Which brokerage to join as an experienced RE investor
hi,
I am trying to determine which brokerage might be best for me. To give you just a little bit of background, I'm pretty much the furthest thing away from a newbie, and have lived on commission income for the past 12 years. As a wholesaler for the past nine months, I've probably made more offers to purchase property then the vast majority of buyers agents. So I don't need a company that caters to newbies or requires an excessive amount of initial training. I also don't want to be with someone who will charge ridiculous desk fees. I am okay with franchise fees up to a certain point.
Looking at the firms in northwest WA, here are my options:
- Windemere
- Keller Williams
- Century 21
- RE/MAX
- Muljat
- Sterling
- Coldwell Banker
- John L Scott
- Zip Realty
I would greatly appreciate it if anyone working for any of those firms would be so kind as to add their two cents. Specifically, I am interested to know what sort of initial training program or ongoing support systems are in place, the commission split and what sort of monthly and transactional fees there are.
I have met with managing brokers of Windermere, C21, and Sterling. I have met agents with KW, Muljat, JLS and Zip. As of right now, Windermere is in the lead with C21 followed closely behind.
While each place has its pros and cons, I think that Muljat and perhaps RE/MAX are out of the question based on conversations I've had with brokers there. At Muljat for instance, does fees are astonishing $1200 per month. Even though the split is 95/5, that's quite a hefty load to carry for the first few months as I get things ramped up. I have heard the desk fees for RE/MAX are also quite high. Can anyone confirm what those are?
While I have heard very good things about Keller Williams, especially with respect to its training program, I've heard some horror stories about agents getting only 15% of the total commission. Granted, these are agents were part of larger team and didn't read the fine print on their employment contract. Still though, it's a difficult pill to swallow when you expect a $7000 payday and you only get $1000.
Also, Keller Williams seems to attract a lot of newbies to either sales and marketing or real estate in general. That's not to say that they don't have good agents. On the contrary, I know of several who are not only fantastic people but also massive producers. But these are specific team leaders - so I might consider them down the line.
I know very little about Coldwell Banker so if anybody can shed some light on that I would be very appreciative.
Last but not least, it may help to mention why Windermere is currently in the lead. Firstly, the commission split is 50/50 until you've made the brokerage $23,500. After that it's 100%. I've also been told that there are no desk fees, franchise fees, transaction fees or any other monthly or transaction related cost whatsoever. This may be specific to the Windermere appear in Whatcom County – I am not sure. Another thing however, is that the vast majority of top producers are with Windermere and in fact they have an approximate 40% market share. They are also listing-focused which is in line with my philosophy.
So again, I would greatly appreciate feedback on each of these firms from people who have either work there are currently work there.
Thanks