Self-employment method
Other Activities Related to Real Estate
565,732 people filed as a nonemployer business under this industry code in 2022 — no payroll, no employees, just them. These are gross receipts reported to the IRS, before any expense is taken out.
Median GROSS RECEIPTS for the year — money in, before rent, materials, fuel, insurance or tax. This is not take-home pay.
Share who grossed under $10,000 for the whole year — before expenses.
The middle half, in gross receipts. A quarter of filers took less than the lower figure.
Source: US Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2022 · view
How often it does not work out
Of the 565,732 people who filed under this code in 2022, 21.33% grossed under $10,000 for the entire year — before a single expense was deducted.
That is a floor, not an estimate. Census publishes GROSS RECEIPTS, not net income. Everyone inside that share earned less than the figure suggests once rent, materials, mileage, insurance and self-employment tax came out — and filers who grossed well above the threshold may still have netted nothing. The true share of people who earn nothing meaningful from this is higher than the number above, never lower.
Denominator: establishments_total = 565,732 · US Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2022 · view
Every filer, by what they grossed
The full distribution Census publishes. The median above is interpolated inside the band that holds the 50th percentile.
| Gross receipts for the year | Filers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under $5,000 | 63,916 | 11.3% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 56,745 | 10.0% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 109,089 | 19.3% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 96,168 | 17.0% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 90,932 | 16.1% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 86,191 | 15.2% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 38,587 | 6.8% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 22,504 | 4.0% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 1,600 | 0.3% |
Who this suits
A median of $38,808 in gross receipts is high for a nonemployer business. Enough revenue passes through the middle of this field that a full-time living is plausible for the people running it well.
At 565,732 filers, Other Activities Related to Real Estate is crowded. Crowding is survivable — most of those filers are not serious competitors — but it does mean the floor on price is set by people who are not costing their own time.
26.3% of filers grossed $100,000 or more. At that share the upper band is not an exception, it is a large minority of the field — though gross receipts at this level usually carry proportionate costs.
Independent real estate work suits people with enough runway to survive a transaction cycle, since income arrives in irregular lumps rather than monthly.
Nothing stops anyone filing under this code, and 565,732 people did. Free entry is why the lower bands are as full as they are: the distribution below counts everyone who tried, not everyone who was ready.
Who should not do this
Bottom quarter under $12,856, top quarter over $112,964: 8.8x, or $8,342 a month. At this stretch the label has stopped describing one occupation, and every summary statistic about it — including the midpoint — should be treated with suspicion.
The bottom quarter of Other Activities Related to Real Estate earns under $12,856 — $37,164 below the $50,020 a typical American job pays. Entering at the bottom and waiting is a live risk here, not a theoretical one, and some people never leave that quarter.
Do not start this if you need monthly income; commissions arrive months apart and the first one is the slowest.
Of the 565,732 people who filed as Other Activities Related to Real Estate in 2022, 21.3% — about 120,670 of them — grossed under $10,000 for the entire year, before a single expense was deducted. That is the gentlest end of this dataset and it is still roughly one filer in four.
Read that as a floor, not an estimate. Census publishes gross receipts, not net income, so everyone inside that share earned less than $10,000 suggests once costs came out — and filers who grossed well above $10,000 may still have netted nothing.
What the spread tells you
At 8.8x, the gap between $12,856 and $112,964 is the shape of a field with a small, well-paid top. $38,808 is real and it is not a forecast — the people quoting the upper end at you are describing a minority.
Put in money rather than ratios: $12,856 at the 25th percentile, $38,808 at the midpoint, $112,964 at the 75th. $100,108 separates the quarter of Other Activities Related to Real Estate at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Getting to $112,964, the 75th percentile, is worth $74,156 a year more than the $38,808 midpoint and $100,108 more than the $12,856 a quarter of Other Activities Related to Real Estate settle for.
The top quarter of Other Activities Related to Real Estate begins $74,156 above the $38,808 midpoint, while the bottom quarter starts only $25,952 below it. A range stretched that far in one direction is the signature of a field where a small group earns a great deal more than the middle does.
Converted to a 2,080-hour year, the receipts run $6.18 an hour at the 25th percentile, $18.65 at the midpoint and $54.30 at the 75th. Read them as revenue per hour worked; the equivalent wage is lower by whatever this work costs to do.
The raw counts, before anyone interprets them: under $5,000, 63,916 filers. $5,000 to $9,999, 56,745. $10,000 to $24,999, 109,089. Over $100,000, 148,882 — and 62,691 over $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Read every figure here as GROSS RECEIPTS rather than income. $38,808 is turnover — the money that passed through Other Activities Related to Real Estate before expenses. What is left after costs is a different and much smaller number that this dataset does not publish.
The hourly number on this page is $38,808 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Other Activities Related to Real Estate, so it is arithmetic rather than an effective rate.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else