Independent Brokers, What Are Your Costs and What Tech R U Using?
Real Estate Agent · Washington, D.C. · Member since 2012 · 17k+ posts · 30k+ votes
District Invest Group545 Reviews
Independent Brokers, What Are Your Costs and What Tech R U Using?
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Real Estate Broker · Cleveland Dayton Cincinnati Toledo Columbus & Akron, OH · Member since 2013 · 30k+ posts · 20k+ votes
6yOriginally posted by @Russell Brazil:
Im curious what independent brokers are using for CRMs and what cost you are paying, e&0 insurance costs, what splits you are putting agents on, what you are providing to those agents, and any other jazz that might get overlooked moving from be an agent/broker with a big brokerage to going independent.
At our peak we probably had close to 50 Realtors on staff. No more though. I got rid of my agent roster. Just doesn't fit correctly with the type of business we want to do as we have completely exited the traditional residential real estate sales business. At this point we simply turn away owner occupied clients and are 100% investor focused. It was too hard to try and dip our toe in the traditional space and investor space.
For example we had Realtors trying to obtain clients though church groups and family events. Total classy stuff, family friendly marketing driving nice families around town to buy homes for their 2.5 kids and dog etc. All of this happy go luck stuff would be happening at the same time their clients would see me on the internet posting photos of actual human poop on the wall or savage tenants being tossed out onto the street and reading negative reviews from tenants from hell online lol.
Case and point the two models just didn't mix well and we wanted to be able to completely immerse ourselves into being able to bring transparency of how the rental business really works. Having to worry about my vanilla residential Realtors opinion on the rough marketing held us back and it just made sense to cut them all off so we could go full steam ahead into what you see us doing now.
Note that we do have a few legacy agents still around but these or one off situations. An example being my partner in our title business who used to be an agent for us, his wife currently holds her license with us. Another example is my partner in our insurance business is also holding a sales licence with us.
Below is all of the software we utilize to run the whole top down investment sales, management and media operation.
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Dotloop
---We use this for digitally signing sales contracts and the majority of sales / media related documents that we need to have signed.
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G-Suite
---This is google program. We use it for email hosting and storage. Many great features, including the snooze feature which helps with hitting leads on a schedule. We have email hosting and storage though our web hosting company but this is a much more efficient software, especially when it comes to pushing email notifications to all of your devices.
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Constant Contact
---Use this for email marketing, drip marketing and things of that nature. Had previously used MailChimp as well. Constant Contact seems to be similar on the software side but 10x better on the customer service side. From a customer service standpoint MailChimp is garbage.
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Rentec Direct
---Property Management Software and tenant screening software. Run the entire PM side of the business though this software. Online rent collection, rent rolls and reporting, tenant roster, maintenance work orders, lease renewal notifications etc. We have it integrated with our website to run for rent ads through it which also get pushed out to Zillow and Trulia etc...We also have web integrated owner portals and tenant portals along with everything else one would expect in a PM software.
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Docusign
---This is integrated with Rentec Direct so we utilize this to sign the majority of things on the PM side of things. I dislike having to use both Docusign and Dotloop in the business but Dotloop is the company that won the market here on the sales side of things and Docusign is what is integrated with Rentec Direct so this is what we do.
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QuickBooks
---Accounting software. Very necessary as we're not just running the real estate brokerage. In total we are running about 8 separate businesses so this is the accounting umbrella that puts it all together.
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Final Cut Pro
---Video editing software that we utilize for all of our media.
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1 and 1
---Web design and hosting. I personally handle all of this and the product itself is very solid and easy to use. However the customer service on this product is probably the worst thing I have experienced in my life. We've had our website hosted with this company since 2013 or 2014 and I think it's one of the more impressive websites for an independent real estate company if I don't say so myself. So going to stick with this company as it's taken me years to get the website where I want it building it out, tweaking her or there building back links and trees etc.
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Teespring
---This is the company we utilize to run our apparel business. They handle the logistics at their manufacturing and shipping facilities. Super easy to use, fulfillment is solid and product quality is fair for the price points we are able to offer. No way I would attempt to run an apparel business in the internet age without utilizing a partner like this.
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Paypal
---Utilize this to collect online payments when we sell various media, coaching and consulting products. Integration with our website is amazing and of course it's a globally trusted brand. Fees are reasonable. No complaints whatsoever.
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Vehicle Tracking Software
---We also utilize software that routes our maintenance technicians. It also tracks their job times and gives us real time access to see exactly where they are at all times of the day. I don't remember the name of the company we utilize for this as I am not really involved in this side of the business, our C.O.O. handles all of this. From what I have seen though it's pretty sweet and we've utilized it to get a lot of our service technicians moving much more efficiently. A specific example is how it helped us to improve our average lawns cut per hour per technician. We almost doubled the number of lawns they cut when we rolled out this software.
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Insurance
---E&O insurance, workman's comp, liability insurance, general business insurance etc. We've got 60+ employees running several businesses so we've got a lot of insurance. This is also something I'm not personally very involved with as our C.O.O. handles so I may not have all the exact types listed but bottom line is that it's pretty damn costly.
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Dropbox
---Cloud based storage. Very important as we have two office locations and myself and my partner (our C.O.O.) also have home offices.
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All of the above costs us around $8,000/month.
31 Replies
- Real Estate Broker · Canton, GA · Member since 2010 · 15k+ posts · 11k+ votes6yDid the brokerage agent thing many years ago. The thought was as I was doing my commercial real estate I could grow up residential agents base and have a bigger company buy that part out for a profit.
What I found instead was a big PITA. The top producers tend to stay at the big firms with all these freebies and low splits. Those big firms instead make the money off of the new agents eeking out a few sales before going out of business on a 50/50 split.
So you get rusty agents that might do a few deals a year and the broker has to step in and clean up any messes they wait until the last second to tell you about. Additionally you get notices for the agents license being suspended for back child support, student loan delinquency, license lapse renewal, not finishing CE credits in time, order to garner agents commission check for IRS owed back taxes they have and on and on.
With 50 agents maybe 12 closings per month were happening at 300 transaction fees so 3,600 before costs and expenses to brokerage. I got rid of the agents and the residential arm.
Last decade pretty much I make my own investments and have my clients I deal with directly for purchases one on one. My life is much happier and full of less drama. I have friends that love babysitting adult agents as head brokers but it is definitely NOT my thing.
What do I use for technology? I have a company do everything for me. He used to work for Ted Turner scaling all the business operations and systems before going out on his own. I meet them once a week to go over our multi-year plan. - Real Estate Broker · Cleveland Dayton Cincinnati Toledo Columbus & Akron, OH · Member since 2013 · 30k+ posts · 20k+ votes6y
Originally posted by @Craig Garrow:
@James Wise
Love what you’re doing in the investor-broker space!
I’m in the process of taking over the Brokerage that I work for, and wanting to sort of departmentalize it, for lack of a better term.
We’ve got 4 Agents, plus me, and my current Broker, who is looking to semi-retire. Over half of my business this past year was investors, and I want to keep that as my main focus. The plan is to continue this way, and probably do some retail listing/selling for just my personal sphere, and kick everything else to my agents. I go back and forth on building a team vs going at it alone, and I’m hoping that keeping a small number of capable agents will get me a little bit of leverage, and let me focus more on the parts of the business I enjoy most.
The other thing I want to do, is get into some ancillary businesses. We already have Property Management, doing 25 units for investors that I’ve sold properties to, plus my own investments. I know there’s more I can be doing with that. Also, I’m currently in talks with a local abstracting company to partner with them, and eventually, would love to get into insurance as well. So, I wondered how you got started with the side businesses, and how that’s worked out for you?
Appreciate all of the help!
Well kicking deals to other agents sounds great in theory. As someone who's had 50 at my peak I can say it doesn't work out like that in practice. What @Joel Owens said above hits the nail on the head. All that stuff; child support garnishments, expired licenses, screwing deals up etc...is just non stop because you're dealing with a bunch pf independent contractors working in a business that has such a low barrier to entry where every firm will hire anyone with a pulse. For me, I want employees that I have a higher level of control of so my brand is never harmed. Basically in a nutshell I'd rather take a kick to the nuts then build out an agent roster again.
As for the title business, insurance business and things like that those should be a secondary focus. You need to build up a massive sales business first so that you can later start those businesses as a way to collect more of the down stream money you've created. Those businesses aren't something we use to attract much outside business as folks start the process at the sales end. Title and Insurance are things that are thought about later when they are mid way through a transaction.
- 6yDavid BellPro MemberReal Estate Agent · East Brunswick, NJ · Member since 2016 · 129 posts · 63 votes
@Will Barnard I wasn't referring to that comment. Also, I'm replying to your comment on this thread.
- Developer · Santa Clarita, CA · Member since 2008 · 15k+ posts · 10k+ votes6y
Originally posted by @David Bell:
@Will Barnard I wasn't referring to that comment. Also, I'm replying to your comment on this thread.
Well that IS the comment I was referring to and is the only comment as a moderator that I had to edit for solicitation in THIS thread. Again, you are taking this off topic, please stay on topic to the original question please.
- 6yDavid BellPro MemberReal Estate Agent · East Brunswick, NJ · Member since 2016 · 129 posts · 63 votes
Again, I didn't take this off topic.
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