Two REALTORS® can close nine deals in the same year and end up in completely different businesses. One works nights and weekends chasing internet leads. The other picks up the phone when a past client’s neighbor decides to sell. According to the National Association of REALTORS®’ 2026 Member Profile, released this summer, that second agent is increasingly the norm, and the gap between the two keeps getting harder to ignore.
The report, based on 2025 transaction data, puts the typical REALTOR® at 13 years of experience, up from 12 the year before. Median gross income across the board came in at $59,200, a modest bump from $58,100. That number hides more than it reveals. Agents with 16 or more years in the business reported median income of $88,500, up from $78,900. Agents with two years or less reported a median of just $8,000, down slightly from $8,100 and a fraction of what a veteran earns in the same market.
Where the Gap Actually Comes From
The income split tracks almost exactly with how business gets generated. Repeat clients accounted for a median 28% of business in 2025, up from 20% the year before, and referrals from past clients made up another 22%. Split that by tenure and the picture sharpens: agents with 16-plus years pulled 49% of their business from repeat clients and 32% from referrals. Agents with two years or less reported 0% from either category. Not a small share. Zero.
Production tells the same story. The typical agent closed nine transaction sides in 2025 with a median $2.7 million in individual sales volume, itself up from $2.5 million the year before. Newer agents, NAR’s cutoff for that is two years or less, closed a median of two sides and $330,000 in volume. Mid-career agents, six to 15 years in, landed at $3.3 million.
Affordability Is Squeezing Everyone the Same Way
None of this is happening in a vacuum. Brokerage specialists surveyed by NAR named housing affordability as the single biggest factor keeping their clients on the sidelines, with 27% naming it, more than double the next factor, lack of inventory, at 12%. Existing-home sales have been running near the slowest pace in three decades. That environment rewards agents who don’t need a fresh lead every week to keep a pipeline full, and it’s a hard place to be starting from zero.
What This Means If You’re Not Fifteen Years In
It’s tempting to read all this as bad news if you’re newer to the business, and there’s no getting around the fact that the first two years are genuinely hard. That $8,000 median income isn’t a typo. But the report also points to where the leverage actually sits: 21% of REALTORS® now work as part of a team, and team-based agents reported a median of 32 sides and $17.5 million in volume, against $2.7 million working solo. Teams are one way newer agents borrow experience faster than they could build it on their own. The other is deliberately building the kind of consistent lead flow that doesn’t depend on a referral network you haven’t had a decade to grow yet.
That’s the gap HouseJet is built to close. Instead of asking newer or growing agents to wait years for repeat and referral business to mature, HouseJet delivers exclusive, ready-to-work leads and the marketing infrastructure that used to be reserved for mega teams, so your production curve doesn’t have to track your tenure.
