How do some realtors make money ?

[Bill Rainsburger]

I'm not in the business so maybe this is a stupid question - how do some realtors make enough money to live on ? I can think of 4 kinds of realtors, and of these #1-3 make a living:

1) Those that do a lot of houses that are fairly expensive. The busy realtors in the affluent parts of town, in other words.
2) Those that do a bazillion low-end houses, including REO's, etc. They may do hundreds or thousands of houses in one year.
3) Those for whom it's a second job. They that got their license but never made a go of it, and never will.
4) Leaving those who that sell "some" houses, in the middle price ranges. A few average priced houses a month. Where I live (east side of Indianapolis) houses are slow to sell, and $150,000 buys a lot of house.

I wondered because I was looking around at realtors and got a recommendation from the guy across the street. I think she'd be ok but wondered how someone with only 20 listings can make a living. The outfit she's with keeps slightly more than half the commission. So if she lists or sells a $125K house on a 7% commission (standard here), she gets about $2,000.