Ontario Real Estate Agents Can Make Over $90,000 A Year & You Don't Need A Degree To Do It

What does a real estate agent do?

If you just started thinking of a career in real estate and don't know everything that the job entails, a real estate agent helps clients buy houses.

Job duties can include meeting with clients, taking clients on home tours, negotiating with other agents and more.

Also, realtors can list properties for clients who are selling their homes and help them find people who are interested in buying the home.

How do you become a real estate agent in Ontario?

Provincial regulators set the educational and licensing requirements for careers in real estate, the Canadian Real Estate Association shared.

Once you become licensed through a province, you can then become a member of a local board and the Canadian Real Estate Association.

The Real Estate Council of Ontario enforces the rules that must be followed by real estate salespeople, brokers, and brokerages in the province.

If you want to work as a realtor in Ontario, you'll have to follow a defined education path that's set out by the Real Estate Council of Ontario.

Humber College's Real Estate Salesperson Program is the first step you need to take in order to become a real estate agent in Ontario.

There are admission requirements to get into the Real Estate Salesperson Program which include proficiency in English and a high school diploma or GED from a Canadian secondary school.

If you don't have a secondary school diploma or equivalent, you can take the Salesperson Program Admission Exam to get into the program.

A non-refundable $75 application fee has to be paid by all applicants, regardless of whether they apply with or without a high school diploma.

You can apply and start the real estate agent courses at any point during the year and there is no commitment to a full-time, semester-based program.

This Real Estate Salesperson Program is done in three parts:

• Pre-Registration Phase
• Registration
• Post-Registration Phase

The first part of this Humber College program is the "Pre-Registration Phase."

It's comprised of five courses, four exams and two simulation sessions that must be completed back-to-back.

You're allowed a maximum of 24 months to complete the Pre-Registration Phase — including up to 21 weeks per course for the first four courses and then four weeks for the fifth.

The second part of the Real Estate Salesperson Program is about registering with the Real Estate Council of Ontario.

After you've finished step one of the program, you're eligible to register with the council.

You have one year to complete your registration from the time you finish the pre-registration part of the program. Once you're registered, you can start trading in real estate.

Then, you need to complete step three of the program — the "Post-Registration Phase" — to be eligible to renew your registration at the end of your initial two-year registration cycle with the Real Estate Council of Ontario.

That means completing one mandatory compliance course and any two of the remaining five electives in the program.

You're allowed a maximum of 24 months to complete the Post-Registration Phase which includes up to four weeks per course.

With Humber College's Real Estate Salesperson Program, you will learn online and the coursework includes an interactive classroom and simulation sessions.

It also follows a pay-as-you-go model so you will only have to pay for each component of the program as you do it rather than paying the total program fees all at once.

The total fee for the Pre-Registration Phase is $4,110 and the total cost for the Post-Registration Phase is $655.

So, the total cost of the Real Estate Salesperson Program at Humber College comes out to $4,765.

How much does a real estate agent make?

Indeed has revealed that a realtor is one of the highest-paying jobs you can get without a degree in Canada and the average base salary is $93,872 a year across the country for 2023.

But, in Ontario specifically, the average starting salary for real estate agents is $99,682!

There are a few top companies for realtors in Ontario based on real estate agent salaries, according to Indeed.

That includes Zoocasa with an average salary of $148,189 per year, RE/MAX with an average salary of $110,471 a year, and Century 21 Real Estate with an average salary of $111,860 per year.

Also, the average realtor salary at Royal LePage is $90,019 per year.

Some realtor jobs in Ontario offer a yearly salary along with commission pay but some positions may only offer real estate agents commissions on sales.

According to the Real Estate Council of Ontario, commission rates vary from brokerage to brokerage but there are three types of real estate commissions in Ontario:

• a fixed amount
• a percentage of the sale price
• a combination of fixed and percentage amounts

Fivewalls, a free service that lets you find real estate agents, shared that the real estate commission rate in Ontario is typically 5% which is then split between the seller's agent and the buyer's agent.

That 5% is usually broken down to 2.5% for each real estate agent.

So, how much commission a realtor makes depends on the purchase price of a home.

With a 2.5% commission, it would work out to $15,000 on a house that sells for $600,000 and $25,000 for a house that sells for $1 million.

If you find a real estate agent job that pays you a salary and commission, you could end up making well over $100,000 a year — and possibly more than $200,000 — even if you just make a couple of sales!