Realtor resume examples & templates

Ready to close the deal on your job search? Craft an impressive Realtor resume using your sales expertise and market research skills.

An excellent resume can shine a spotlight on your powers of persuasion. In other words, your resume should sell you the way you sell real estate.

Your resume should also show a hiring manager how you can meet an agency’s needs. With the right resume, you can check off all the boxes on an employer’s wish list and get them to make an offer on the spot.

Writing a thoughtful Realtor resume can open new doors for you professionally. Take your career through the roof with a resume that positively sells your skills and experience.

Resume guide for a Realtor resume

Get help from the start with resume.io, a powerful resource for job seekers. We have resume guides and resume examples for over 500 professions, and we offer an easy-to-use resume builder to streamline your job search.

This resume guide, along with the corresponding Realtor resume example, will cover the following topics:

• How to write a Realtor resume
• Picking the right format for a Realtor resume
• Adding your contact information
• How to write a resume summary
• Describing your real estate experience
• Providing your education and relevant skills
• How to choose the best design and layout for your resume
• What the real estate industry looks like and how much you can earn

How to write a Realtor resume

Before you show a home, you familiarize yourself with the floor plan. In the same way, you should know what information to include on your resume before you begin writing it. A resume for a real estate agent should have the following components:

• A resume header
• A resume summary (aka profile or personal statement)
• An employment history section
• A resume skills section
• An education section

As a Realtor, your resume should tell a cohesive story about your sales career. It should have a consistent tone, style, and message that speaks directly to a prospective employer.

Before preparing your resume, learn about the real estate company, brokerage, or agency where you’re applying. Find out as much as you can about its mission, culture, and environment so you can target your resume to the firm.

With the right sales pitch, your resume can convince an employer to accept your offer. Apply these strategies for success:

• Adapt your resume to the job. When selling a home, you adjust your pitch depending on the prospective buyer’s needs. Do the same when you send out resumes, customizing each version to show how you can meet a specific company’s requirements and goals.
• Pay attention to the resume design. First impressions matter in real estate and in a job search. Polish the facade of your resume to appeal to prospective employers.
• Take an applicant tracking system (ATS) into account. Use an optimized resume template and incorporate keywords to make sure your resume passes an ATS with flying colors.

Choosing the right Realtor resume format

Your resume needs to sell your real estate skills and experience on one page. Choose the format carefully to make a great impression on a potential employer.

Most Realtors’ resume samples should use the reverse-chronological resume format. It’s the most common resume format, so hiring managers will be familiar with this structure. A reverse-chronological resume emphasizes your work experience, listing your most recent job first and working backward.

In some cases, an alternative format may work better for your real estate agent resume. If you’re applying for your first job after earning a license, you may use a functional resume format. This type of resume prioritizes your education and transferable skills over your lack of experience.

The other choice is a combination, or hybrid, resume, which combines the reverse-chronological and functional formats. It may be a good option if you’ve worked independently as a real estate agent or if you have gaps in your employment history.

Include your contact information

When you meet with a prospective client, you probably hand them a business card with your contact information. Your resume header serves the same purpose: to allow a hiring manager to get in touch with you.

Your contact information should be immediately accessible at the top of your resume. It should include these details:

• Full name and title. Provide your first and last name, followed by your professional title. Use “Realtor” if you’re a member of the National Association of Realtors.
• Professional email address. Use a professional email with a combination of your name or initials, such as firstinitial.lastname@email.com. Don’t use your work email if you’re currently working in another office or brokerage.
• Phone number. Include the phone number where a hiring manager can easily reach you. Record a professional voicemail greeting in case you miss a recruiter’s call.
• Location. For safety reasons, only list your city and state. Don’t provide your full street address or zip code.
• LinkedIn profile. If you have an updated LinkedIn profile, provide a link to it in your resume header.

Don’t include:

• Your date of birth. Providing this information can lead to potential age discrimination, so leave it off your resume.
• Other personal details. Your resume also shouldn’t contain other personal details, like your martial status or Social Security number.
• A photo or headshot. You don’t need to have a photo of yourself on your resume.

Make use of a summary

Your summary occupies prime real estate at the top of your Realtor resume. It’s your first chance to impress a prospective employer with your skills and experience.

You can compare a resume summary to a property description. It should be brief yet compelling to give the hiring manager a glimpse of your potential value. It needs to grab a recruiter’s attention and sell, sell, sell.

In two to three sentences, your summary should capture your experience, strengths, and personality. Shine a spotlight on your impressive sales numbers or the number of properties you’ve sold. If you can, tie your achievements to the agency’s needs and explain how you can use your skills to meet them.

Your summary is also known as a profile, so it should let a hiring manager know who you are. Include some complimentary adjectives to define your professional image, such as “persuasive,” “personable,” or “strategic.” You can also emphasize your areas of expertise, such as commercial real estate or first-time homebuyers.

This section should not repeat the details in your employment history, nor should it overstate your skills or abilities. Be honest about your achievements, but acknowledge other people’s contributions when warranted. Show hiring managers that you’re a go-getter who can work well as part of a team.

Check out the adaptable Realtor resume summaries below.

Outline your Realtor work experience: a history of high value

The employment history section of your resume details your career highlights. It tells the story of your career and how you’ve grown as a real estate salesperson.

List your work history in chronological order, beginning with your most recent position. You can go back 10 to 15 years on your resume. If you have over 15 years of real estate experience, include older jobs in a separate section called “Other Experience.”

For each job entry, write bullet points that show your value as a real estate agent. Don’t just focus on the responsibilities you’ve had in other jobs. For example, these are some vague, generic statements that hiring managers see on many resumes:

• Managed property listings
• Coordinated property showings and open houses
• Assisted clients with buying and selling properties

While those points may be factual, they won’t set you apart from other Realtors vying for the same job. Instead, use each bullet point to illustrate a positive outcome, sale, or client interaction. Be specific and use strong action words to describe your achievements. Provide statistical evidence of your sales experience, including dollar amounts and percentages.

If you get stuck writing this section, ask yourself what strategies you used to sell properties or gain new listings. Include those answers in the form of problems, actions, and positive outcomes.

Consider these reworked versions of the above bullet points:

• Increased property sales by 20% by managing over 30 property listings in 12 months
• Organized and hosted over 50 property showings and open houses, leading to a 15% increase in offers
• Guided over 40 clients through the buying and selling processes, achieving a 98% satisfaction rate

See the adaptable example below for ideas on your employment history.

Include your key skills relevant to being a Realtor

As a Realtor, you’re skilled in selling and negotiation. But what other skills do you need to be successful in the real estate business? These are the attributes you should highlight in your skills section.

Include both hard and soft skills to give employers a well-rounded perspective of your abilities. Hard skills include your knowledge of local housing markets, your marketing expertise, and your understanding of real estate regulations. 

Soft skills, on the other hand, are the personal traits you use to interact with clients. Some good soft skills for a Realtor resume include communication, creativity, and adaptability.

With our resume builder, you can choose from pre-written skills and note your proficiency with each one. You can also add your unique skills that are relevant to the role.

See the resume example for a skills section below.

Your skills section shouldn’t be the only place where you mention your strengths and abilities. Incorporate examples of your skills throughout your resume. Show an employer how you’ve used them to convert leads or close sales throughout your career.

For example, you may highlight these skills in your summary or work experience section:

• Negotiation skills. Showcase your ability to close deals above the asking price or negotiate favorable terms for your clients.
• Market analysis. Explain how you stay up-to-date on market trends and highlight the research you do to understand pricing strategies.
• Relationship-building skills. Describe how you develop and maintain relationships with clients, especially if you’ve built a reputation for referrals and repeat business.

Not sure what skills to emphasize on your resume? Review the job description and make sure to include the skills you find there.

Detail your education & relevant Realtor certifications

Your education section consists of your academic experience. Highlight the real estate licensing coursework you completed, as well as your highest level of education. If you have an associate degree or higher, you don’t need to include your high school diploma.

In addition to your formal education, you can list other related credentials on your resume, including:

• Real estate license. Make sure to include your real estate license on your resume, including the state of licensure and the expiration date. Employers will check to make sure you’re licensed in the state where you’re applying.
• Professional memberships. Mention your affiliation with professional organizations, including the National Association of Realtors. These memberships highlight your commitment and integrity as a real estate professional.
• Certifications or continuing education. If you’ve earned a relevant certification or completed additional courses in real estate, you can list them in your education section. Continuing education shows you’re up-to-date on market trends and industry regulations.

See the resume example text below for formatting.

Pick the right layout & design for a Realtor resume

When you drive a client up to a property, what happens? They make instant judgments about it before they open the front door. The same is true of your Realtor resume sample. If your resume looks like a fixer-upper, the hiring manager may not even start reading.

Here are some tips for making a great first impression:

• Keep it neat and clean. Cluttered houses are harder to sell—and so are cluttered resumes. You may be tempted to add design flourishes, but recruiters are much more impressed with a legible resume that’s clean of distracting colors, fonts, or graphic elements.
• Draw the reader’s eye to key details. In the same principle as a floor plan, create a good flow for your resume. Use the "E" or "F" patterns, which follow the way the eye moves when reading, to place your text. This means that the top-left corner of the document gets the most attention. As you move diagonally toward the bottom right, the readers’ focus will drop.
• Break up text with formatting. Use white space, bold section titles, and bullet points to break up large blocks of type, which are hard to read.
• Make it short and sweet. Unless you have many years of experience, keep your Realtor resume to one page. Write concisely to hold a recruiter’s attention.

Need to close the deal quickly? Consider using one of our expert-tested resume templates to eliminate the time-consuming job of formatting.

Realtor text-only resume example

Realtor job market & outlook

It’s hard to predict the real estate job market, since it largely depends on the economy. If the economy grows, people are more likely to buy new homes or commercial properties. On the other hand, a sluggish economy can mean fewer property buyers, which translates to fewer jobs for Realtors.

What type of salary you can expect as a Realtor

Realtors work mostly on commission, so their earnings can vary from year to year. The salary you make can also depend on market conditions.

The median annual income for Realtors is $67,326 per year, according to Payscale. The top 10 percent of agents earn more than $152,000 and the bottom 10 percent make less than $30,000, but keep in mind that agents can work as much or as little as they choose.

Key takeaways for building a Realtor resume

You know how to sell to a client based on their needs, so use those skills in your own job hunt. Target your message to the prospective employer and insert keywords and phrases to boost your resume ranking with the ATS. With these tips—and resume.io’s insightful resume builder—you’ll be well on your way to signing a job offer on the dotted line!

Kickstart your Realtor job search with our online resume builder, then take it to the next level with resume.io. 

Discover 18 powerful tools to search for real estate jobs, measure your progress, prepare for interviews, and negotiate the best salary—all within our advanced career toolkit.