How much does a broker typically earn?

It's usually a four-way split, which means 6% gets split four ways: 1.5% to each: listing brokerage + listing broker and buying brokerage + broker. This article might be helpful for you: http://streeteasy.com/blog/nyc-real-estate-agent-splits-commissions/

Also remember that there are around 27,000 brokers/agents in NY and about 14,000 deals annually so on average each agent does about half a deal a year.

Thank you both for your responses, in particular to the link to the blog post. That was just the type of info I was looking for.

Dont many brokerages (esp upstarts trying to gain market share) give a significantly higher part of the split to the broker than 50% of their side of the three percent?

I'll admit the typical/traditional model is not very friendly to individual salespeople. After tax they can walk away with less than 1% commission on a regular 3% co-broke: http://www.hauseit.com/whats-typical-real-estate-commission-in-nyc/ this is a great article that goes in more detail than I can, but essentially even though 6% is egregious for what's essentially a AAA rated asset, the individual agent ends up with not that much ...

crescent22 yea that happens quite often, you see guys like rutinberg spire etc doing "100% splits" .. unfortunately it's really not because of all the fees that are inherent in their business model. You also have more recent hybrid brokerages like Mont Sky who have combo high commission splits combined with sales referrals etc.

What kind of firm are you looking to join? What do you care about?