Short answer: Real estate income is inconsistent because most agents stop prospecting when they get busy, and the work they skip shows up as an empty month three or four months later. Top producers fix it four ways: they protect a lead generation block every day, even during closings; they keep people at every stage of the pipeline; they hold 90 days or more of reserves and pay themselves a fixed amount; and they use someone to hold them accountable. None of it is complicated. The hard part is doing it when business is good.
By D.J. Paris, host of Keeping It Real with D.J. Paris. Updated November 2026.
Why is real estate income so inconsistent?
Commission income has a lag built into it. What you do today usually pays 90 to 120 days later, a point I made on our episode with Connie Mahan (at 41:38). So a busy spring with no prospecting becomes a quiet summer, and nobody connects the two.
Shawn Kunkler, who leads Homeward Associates at Compass in San Francisco, has a name for the pattern. He calls it the ping pong:
“the ping pong is you start doing that thing that really works for you and then you become really successful in doing that one thing but then you also become very busy so then you recede from doing that one thing … and then you’re like shoot shoot shoot I don’t have any sales I don’t have a pipeline so then you go back to doing that one thing … and so your your business ricochets from having abundance to scarcity and back and forth and back and forth”
Shawn Kunkler, Three Traps Real Estate Agents Must Avoid (May 2025, at 39:05)
He calls it a systems problem, not a talent problem. The feast causes the famine.
How do you keep prospecting when you’re busy with closings?
You decide in advance that prospecting comes first and transactions fit around it. Greg Pekarsky, the driving force behind Vesta Preferred in Chicago, whose team closed $270 million in 2024 counting pending deals (at 11:58), explained what happens to agents who don’t:
“All agents say, ah, it’s my off season, right? … One day off is three days to get back on. That is how much you lose when you take one day off. … So if you take two months off, which is the summertime, everyone gets busy, they stop doing their calls or whatever, what happens? Six months off, wintertime, and boom, Shaka Laka, springtime, everybody’s busy again.”
Greg Pekarsky, 290M in 2024: How An Agent Had His Best Year In A Down Market (January 2025, at 23:11)
His team’s answer is simple: “We don’t have a down season” (at 23:44), because they never stop the daily activity.
Jenny Sommerlot, of Peterson and Company at Keller Williams-Elk River in central rural Minnesota, went from 24 closings in her first year to 40 in her fourth (per my intro, at 03:07). She does it with a fixed morning block. Her team logs in to lead generation together at 9:00 every weekday, and transactions go after noon:
“once I finished lead generation around noon … I try to schedule the showings and the closing for in the afternoon. It doesn’t always work that way. … So if I don’t do it in the morning, it just doesn’t happen.”
Jenny Sommerlot, How To Become A Top Producer In A Rural Market (December 2024, at 18:49)
How to set this up for yourself:
- Pick the block. Same time every weekday. Mornings are easiest to protect.
- Book transactions around it. When a closing lands in the block, move the block that day. Don’t delete it.
- Set a minimum for your busiest weeks. If you normally make 20 calls a day, decide that your floor during a heavy closing week is 5. A floor you hit beats a goal you skip.
- Do it with someone. Sommerlot’s team prospects at the same time, in the office or on Zoom. That’s the accountability built in.
What does a healthy real estate pipeline look like?
It has someone at every stage, all the time. If every client is under contract, you’re busy now and empty later.
Quinn Driscoll, a CPA and founder of Value Gal, coaches agents on money management. One tool she uses with every client is a commission pipeline:
“So many clients who I work with are kind of blown away when we start working with a commission pipeline. So that’s kind of a fancy way to say what deals are closing in the next two months and how much are you expecting to get from that. Let’s let’s put it on a literal calendar. So you can see when money is coming into your business and just doing that and updating it on a weekly basis is like it’s so helpful to give you that clarity”
Quinn Driscoll, What Real Estate Agents Should Be Doing Right Now To Manage Their Money Effectively (May 2023, at 30:56)
Take her idea one step further and count every stage, not only the deals about to close. Fill this in weekly:
| Stage | What it means | Count this week |
|---|---|---|
| New conversations | Real conversations with people who may buy or sell | |
| Appointments | Buyer consultations and listing appointments set or held | |
| Active clients | Signed buyers looking, listings on the market | |
| Under contract | Accepted offers working toward closing | |
| Closing soon | Clear to close, with dates and expected checks on the calendar |
The rule: if any row is empty two weeks in a row, that’s a future slow month. The fix is more activity in the top two rows now.
How much cash should a real estate agent keep for slow months?
Connie Mahan, broker owner of the Connie Mahan Real Estate Group in Central Florida and a REALTOR of the Year in both Lake and Sumter counties (per my intro, at 07:03), sets a floor for every agent who joins her:
“making sure that when they come in our door and put on our blue shirt, you know, that they have 90 days plus of reserves in the bank to make sure the electric bill is paid to make sure that groceries on the table, because if not, you can’t focus on somebody else when you’re hungry.”
Connie Mahan, Gratitude is the Ultimate Mindset (December 2025, at 36:05)
Her point is focus: an agent who needs the next check can’t put the client first. She also plans for the slow season ahead of time: “in October, we were already talking about what’s your December with no deals going to look like” (at 39:33).
The second half of the fix is how you pay yourself. Driscoll’s first rule is that “your commission checks are not the same as your paychecks” (at 19:49). For businesses under $250,000 in revenue, she suggests starting with about 15% of each check for taxes, 30% for business expenses and 50% for pay (at 20:37). Then you take the same amount every month, no matter what closed:
“let’s say that you’ve decided you are going to you want $5,000 a month to go to you for your living expenses just as an example. So that means if you have a $10,000 a month great 5,000 going to you perfect if you have a $20,000 a month. Then 5,000 is going to you and 5,000 gets to kind of you know hang around until you actually need it maybe the next month when you don’t get 20,000.”
Quinn Driscoll, same episode (May 2023, at 21:42)
Put together: open separate accounts for taxes, expenses and pay, split every check the day it lands, pay yourself the same amount each month, and let big months build the reserve until it covers at least 90 days. Have a CPA set your tax percentage. For what belongs in the expense bucket, see How to Budget Your Real Estate Business.
How do you stay consistent when nobody is making you?
Get someone to make you. Ben Lalez, who runs one of the most successful teams in Chicago at Compass, said the habit that kept him on the phone was a weekly check-in with a coach:
“the biggest trick for me, and you said it earlier, was finding an accountability partner. For me, that was hiring a coach. … one of the KPIs was how many phone calls did you make? And each week, you would ask, and we would log it. And, you know, the hardest thing to do was to not lie to myself and not lie to him.”
Ben Lalez, The Follow Up Strategies Of Top Producers (June 2025, at 10:56)
A coach isn’t the only option. Pekarsky’s team coaches every agent weekly on their numbers, and for agents without that, his advice was: “find a workout buddy” (at 22:36). Another agent who trades numbers with you every Friday costs nothing.
What should a weekly consistency check include?
Ten minutes a week. Add it to the Monday review from your one-page business plan.
- Did I protect my lead generation block every day? If not, which days, and why?
- How many people are in each pipeline stage? Is any row empty?
- What closes in the next 60 days, and how much will it pay?
- Did I split every check that came in and pay myself the usual amount?
- Did I send my numbers to my accountability partner?
The numbers you track here feed straight into the metrics top producers watch.
Frequently asked questions
Why do real estate agents have feast-or-famine years?
Because prospecting stops when transactions pile up. The missing activity shows up as an empty pipeline a few months later. Shawn Kunkler calls this the ping pong: the business “ricochets from having abundance to scarcity.”
How many months of reserves should a real estate agent have?
Connie Mahan asks agents joining her firm to have at least 90 days of reserves in the bank. Treat that as the floor and build more from your big months.
How should a real estate agent pay themselves with irregular income?
Split every commission check into taxes, business expenses and pay, then pay yourself the same amount every month. Quinn Driscoll suggests starting around 15% taxes, 30% expenses and 50% pay for businesses under $250,000 in revenue, then adjusting with a CPA.
How do I keep prospecting during a busy month?
Give lead generation a fixed daily block and book showings and closings around it. Jenny Sommerlot prospects from 9 to noon and schedules transactions for the afternoon. On your heaviest weeks, set a smaller minimum instead of skipping it.
Listen to the full episodes
- Three Traps Real Estate Agents Must Avoid, with Shawn Kunkler
- 290M in 2024: How An Agent Had His Best Year In A Down Market, with Greg Pekarsky
- How To Become A Top Producer In A Rural Market, with Jenny Sommerlot
- What Real Estate Agents Should Be Doing Right Now To Manage Their Money Effectively, with Quinn Driscoll
- Gratitude is the Ultimate Mindset, with Connie Mahan
- The Follow Up Strategies Of Top Producers, with Ben Lalez
Keeping It Real with D.J. Paris is a podcast for real estate agents, with more than 790 episodes of interviews with top-producing agents, coaches and industry leaders. Here’s how to listen.