Sales Brokerages, Title insurance, Mortgage Origination, Zoning Law, Property Management, Appraisal, Land Survey, Mortgage Servicing, Property flipping, Rehab, Real Estate Law, Real Estate Investment Trusts, Landlording
RE is a huge field and what you describe above are, in reality, very different careers under the RE umbrella.. Many of the jobs in RE, except for the product, have nothing in common wrt tasks or earnings.
RE agents whether on commission or employed by a builder are sales people Loan officers and mortgage brokers are also sales people.
The back office staff doing title work, property management , mortgage processing etc are paid a salary and perform the drudge tasks..
Landlords own property and rent it out - if someone has the $ to invest RE can be profitable ( or lose big time ). Builders , landlords, property flippers are on the investment/owner side.
Surveyors and home inspectors perform a combination of location work and some computer work, it is reporting what exists and not an analytical field.
Appraisers combine field work and desk /computer work and perform an analyst function. They can be independent contractors, on staff at a lender or AMC, or work for a county assessor office.
In the old days - ( until now) res mortgage appraising offered some good prospects, now they are dimmed -the stakeholders want to make appraising resemble the other drudge back office RE work. And their agenda is to increase output speed or eliminate appraisals in some cases. That is why waivers are replacing a number of appraisal orders, while others are hybrids or desktops in the name of "efficiency" . The question is the extent this change will impact what appraisers used to know as a career combining field and computer work and the ability to be independent. .
I say residential mortgage appraising because that is where the bulk of the work is for a residential license. It is rare for a res license appraiser to earn a full time income outside of mortgage work - hats off to the few who do, but t their end is specialized and take years to get the experience or contacts and therefore is limited segment.
