The 5 Money Habits of Six-Figure Agents

Being busy doesn't mean you're making money. In this episode, Lindsay breaks down the uncomfortable truth that most real estate agents have no idea if they're actually profitable. You might be closing 30 deals a year and barely hitting six figures, while another agent closes 15 and makes bank. The difference? How they manage and track their money.

Real estate is set up to make you bad with money—irregular income, delayed payoffs, high upfront costs, and nobody withholding your taxes. But the agents who are actually building wealth (not just looking successful on Instagram) have five specific money habits in common. And no, you don't need a finance degree or to be a "math person" to implement them.

What You'll Learn:

• How to calculate your actual profit per deal (not just gross commission)
• Why separating business and personal finances changes everything
• The exact percentage to set aside for taxes and how to automate it
• How to track lead sources so you stop wasting money on what doesn't work
• Why weekly financial check-ins prevent panic and build real confidence
• The money habits that separate agents who look busy from agents building wealth

Resources Mentioned: Download the free Deal Dashboard at happyagent.co/dashboard to track your deals, income, expenses, lead sources, and goals in one central place.

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Transcript

Real Estate’s Money Traps

The Deal Dashboard Solution

Habit 1: Profit Per Deal

Habit 2: Separate Business And Personal

Habit 3: Automate Tax Savings

Habit 4: Track Leads And ROI

Habit 5: Weekly Financial Review

Results Of Money Discipline

Action Plan And Closing

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Ooh, we are got an until something fun today. We're talking about money, honey, which is honestly, I just love talking about money. I love tracking it, love talking about it. Um, hi guys, I'm Lindsay Dreyer. I'm a real estate coach, mom of three, brokerage owner, and I love, love, love, love, love, love treating real estate like a business. So today we are talking about the five money habits of six-figure agents and honestly, seven figure agents and onward. First, I want to start by saying something that might sting a tiny little bit, which is being busy or doing lots of gross commissions does not mean that you're making money. I know agents who are closing 30 deals a year and they're barely making six figures. And I know agents who close 15 deals a year and they are making bank. And the difference isn't their work ethic. It's not even their skill, but it is how they are managing and tracking their money because most real estate agents actually have no idea if they're profitable. Like they look at their gross commission income and that's what they think they made that year. They're like, oh my gosh, I brought in 200,000 this year, or I did 10 million in sales. But they are not accounting for the$60,000 in expenses, the$40,000 in taxes that they didn't set aside, and the fact that they paid themselves inconsistently all year and now they are scrambling. Trust me, I've been there. You can be a great agent and a horrible business owner. And oh, this hurts to say, but most real estate agents are like you are an incredible agent. You just deliver the best client experience ever. But in terms of being a business owner, a lot of you are not that great. So today we're talking about the five money habits that separate the agents who look successful. And girl, a lot of them look successful on the gram. Um, and we're separating those people from the ones who are actually successful. And honestly, those are the ones that probably aren't bragging about it. The ones that know their numbers, protect their profit, and honestly sleep well at night and probably go on those really sweet vacations that make me jealous. So this is the five money habits of six-figure agents. Let's dive into why most agents are bad with money and why it's not your fault if you fall in that category. Real estate is set up to make you bad with money. There are some things that are intrinsic to this business that make it difficult to manage your money. The first is it's irregular income. It's like feast and famine cycles. So it's really hard to plan for income consistency when the money coming in is not consistent. So that makes it really hard and difficult. It's not impossible, but it makes it difficult to be great with your money and manage it well. The other is that your employer is not withholding taxes. Like it is on you to pay those taxes quarterly. So that is a hard thing and it's something that you have to plan for. The other piece of real estate is that there's high upfront costs with a delayed payoff if you ever get that payoff. So, for example, we're fronting real estate marketing for our listings. We are fronting gas for showing buyers around, car expenses, um, internet, phone, going back to listings, staging. Like there are a lot of upfront costs that have a delayed payoff. So that is hard. And sometimes we never even get the payoff. So that makes it difficult to track your money. The next is also that like when you get a commission check, it feels like a windfall. You're like, holy crap, I just got$25,000 in my bank account. Let's go. And it may not even be that you're like doing anything luxurious. It might just be paying the mortgage and your credit card bill that you've been running a balance on. But these aren't, it's not a salary. So like it hits your bank account, but like you don't get to keep that entire$25,000. That's not expendable income. So most people, most agents are treating their business bank account like a personal checking account. And that's a big mistake. And we'll dive into more of the money habits you should probably work on and adapt. But you weren't taught this in real estate school, among a lot of other stuff, they probably should have taught us. But nobody talks about how to be a business owner. They don't talk about profit and loss statements. They don't talk about your profit margin. They don't talk about cash flow management. And so if you've ever looked at your bank account in December and thought, uh, where do my money go? You're not alone and you're not bad with money. And I think we need to stop saying that because there's a lot of people that are like, I'm just bad with money. You don't have to be. It is easy to learn. You're not bad with money. You just need a system. And hopefully that's what we're fixing today. Before we dive in, I want to just plug something that really helped me get more intentional about tracking my money. And that is my deal dashboard. Every deal, every lead source, every commission check. So it wasn't in my head. It was not in random spreadsheets. It was in one central place. And that's why I love a deal dashboard. So if you need a starting place, you can get mine for free. It is a free Google Sheet that tracks your deals, your income, any expenses that are tied to that deal, and also your goals. So you know where your stand at any given moment. Um, you can get it at happyagent.co slash dashboard. Again, that's happyagent.co slash dashboard. And it is so helpful. So if you aren't tracking your deals, start tracking. And I promise you, it's going to alleviate your anxiety. You're going to start practicing being good with money, and it's going to start giving you really good data to help you make more empowered decisions. All right, enough of the sales pitch. Let's get into the five money habits because I know that's what you're really here for. So I'm going to walk you through the five specific habits that every high-producing agent I know has in common. These are not complicated, they are not sexy, but I know that they work. And you don't have to be perfect at all five right away. You can start with one, build that muscle, and then move to the next one. But this is how you actually change your financial reality. So, habit number one, they know their profit per deal. Now you can calculate this. I typically like to do this on an annual basis, but most agents can tell you their gross commission income, but very few can tell you their profit per transaction. And that's actually a problem because if you don't know your profit per deal, you don't know which lead sources are actually worth it, whether you can afford to hire help, if you're pricing your services correctly, what your time is actually worth. So here's the simple way to calculate it. You take your gross commission income for the year, subtract all of your total business expenses. So that's everything your MLS fees, transaction fees, marketing, gas, technology, subscriptions, brokerage splits, all of it. And then you divide that number by the number of deals that you closed in the year. And that's your profit per transaction. So I know when a lot of agents calculate this, they're like, oh, damn, that number is really low. And that's just good information to know because now you can do something about it. You can charge more commission, you could push some expenses onto your seller, you could cut some expenses, but like having that information is super crucial because it's really helpful to know how much money do you actually make per deal. Habit number two is that top producing agents separate their business and personal money for real. I cannot tell you how many agents I talk to who are running their real estate business out of their personal checking account. They are commingling their expenses on their personal credit card. No, no, no, no, no. I'm not saying you have to run out and start an LLC and have like a total separate business entity. Actually, don't do that until it makes sense. But you should have a separate business bank account and a separate business credit card. And so all your expenses go on your business credit card, all of your um commission checks go into your checking account. Having your finances separated from business and personal forces you to look at your business finances as a separate entity. And that's really what helps you think like a CEO. It like really helps you think like a business owner. The other benefit of doing this is that it stabilizes your personal life because even in a slow month, you're still paying yourself and you're not going to be in a panic mode every time a deal falls through. So if you need to pay yourself, you are literally going to pay your personal account with your business account. And I know that that's difficult for a lot of people. And it's a good thing to have as a goal if you're not at that point in your business where you're living paycheck to paycheck. Trust me, I have been there. But the agents who get to a point where they're a top producer, they pay themselves a consistent amount from their business account into their personal account every month, just like a salary. And that is the goal that I have for all of you. That amount can go up over time, it might go down over time, but it's getting you used to having a salary and it really helps smooth out that feast or famine cycle that you can get in. So, how exactly are we doing this? Open a separate business checking account, get your separate business credit card. It does not have to be fancy. Decide on a baseline monthly salary that you can sustain even in slow months. It might be$1,000. It might be$12,000. No judgment. But what can you sustain even in slow months? And then you're paying yourself that amount on the same day every month. And then everything left over is profit. So and you can set it aside for taxes, reinvestment, or a bonus at the end of the year or quarterly if you want. But paying yourself like an employee and managing your business like a business owner is so crucial. And I really do believe if you are not separating your business and personal money, it is probably one of the easiest things to do right away. Diving into habit number three, they set aside taxes immediately and they actually do it. And this one sounds so simple, but so many agents don't do it. So every time a commission check hits your account, hopefully a business account now, you move 25, 30%, whatever that number is, talk to your CPA or be conservative into a separate savings account labeled taxes. That's it. That is the habit. You don't touch it. And here's why this is important. As a 1099 contractor, nobody is withholding taxes for you. And if you are not setting the money aside, you'll spend it. Trust me, you'll spend it. And then April comes and you owe$25,000 and you don't have it. Um, or you're on a quarterly estimated tax plan and you keep missing it because the money's already gone and then you're paying penalties. So top producers don't do this. And if they do, they need to stop. But most people or most agents who are treating their business like a business are setting aside money for taxes. They treat taxes like a non-negotiable expense, just like their email subscription, just like their Zillow lead subscription. Like they're treating it as an expense for the business. And the money gets moved into this account before they even think about spending it. So open a high yield savings account just for taxes, because I want you to get those coins off your interest. Set up an automatic transfer. So every time a commission check clears, you can move X percent to the tax account. Some brokerages with their programs that they use to pay out will even let you allocate with like um X percent to this account, X percent to this account. Be disciplined enough to not touch it until you actually pay your taxes. And then work with an accountant to dial in your exact percentage. So I personally like to go a little bit higher just because that ensures that I'm covered. And then if there's bonus, I'm like, heck yeah, baby, a little bonus for next year. Um, or go on that sweet vacation. So there have been years where I early on in my career where I did not save for taxes. And when I had to put a$25,000 IRS bill on my credit card, that was pretty freaking painful. Now that was over 15 years ago. Um, but I still remember it and it sucks. And I don't want that for you. So automate your tax savings, your future self. Well, thank you. Okay, diving into habit number four, they track every lead, every deal, and every lead source. So here's a question I ask every agent that I coach, um, where did your last year of deals come from? What was the source of your deals from the past year? And most of them have not tracked it and they can't tell me. Or they say something like, it's mostly referrals, or it's my sphere. Top agents know exactly where their business is coming from. And the real truth is if you don't know what's working, you can't do more of it. And like, let's double down on what's working. And if you don't know what's not working, that's even better because then you can stop wasting money on it. So they are tracking every single deal. Where did the lead come from? Was it sphere referral? And who was the person in their sphere? So, like, we're tracking people who are referring to you. Was it a past client, repeat client? Was it someone from an open house? Was it a paid lead like Zillow? Was it from a DM on social media? Uh what was the commission? And then how much did it cost to acquire that client? Over time, you might start to see patterns. So you're like, ooh, 60% of my business came from past clients and sphere referrals. So maybe I should stop spending that$1,500 a month on Zillow leads and invest that into my database instead. And that's honestly where a lot of my clients are at, which is they're wasting a lot of money on stuff that is not giving them return on investment. So if you aren't tracking your deals and your deal sources, go and grab my deal dashboard because when you log your deal, you can put in the source. And then on the dashboard, it will tell you how much commission you get from each of your sources. And that is such good information to have because you can see holy crap, like sphere referral. I had 120,000 commissions come from that. So that's pretty incredible. It's something I look at every single week. Honestly, I look at it daily as a brokerage owner. And it really helps guide marketing strategy because you don't have to just guess, you start knowing. And like our brokerage business, um, 87% of our business comes from sphere and past client referral. So we are doubling down our efforts on sphere and past client marketing. And that is the deal. So if you want to get the deal dashboard, it's at happyagent.co slash dashboard, happyagent.co slash dashboard. And I really am a firm believer in you can't optimize what you don't track. So knowing your numbers and knowing what lead sources are the best for you and have their highest return on money and energy invested is super crucial. All right. Last habit, number five, is that they review their finances weekly, not yearly. So most agents are only looking at their finances twice a year. And that's typically when they're doing their taxes or when they're freaking out because they're broke. Sorry. Oh, that's you. I'm sorry. It sucks. I've been there. Top agents review their numbers weekly. And this isn't like you have to pour into your numbers. You have to do hours of analysis. I'm talking about like 15, 20 minutes once a week where you sit down and you're looking at what deals closed this week. I'm updating my tracker, what deals are in the pipeline, updating my tracker, what's my revenue for the month? Like what's pending and what's pending? Like, what does it look like? Um, what expenses did I have? Like I usually review my credit card statement, make sure like there's nothing crazy on there. And then am I on track for my quarterly goal or like how am I doing on my annual goal? That's it. It's super simple, 20 minutes. But what this habit does is it keeps you connected to the financials of your business. And it means that you're not flying blinds, you're not surprised, and you know at any given moment where you're standing financially. And that really helps build confidence and it helps you get clear on where you're at, which alleviates anxiety, honestly. Like there's a lot of anxiety floating around there. So just having control of your numbers is like really great. So my like weekly financial check is I do this every Monday morning. I open the deal dashboard, update it, review everything, check my pipeline, forecast what's going on for the next 30 to 60 days. And then I adjust marketing early generation if there's anything based on what I see that needs to be adjusted. Um, so if you are not tracking this stuff or if you need a dashboard, you can get mine for free at happyagent.co slash dashboard. And these weekly reviews really prevent the panic. And so just building that habit is a really good thing to do. So, what happens when you actually start implementing money habits? You're tracking your profit per deal, you separate your money, you're setting aside your taxes, you know your lead sources, you're reviewing your numbers every week. The first thing is you stop feeling like your business is happening to you, and you start feeling like you're in the driver's seat. You know what's working, you know what's not, you can make decisions from data and not just being scared, which again, been there. The second thing is that you make more money, not because you're working harder, but because you're working smarter. You cut lead sources that aren't converting, you're doubling down on what does, and you stop leaking profit. That is such a big one for real estate agents is they spend money and they don't hold that money accountable. The third thing is your stress levels go down. Honestly, you sleep better. And I'm serious, when you know your numbers and you're not lying awake at 2 a.m. wondering if you can afford your mortgage next month or you like get that quarterly tax payment, you're like, I can't I got this. You know that you're good and knowing is everything. And that's really what separates agents who like look busy from the agents who are actually building wealth. And you do not have to be a math person to do this. You don't need a finance degree, you just need a system and you just have to use the system. So, last plug, if you are listening to this and thinking, Lindsay, this sounds great, but I have no idea where to start, go and get the deal dashboard. It is free. It's at happyagent.co slash dashboard. Make a copy of the Google Sheet. The next thing I want you to do is block 30 minutes this week to get it set up, plug in your year-to-date numbers, your deals, all of that, get it in one place, and then commit to updating it once a week for the next four weeks. Just try it for the next four weeks. And I'm curious to see what happens. I really think this is not only going to be motivating, but it will also change how you see your business because once you know your numbers, you can't unknow them. It's great. And that information will start to drive every decision you make from here on out. All right, so that is the episode. If you found that helpful, can you screenshot it and share it to your Instagram stories and tag me at HappyAgent Co. so I can see it. And if you know another agent who needs to hear this, send them the link. Next week, we're talking about your weekly CEO hour ritual, which is how I like to structure my week to stay on top of my business without losing my mind. And I promise you're going to want to tune in for that one. So until then, download the deal dashboard, start tracking your money. And remember, you can't build a six pink gear business on hope alone. You need systems. So until next time, stay happy.