally understand because it's like a constant Real Estate roller coaster that you ride going up and down through the trials and tribulations of the market.  Ya surely gotta love it to keep at it... this business isn't for the weak minded or weak hearted.

Anyway, I haven't blogged in a little while because I have been occupied making up for all the lost time from earlier this month.  I'm not totally caught up yet, but at least I know I'll still have a roof over my head and I'm eating next month, which is good to know for sure. 

Now here's the pathetic part... I'm pretty much all caught up with my immediate work for the day, so I'm "off," but I have no idea what to do with myself.  I ate, I tidied up my place and I'm dumbfounded as to what to do with myself because I'm usually buried with work at this hour.  I sat down for a couple of minutes just staring at nothing trying to figure out and grasp the situation - there's been no work/life balace, so it seems I don't know how to live life without work to some degree.  As a result, I've decided to find work to do, so here I am blogging at 8:55 pm rather than my usual 2 am entries and next, I'm going to search for some other neglected work items to complete. 

Rat in a wheel I am...