A glut of 800,000 excess vacant homes will prolong the housing recovery for approximately one year, as the recent surge in resale listings and completed new homes offered for sale includes a record level of unoccupied homes. The surge is both the result of investor activity earlier this decade as well as the result of new-home sales cancellations.

People who are considering real estate as a career often look at the field with myth-clouded lenses, thinking it is easy and offers a low-stress, flexible schedule.Geetha Vijay, a top-selling agent at Nothnagle Realtors, knows by experience that is rarely the case. Dinner reservations have to be canceled at the last minute because clients take longer to view a property than expected. Transactions become nerve-wracking if all the players involved don’t follow through on their end of the deal in a timely manner.

Still, “I think it’s one of the greatest careers,” says Vijay, who averages $7 million to $8million in sales each year.