---
title: "1031 Exchange Intermediary"
description: "Holds sale proceeds and prepares the documents that let real estate investors defer capital gains tax by exchanging one investment property for another."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/1031-exchange-intermediary"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# 1031 Exchange Intermediary

**Category:** Legal · **SOC code:** 23-2093 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 23-2093.00

Holds sale proceeds and prepares the documents that let real estate investors defer capital gains tax by exchanging one investment property for another.

Also advertised as: Qualified Intermediary; Exchange Accommodator; 1031 Exchange Officer; Exchange Coordinator; Like-Kind Exchange Specialist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $58,650 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $28.20/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $38,170 to $90,830, with the middle half between $47,420 and $74,810
- **Total US employment:** 48,580
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +2.1% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 5,300 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 9/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 48,580 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $38,170 |
| 25th | $47,420 |
| 50th (median) | $58,650 |
| 75th | $74,810 |
| 90th | $90,830 |
| Mean (average) | $62,350 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| CO | $77,600 | $75,302 | 1,400 |
| WV | $77,230 | $86,293 | 350 |
| OR | $76,930 | $74,428 | 640 |
| AK | $75,960 | $74,209 | 100 |
| NV | $71,050 | $71,065 | 620 |
| MA | $69,100 | $65,338 | Not published by BLS |
| CA | $67,230 | $60,721 | Not published by BLS |
| WA | $66,440 | $62,086 | 930 |
| DE | $65,270 | $65,396 | 140 |
| RI | $63,300 | $61,889 | 120 |
| CT | $62,940 | $60,747 | 90 |
| UT | $62,210 | $62,925 | 1,160 |
| NH | $62,090 | $59,607 | Not published by BLS |
| NJ | $61,930 | $56,918 | 550 |
| ID | $61,730 | $64,643 | 640 |

33 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 48 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/1031-exchange-intermediary/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/1031-exchange-intermediary.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 59,800 in the 2025–2035 base year to 61,100 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 1,300 jobs, or +2.1%. Slower than average: 2.1% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 5,300 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Moderate-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 54.5% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 13.6% |
| Some College Courses | 13.4% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 10.2% |
| First Professional Degree | 4.0% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 3.5% |

## What the work involves

- Draft exchange agreements, assignments and closing instructions
- Hold and safeguard exchange proceeds in segregated accounts
- Track identification and closing deadlines for each exchange
- Review replacement property identification notices for compliance
- Coordinate with escrow officers, attorneys and accountants at closing
- Explain like-kind exchange rules to investors and their advisers
- Structure reverse and improvement exchanges with title holding entities

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Time Management — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Production and Processing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Conventional (C), Enterprising (E), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| C — Conventional | 6.74 |
| E — Enterprising | 4.25 |
| I — Investigative | 3.50 |
| R — Realistic | 2.44 |
| S — Social | 2.34 |
| A — Artistic | 1.11 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ESTJ | 84.3 |
| ISTJ | 81.9 |
| ISFJ | 74.4 |
| ESFJ | 71.1 |
| ENTJ | 63.0 |

Best-fitting types: ESTJ, ISTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Title Examiner, Abstractor, and Searcher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/title-examiner-abstractor-and-searcher) — median $58,650
- [File Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/file-clerk) — median $43,600
- [Paralegal](https://nuecareer.com/careers/paralegal) — median $62,890
- [Appraiser and Assessor of Real Estate](https://nuecareer.com/careers/appraiser-and-assessor-of-real-estate) — median $67,960
- [Court, Municipal, and License Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/court-municipal-and-license-clerk) — median $48,700
- [Insurance Claim and Policy Processing Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/insurance-claim-and-policy-processing-clerk) — median $49,230
- [Appraiser of Personal and Business Property](https://nuecareer.com/careers/appraiser-of-personal-and-business-property) — median $67,960
- [Court Reporter and Simultaneous Captioner](https://nuecareer.com/careers/court-reporter-and-simultaneous-captioner) — median $72,420
- [Legal Secretary and Administrative Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/legal-secretary-and-administrative-assistant) — median $55,570
- [Credit Authorizer, Checker, and Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/credit-authorizer-checker-and-clerk) — median $50,080

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/1031-exchange-intermediary