Changing Views: Do You Provide Enough Value to Teams and Agents?

Changing Views

Do you provide enough value to teams and agents? Trends in the movement of top teams and agents between brokerage firms.

According to Broker Metrics, as of May 2018, there are about 264,000 Realtors® who change brokerage firms each year. Also, more than four out of five of the top 15,000 agents and teams are affiliated with well-known local, regional and national brokerage entities, according to REAL Trends America’s Best Real Estate Agents ranking data.

Therefore, nearly 20 percent of all Realtors® change their brokerage affiliation each year. Most of the best-performing agents and teams are affiliated with a firm likely ranked on the REAL Trends 500 and Up-and-Comers. Surely there is a movement of these top agents between such ranked firms, but generally, they stay with well-known brokerage firms.

In 2017, the California Association of Realtors® and REAL Trends conducted a study of top teams throughout the country. This study resulted in nearly 400 top teams from across the United States responding to our online survey. We interviewed another 20 in person and a 10-team focus group of just those from within California.

Among the questions we asked were what they found most valuable about their brokerage firm and what additional things a brokerage could do to provide additional value. Remember, these are top-producing teams from across the country.

Here Is What They Said:

• The highest-valued service that brokerage firms provided was legal and regulatory guidance.
• The second most valued deliverable was a well-known brand name.
• When asked what a brokerage could do that would add value was legal and regulatory guidance followed by low costs and fees and lastly, business coaching.

It’s clear to us that it’s important for teams to be affiliated with a well-known brokerage based on that correlation with our national rankings. What is also clear is that they understand that the legal and regulatory service that brokerage firms provide to their agents and teams is also very valuable.

What brokerage leaders instinctively know is that what’s valuable to a new agent is the same as what’s valuable to a veteran agent. Further, brokerages know that over a 20-, 30-, or 40-year career. The needs of agents and teams shifts depending on what they’re trying to accomplish at that particular time in their businesses.

In the past, the only variable for brokerage offerings to agents was a commission or fee program that was solely based on sales volume levels. We know of only a few with variable service programs or à la carte offerings tailored to individual agents and teams.

At this time, while competition for agents has never been so vigorous, it would appear that an examination of how a brokerage approaches its agents would be timely.