Selling Sunset follows real estate agents who work at the Oppenheim Group in Los Angeles. While many fans tune in for the drama, Mary Fitzgerald, Christine Quinn, Chrishell Stause, Heather Rae Young and more agents are raking in very real money for their work.
The realtors don’t actually receive a salary from The Oppenheim Group, which is owned by brokers Jason and Brett Oppenheim, but the agents make all their money from commission. This means selling houses is the only way to earn a paycheck.
Mary admitted the “hardest thing” about working in real estate is earning “commission only” during an interview with Express UK.
“Spending months sometimes with a client and then they change their minds,” the Ball State University graduate explained. “The best part can also be when a client finds something they love immediately and I make a huge commission with very little effort.” That being said, she noted that is “not normally the case.”
Viewers of the Netflix show can see the multimillion-dollar homes the agents try to sell around Los Angeles. After the listing price appears, it’s common for the commission amount to also flash on screen. However, a cut of that amount goes to the Oppenheim brothers as the brokers.
As far as the commission structure, Davina Potratz used an example while speaking with Evoke.ie in which the agents take home 75 percent of the commission while the remaining 25 percent goes to the broker.
“The way it works in real estate, there is a broker license and there’s a salesperson license, so the broker is the higher license,” she revealed in 2019. “The salespeople have to work underneath the broker license and the brokers also carry more responsibility, if anything goes wrong or if anyone gets sued the broker is responsible.”
While she didn’t reveal the actual numbers that the Oppenheim Group uses to split their commissions, Davina said it’s different for each agent.
“Everyone has different splits based on their background and experience and their relationship with the brokerage,” the German native said. “It depends also how much the broker was involved sometimes but usually, it’s a set split.
Of course, after finding fame on the reality show, many of the agents can now make even more money as social media influencers.