Essential Soft Skills for US Real Estate Agents in 2025

Agent Advice reveals each state’s most valued soft skills to discover the best state for real estate agents.

Real estate agents can have a reputation among the public, so as one of the best real estate lead generation companies we wanted to highlight the hard work that goes into becoming a successful real estate agent. While passing the licensing exam is an essential step for aspiring agents, there are many skills that cannot be tested for. 

We set out to find which soft skills are most valued in real estate agent roles in each US state. For this, we scraped over 9,000 real estate agent job descriptions across 20 soft skills every agent needs in order to generate real estate leads

Top 5 Soft Skills for US Real Estate Agents

Across the United States, communication is the soft skill that takes the top spot in every state. As the most valued soft skill for real estate agents, the ability to communicate clearly and effectively is essential. In fact, in our analysis, communication was listed in every job description, sometimes multiple times with over 10,000 mentions.

After communication, the next most valued soft skill for agents is motivation – yielding 3,843 mentions. Organization ranks in a close third place with just 54 fewer mentions in job descriptions. With 3,674 mentions, negotiation skills lands in fourth place. Further behind with 2,186 mentions, design skills round out the top five soft skills for US real estate agents.

Infographic: top 5 soft skills for U.S. real estate agents by AgentAdvice
Top 5 Soft Skills for US Real Estate Agents

Essential Soft Skills for US Real Estate Agents

While communication tops the list everywhere, our study shows that two other essential soft skills for real estate agents vary across the states. We found seven main combinations of skills that employers are looking for, alongside communication:

1. Motivation and negotiation (12 states)

2. Motivation and organization (10 states)

=3. Motivation and design (8 states)

=3. Motivation and leadership (8 states)

4. Time management and design (7 states)

=5. Time management and organization (2 states)

=5. Leadership and design (2 states)

Twelve states list negotiation and motivation among their essential skills for agents. In fact, motivation appears in four of these combinations, ten states pair it with organization skills, while a further eight pair the soft skill with either design or leadership skills. 

Apart from motivation as an essential soft skill, seven states value the combination of time management and design. Maine and Hawaii prioritize time management alongside organization while Washington and Mississippi emphasize the importance of combining leadership and design.

Top 3 soft skills for estate agents by us state

While the seven combinations cover the majority of the United States, four states have a unique combination of real estate agent’s top soft skills. Interestingly, South Dakota is the only state in the US that values confidence as an essential soft skill for real estate agents.

States with unique ‘essential soft skill’ combinations 

  • Arkansas; communication, design and organization
  • Kentucky; communication, motivation and time management
  • New Hampshire; communication, leadership and organization
  • South Dakota; communication, confidence and negotiation

Soft Skill Real E(state) Twins

Our study also uncovered eight pairs, or ‘twins’, of US states which share the exact same ranking orders of the top five soft skills they value most in real estate agents, despite notorious regional differences between some of these state twins.

Wyoming and Missouri both prioritize communication, motivation, design, negotiation, and problem-solving in their real estate agents. Wyoming, the least populated state in the Mountain West region, contrasts sharply with Missouri’s Midwestern setting and its large urban areas. The importance of problem-solving indicates a need for adaptable agents who can navigate unique challenges, whether it’s managing vast rural properties in Wyoming or dealing with diverse urban markets in Missouri.

Infographic: soft skills real estate U.S. state twins

Soft Skill Real Estate State Twins

North Dakota and Rhode Island are vastly different states — North Dakota is large and sparsely populated, while Rhode Island is small yet densely populated. Despite these differences, both states value communication, motivation, leadership, organization, and design. Leadership and organization skills are crucial in both states, whether managing large rural properties and long-distance clients in North Dakota or navigating a fast-paced, competitive urban market in Rhode Island.

Texas and Maryland, though contrasting in size and politics, share the same top five soft skills; communication, motivation, negotiation, leadership, and design. Real estate agents in both of these states need to keep design in mind to stand out in diverse markets — whether it’s urban condos and sprawling ranches in Texas or high-end properties in Maryland’s affluent D.C. suburbs, or revitalizing Baltimore’s historic neighborhoods.

Real Estate Agent Job Descriptions

On average, each US state had 188 real estate agent jobs listed at the time of analysis. 

  • Texas claimed the highest amount of real estate agent jobs with 1,046 listed
  • South Dakota had the least number of real estate agent jobs available with just 27 listings

Each agent job description analyzed contained an average of 3-4 soft skills. 

  • Minnesota topped the list with the most soft skills in an average job description with 4-5 listed in each
  • Minnesota’s top listed skills were communication, leadership, motivation, organization and time management
  • Wyoming was the state that had the lowest number of soft skills listed with just 2-3 in an average job description
  • Wyoming prioritized communication, motivation and design as their top listed soft skills

Less Popular Soft Skills for Real Estate Agents

Self-awareness is listed as the least valuable soft skill for real estate agents with business ethics not far behind as the second lowest, both featured in under 15 real estate agent job descriptions. However, ‘business ethics’ is a section in every licensing exam which may be why this soft skill is rarely identified as a specific soft skill listed in job descriptions.

Infographic: less popular soft skills for real estate agents
Less Popular Soft Skills for US Real Estate Agents

Our study emphasizes just how important communication is to become a successful real estate agent in the US, with it being the top soft skill in every state. The data also shows aspiring real estate agents in the Texas market should consider researching to find the best real estate license course in Texas, especially as the state has the highest number of job opportunities. Ultimately, all soft skills play an important role in real estate jobs, but it’s important for aspiring agents to consider their strongest soft skills and which state they may align best with. 

Methodology

We scraped 9,414 real estate job descriptions across the US, excluding New Mexico due to data collection issues, for the following 20 soft skills; communication, motivation, organization, negotiation, design, leadership, time management, confidence, problem-solving, presentation, teamwork, resourcefulness, critical thinking, growth mindset, empathy, persistence, resilience, delegation, business ethics and self-awareness

Authored by Chris Heller

About the Author

Chris Heller brings 27 years of experience in real estate. Chris serves on the Agent Advice Editorial Board and is the Chief Real Estate Officer at OJO Labs. Chris brings deep expertise having held influential industry positions including CEO of mellohome and former CEO of Keller Williams Realty International.

Last Updated: 12/23/2024