Agent income · Texas
What do real estate agents actually make in Houston?
Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX · BLS wage data, May 2025
- Median pay
- $49,250 BLS OEWS
- Employed agents
- 5,320 BLS OEWS
- Bottom 10% earn under
- $30,040 BLS OEWS
- Bottom 25% earn under
- $36,520 BLS OEWS
- Top 25% earn over
- $83,680 BLS OEWS
- Top 10% earn over
- $139,990 BLS OEWS
- Mean (average) pay
- $70,650 BLS OEWS
Half of Houston's real estate agents earn less than $49,250 a year. A quarter earn less than $36,520. The top 10% clear $139,990. The spread, not the average, is the real story.
The top earners here make roughly 2.8x what a typical agent does - same market, same year, wildly different paychecks.
Why the spread is so wide
Real estate agents are paid on production, not a salary. There is no paycheck for showing up - income comes from closing deals, and a closing pays a share of the sale price, split with the brokerage. That single fact explains almost everything about the numbers above.
- No sale, no income. An agent who closes twelve homes earns roughly twelve times what an agent who closes one does. The gap between the median and the top 10% is mostly the gap between part-time and full-time production.
- The first year or two is the hardest. New agents build a pipeline before they see steady commissions, which pulls the bottom of the range down. Agents with an established referral base sit at the top.
- The market swings it. The same agent earns far less in a slow year than a busy one. These figures are a snapshot of May 2025, not a guarantee of any year.
- Many agents are not even counted here. This dataset covers agents paid as wage-and-salary workers. A large share of agents are self-employed independent contractors whose income is not captured in these BLS wage figures at all.