As a part-time dining hall worker, a Boston University student can make about $700 a month. At Starbucks, $640 a month. But if students follow several of their peers and earn real estate licenses, that number rises to $10,000 a month with the same hours.

STUDENT REAL ESTATE AGENTS

School of Management sophomore Matt Hayden currently works for Boardwalk Realities. After only a semester, he has already made around 10 sales.

“My dad is in the mortgage business; my grandparents own a real estate business,” he said. “My realtor, who I booked with last year, was a student realtor as well. I thought, ‘I’m a student, I’m up here a lot of the time, might as well give it a try.'”

Hayden said to receive his real estate license, he had to undergo 24 hours of classroom training and a grueling study week to pass the “intense” exam.

As a student real estate agent, Hayden said that most of his clients are students renting off-campus housing in the Allston area.

“There’s definitely a lot of work,” he said. “You have to make advertisements, find clients and work with them to find a place.”

Hayden said that there are many young real estate agents at his agency, which makes for great environment where other staff members are his age.

NOT THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN

Like Hayden, Suffolk University senior Michael Savage became a real estate agent after experiencing his own off-campus housing search. After hunting for housing with his broker, he said he became interested in becoming a real estate agent himself.

“I went into the test thinking it would be easy and I failed it right off the bat,” Savage said. “I took it again, flunked it again and I finally passed it the third time.”

Savage, who works for Ford Reality, has been a real estate agent for two years and has made “hundreds” of sales. He said he works mostly with rentals in the midtown and Beacon Hill areas.

John Ford, owner of Ford Realty, said he enjoys working with the two student real estate agents on his staff.

“They’re very productive on the renting scene,” Ford said. “I find them to be very Internet-savvy and hard-working.”

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN

Hayden and Savage both said they enjoy their jobs, but there are some negative aspects to their work, too.

“I’ve had to deal with some really bad landlords,” Savage said. “I’ve had one landlord accept someone on the spot and then a week later tell me, the day my clients are moving in, they have someone else, and my people are out on the street. They had all their luggage on them and I had to take all their luggage and store it in the office.”

The real estate agents not only deal with landlords; they also work with a wide range of customers. Discover top-rated estate agents Wapping residents trust for all their property needs. Savage said another common difficulty he faces is customers who are only “window shoppers.”

“Someone will be coming in saying they want to see this, this and this, and that they want to rent tomorrow,” he said. “And then they’re gone the next day, after you’ve wasted the whole day. But after you’ve done it for a while, you can pretty much tell who’s serious and who’s not.”

In the real estate business, earnings are only made through commission. Savage said he currently makes around $7,500-$10,000 a month on average, but a downside of his job is the unsteady income. Some months he could make $12,000, he said, while other months he could only earn $2,000.

The upcoming months are real estate’s “busy months,” according to Hayden and Savage, where a broker can make an entire year’s salary in three months. To help make the sales, Hayden said that the most important skills to have include a strong sense of responsibility and people skills.

As a “people person” Hayden said he often follows up with clients to make sure they are satisfied with their current housing or if they are interested in looking for a new place to live.

MARKET CHANGES

With students facing limited space and a lack of freedom, Hayden said his friends hate living in campus housing. Having only lived off-campus, he said he faces more responsibilities, such as paying the gas and electric bills, but the experience leaves him feeling like a “grown up.”

In a location as student-friendly as Boston, the real estate business they said is in a constant state of hiring and expanding, Hayden said, but those already in the business are noticing a drop in the market.

Ford said the market drop could subsequently cause a decrease in the number of student real estate agents due to a tougher market scene. The change could discourage student workers, he said, and new agents especially could drop from the market.

David Frieberg, president of the Greater Boston Association of Reality, said he recommends students get an early start on building equity, adding that real estate has historically been the best long-term investment. While other areas in the market may not be faring well, Frieberg emphasized that the real estate market in the Boston area is doing fine.

“There’s a lot of generalized information and reporting on larger trends,” he said. “There are ups and downs all the time. I’m very happy to report that there is a lot of activity; prices are seemingly good.”

Frieberg said he encourages student real estate agents to become more involved and move to full-time. As real estate agents, he said the students would be able to have more access to clientele and be able to develop serious relationships with them.

THE FUTURE OF

STUDENT BROKERS

After facing tough landlords and difficult customers, both Hayden and Savage plan to continue in their real estate ventures during college.

Hayden, who is finance major, said he hopes to stay a real estate agent for the rest of his two-and-a-half years of college and then plans to enter the business world, possibly opening his own restaurant.

“I have my license for life,” he said. “If I can’t get into business, I’ll always have back-up.”

While Hayden plans to use his real estate license as a back up, Savage may turn his part-time job into a full-time career. As a marketing major, he said he hopes to continue in the real estate business after graduation and is looking into starting an agency with some of his friends.

At the moment, Hayden and Savage’s real estate training helps put their school learning into perspective. Whether it’s the real life work experience, the clientele connections or the money, the real estate market is bringing more and more students in to the business world.

“I used to be a bartender and I thought I was making great money,” Savage said. “What I make now in a week, I made in a month doing that.”