As a real estate agent, Lauren earns 2.5% commission on her sales.

To find out the dollar amount of sales that Lauren must achieve to earn $5,000 in commission at a rate of 2.5%, you can use the formula:

\[ \text{Commission} = \text{Sales} \times \text{Commission Rate} \]

In this case, you want to find the Sales given that:

\[ \text{Commission} = 5000 \] \[ \text{Commission Rate} = 2.5% = 0.025 \]

Rearranging the formula to solve for Sales:

\[ \text{Sales} = \frac{\text{Commission}}{\text{Commission Rate}} \]

Substituting the numbers into the formula:

\[ \text{Sales} = \frac{5000}{0.025} \]

Now, calculating the sales amount:

\[ \text{Sales} = 200,000 \]

Therefore, Lauren must have $200,000 in sales this month to earn $5,000 in commission.