What is the broker's relationship like with new agents?

Question

I am starting the license course, and will be ready to start finding a broker to work with by the beginning of the year.

1. How does the broker dole out leads that walk into the door? Suppose a person just walks into a Century 21 to start looking for a house, how does the broker decide who gets that lead?

2. How much does the broker control, or limit, the online marketing of their agents? Are agents allowed to funnel traffic to their own website instead of their broker's?

3. There is a lot of talk about finding a brokerage that offers training and mentorship from more senior agents, but isn't that completely counterproductive for the senior agent? To create competition?

Aaron K. · Answer

@Russell Brazil is right it would be extremely difficult to become a successful agent with a full time job because you can't just be an RE agent on the weekends or after hours you have to do things all throughout the day and week and unless your boss will just let you leave work it gets difficult quick.  Also it takes time to build a book of business.

Russell Brazil · Answer

If you want to be a successful agent....you need to do it full time, and you should not expect to turn a profit til year 3. Agent stats are nearly the same as any other small business. First 2 years you typically lose money, year 3 you eek out a small profit, then you grow from there. 87% of agents fail out of the business altogether within a couple years which is right in line with the small business failure rate of 90%.

There are many brokerages with many different business models. You have places with high commission splits and no support, then places with low commission splits but tons of support and everything in between.

Carl Ohai · Answer

So then how exactly do new agents get started? Does every new agent have to save up $150K to live off of for 3 years before they turn a profit?

Carl Ohai · Answer

Thanks for the input. I currently have a 40-hour/week job. I really want to transition into this profession. I've heard that brokerages don't often like to work with people that already have full-time work. Is that actually the case? Wouldn't less agents fail if they actually kept their day jobs until their RE careers were self-sustaining?

Also, suppose I start working with a brokerage, then what? Do I just shadow an agent for a while to figure out the process?

It was mentioned above that the senior agent gets the commission when working with a new agent, so based on that, I am assuming it would be wasteful to spend any money on marketing until you can close sales yourself?

Aaron K. · Answer

@Carl Ohai as many as they can get, as more sales = more money but some will have limits and go for the quality over quantity approach with training but as mentioned only a small percentage make it past the first year.

Carl Ohai · Answer

Thanks everybody for their input.

Do brokers have a limit as to how many new agents they will take at a time? Or do they generally welcome as many as they can get?

Aaron K. · Answer

1. It cycles but usually folks don't walk in the door

2. Very little a sale for you means money in your pocket so unless you're doing something unethical they'll let you spend all of your money on advertising as it benefits them without having to do anything.

3. The 'senior agent' is usually the broker who makes money whenever you make a sale.

What is the broker's relationship like with new agents?

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