If you run a real estate team or brokerage, you how difficult it is to recruit real estate agents.
Real estate is an extremely high attrition business and agents bounce around different teams and brokerages all of the time for various reasons.
That is why you’ll want to make sure that you know how to retain real estate agents that are already on your team and brokerage.
There are only 2 things that matter for a real estate team or brokerage’s profitability:
How many agents you recruit and how many agents you retain.
Many real estate agencies are experiencing high turnover rates, which is costly for the team leaders and brokerage owners.
This article will offer 8 tips on how to retain real estate agents and how you can lower your attrition rates in the future.
How to retain real estate agents on your team or brokerage: 8 Ways Real Estate Teams and Brokerages can Lower Attrition Rates
Table of Contents
1- Offer competitive commission rates
The first and most important thing to remember when you are thinking about how to retain real estate agents on your team or brokerage is how much money they are making at your company vs how much money they would have made at another company doing the exact same things.
At the end of the day real estate is a business, and agents are their own business owners. If they are not making the maximum amount of money that they can, then they are likely to consider jumping ship.
As simple as it sounds, many times, the decision for a real estate agent to leave or stay at a team or brokerage is a decision that is based solely on math.
Real estate agents want to be able to earn a decent living while doing what they love.
Make sure that you’re paying them fairly by comparing your commission rate with other agencies in the area. If yours are significantly lower, then this should be one of your top priorities when trying to keep agents on board.
Major Issue for Teams
A major issue for real estate teams who are associated with a brokerage or some new independent real estate brokerages is the ability of the team leader or brokerage owner to provide a good enough commission split in order to retain real estate agents to their agency.
On top of having to pay monthly overheads for your agents such as a CRM, lead generation software, an IDX, or staff members, real estate teams need to also be associated with a sponsoring brokerage.
This means that the commissions that they make, either from the team leader’s own sales or the splits they receive from their agents are also split with the brokerage.
In order for most real estate teams to even stay profitable, they must take a significant amount of their agents’ commissions, typically 50%.
That is an incredibly low split for real estate agents, especially if they have to split their share of their commissions with the brokerage as well after splitting it with the team.
Team leaders need to think of ways to be able to increase their splits with their agents.
This can mean decreasing your overhead expenses and running a leaner operation, taking less money for yourself, or moving your team to a different brokerage that allows you and your agents to keep more money.
If you are a real estate team leader who is struggling to give your agents a fair commission split that will help you retain them on your team, consider moving your team to a brokerage like eXp Realty.
eXp Realty allows team leaders to receive override commissions from your agents’ production paid to you by the brokerage in the form of revenue share, allowing you to take less money away from your agents while making the same or even more money as the team leader.
To learn more about why so many teams are joining eXp Realty, check out these articles:
Want to Learn More About the Additional Value that Our Group is Providing for Real Estate Team Leaders that no Other Group at eXp Realty is Providing? Click the Button Below to Learn More About Our Incredible Group!
2- Provide an excellent working environment
Your team’s morale affects how productive they’ll be, so make sure you create a culture on your real estate team or brokerage to make it a good place for agents to work!
If you are a real estate team leader, it is important to create a collaborative and welcoming environment for your agents.
Many times, when agents are working in a team environment, they are more productive and sell more homes, which can be another factor for you to retain real estate agents on your team.
This is because they are able to help each other out by sharing leads, referrals, contacts, specialized knowledge, and resources.
When agents feel uncomfortable or unwelcome in their work environment, they are less likely to be productive and will eventually leave your team.
Make sure that you create an atmosphere in which agents feel comfortable sharing their ideas and working together for the benefit of the team.
You can do this by having regular team meetings, encouraging agent communication through online tools such as Slack or Skype, and providing the necessary tools and guidance to allow your agents to work efficiently with each other.
Encourage socializing outside of work hours through events or company outings
Another important factor when it comes to how to retain real estate agents for team leaders and brokers is the ability for you to build a personal relationship with your agents as well as encouraging your agents to build personal friendships with each other.
Encourage socializing outside of work hours through events or company outings where team members can get to know each other better on a personal level.
Team trips, team dinners, game nights, and holiday parties are all great ways for you to get your agents more involved with each other on a personal level rather than strictly business.
Whatever we focus our energy on grows, so find ways that you can get your agents to focus their energy on your team even outside of real estate.
Convenience
Making it convenient for your agents to work is another key way that real estate teams and brokerages can retain their agents.
Some ways to make it more convenient for your agents include:
– Having a central office location where all team members are working from
– Offering flexible work hours so that agents can work when they are most productive
– Allowing agents the systems to work remotely if they cannot make it into the office
– Having readily accessible technology so that agents can communicate and collaborate with each other easily
– Providing all the necessary tools and resources for agents to be productive when working together
If you can provide an environment that is flexible, efficient, and easy to work in, you will be able to keep your agents on your real estate team or brokerage much longer!
If you are a team leader or independent broker who is looking for ways to increase the productivity of your and your agents’ day through proven systems that allow your agents to submit contracts, track their business, get legal and admin support, and get training for no additional cost, consider partnering team with eXp Realty.
Click Below to Learn How You Can Give Your Agents the Systems Needed to Run an Effortless Real Estate Business by Partnering with eXp Realty!
3- Give Your Agents a Voice
As a team leader or broker, you need to be a good listener and only offer feedback to agents who want it.
Agents are more likely to stay with you if they feel like they’re a part of a team and have a voice in the team or company’s future.
Be sure to include your agents in important decisions, including how the company is run, how new ideas are implemented, and how communication can be improved.
You don’t have to give them full control over how the company is run, but every agent wants to feel validated and appreciate that their feedback is being taken into consideration.
Create a system where your agents can share their ideas on how improvements can be made and then find ways that you and the team as a whole can implement those ideas into how your real estate business is run.
Agents will feel more appreciated, valued, and respected when they know that their voice is being heard and taken seriously.
Another great benefit for team leaders and brokers who allow their agents to give them feedback is that they are able to know exactly what is working for their agents right now, and exactly what they need to do to retain those agents.
By allowing your agents to give you feedback, you will know exactly what the agents want, and can therefore implement that into your business in order to retain them.
Evaluate Your Agents Regularly
Reviewing how your agents are performing on a regular basis is another way to retain real estate agents for teams or brokerages.
Having honest conversations with your agents about how they’re doing both professionally and personally is beneficial for both them and you in terms of how to retain real estate agents.
Regular reviews allow you to see how your team members are performing, how they’re interacting with each other, how their work ethic levels are, and if there are areas that need improvement.
By having honest reviews on a regular basis with all of your agents, you can provide guidance to retain real estate agents that will encourage them to continue being successful.
Make sure though, that you are not micromanaging your agents.
Offer Rewards and Incentives for Your Team Members
No one wants to feel as though their hard work has gone unnoticed! Make it a point to reward and incentivize your agents when they take steps towards improving how they do business.
Keeping the motivation high among your team members is another way how real estate teams and brokerages can retain their agents.
Reinforce how their efforts and hard work are helping your real estate business grow, how much value they are bringing to the team, how you appreciate them being so proactive, how they are setting a great example for others on how to be successful in real estate.
Motivate them by giving specific examples of how their efforts have made an impact in your business or in anyone’s life that has been affected through their work – this also shows your agents that their work really does matter!
Want to Learn More About the Additional Value that Our Group is Providing for Real Estate Team Leaders that no Other Group at eXp Realty is Providing? Click the Button Below to Learn More About Our Incredible Group!
4- Bring new ideas
If you are not growing, you’re dying.
Real estate teams and brokerages need to keep their agents motivated by introducing new ideas on a regular basis. This could be in the form of new marketing ideas, changes in the company or team policy, or ways to improve how the team communicates and works together.
If agents feel like they’re stuck in a rut and that there’s no innovation or change happening within the company, they’re likely to leave.
The key to retaining real estate agents is by showing them that you’re always working to improve how the team functions and how they can be successful.
Introducing new ideas not only shows your agents that you’re proactive and care about their future, but it also allows them to explore new opportunities and brainstorm ways to make those ideas a reality.
5- Allow Your Agents to Grow
Real estate team leaders need to allow their agents to grow and improve as realtors.
When agents feel like they have no potential to grow, they are likely to look for new opportunities where they can increase their business, become better realtors, or make more money.
It is crucial that team leaders and brokerages give their agents the opportunity to grow as real estate agents and improve their businesses.
This can be done by providing opportunities for them to attend trainings, private coaching, webinars, and other educational events.
A great way for team leaders and brokers to give agents the chance to grow is to provide them with additional trainings in specialized areas of real estate such as real estate investing, social media marketing, video marketing, commercial real estate, luxury real estate, mindset training, and sales skills
When you allow your agents to grow and become experts in these areas, you’ll see the retention rates increase because you’ll be bringing tremendous value to your agents.
Why Teams Are Not Letting Their Agents Grow
As we mentioned earlier, it is difficult for teams to provide their agents with a lucrative commission split because they have expensive overheads and must split their commissions with their broker.
In order for teams to even stay profitable, they must take more of the agents’ commissions.
This is a major reason why team leaders are not giving their agents the chance to grow.
Most teams and small brokerages keep their agents at a certain level so that they rely on the team or company in order to sell any real estate.
Team leaders do not want their agents to grow into independent agents and leave their teams, so they do not provide the opportunity for their agents to become better real estates and grow as realtors.
If you are a team leader who wants to retain the agents on your team and continue to receive overrides on their production as an agent even after they become independent agents, consider partnering your team with eXp Realty.
At eXp Realty team leaders are able to earn overrides on their agents’ commission in 2 ways, through additional commission splits between you and your agents and through revenue share, paid to you by the brokerage without your agents needing to split anymore of their commissions with you before they split their commission with the brokerage.
This allows you to make money on the production of your agents whether they are on your production team or decide to become a solo agent.
To learn more about why so many teams are joining eXp Realty, check out these articles:
Want to Learn More About the Additional Value that Our Group is Providing for Real Estate Team Leaders that no Other Group at eXp Realty is Providing? Click the Button Below to Learn More About Our Incredible Group!
6- Keep Your Promises
Team leaders and brokerages must keep their promises to their agents in order to retain them.
This means that team leaders and brokerages must provide the opportunities that they have promised their agents when they were recruiting them to the team, such as mentorship, coaching, lead generation software, free leads, and transaction coordinators.
Team leaders and brokerages must also be truthful with their agents, and not promise things to them before they join the team that you cannot deliver on.
If agents feel like they are being taken advantage of or that they are not being given what they were promised, they are likely to leave the team or brokerage.
Always remember to underpromise and overdeliver.
This way, your agents will join your team based on the perceived value you offer and stay on your team for the real value that you are able to provide.
7- Provide Your Agents with Real Value
Real estate teams and brokerages can provide their agents with value in a number of ways.
Provide Your Agents with Access to Resources
Offering resources for your agents to do their jobs more efficiently is a key factor when it comes to how to retain real estate agents on your team or brokerage.
The easier it is for your agents to access support resources and manage their workload, the more likely they are to stay on your team.
For example, if you provide agents with a transaction coordinator or transaction assistant who can help them sell their listings as quickly as possible so that they keep commissions in their pocket, this will likely help you retain a good percentage of agents on your team or brokerage.
In addition to having a transaction coordinator or assistant available for those times when the agent needs extra assistance selling a listing, providing access to online tools such as CRM software, a free marketing center, and top quality lead generation tools goes a long way in how to retain real estate agents on your team or brokerage.
Implement Systems and Processes for Success
Another great way for real estate teams and brokerages to provide value to their agents is by implementing systems and processes that make it easier for everyone to succeed.
There are a number of different systems and processes that teams can implement in order to provide value to their agents.
One way is by having a lead generation system in place that helps agents get more leads coming in.
Another way is by having a system in place for coaching and mentorship. This can include having weekly or monthly team meetings where team leaders can give updates on how the business is doing, offer coaching and mentorship, and answer any questions that agents have.
If you are looking for ways to provide your agents with more value as a team leader but do not want to pay any additional expenses month to month, consider partnering your team with eXp Realty.
Every team at eXp Realty has a wealth of resources available to them that they can provide to their agents such as: customizable marketing templates, templated forms and contracts, a state of the art lead generation software, listing and transaction management software, over 80 hours of live and recorded training for your agents, an internal communication and referral and sharing system & more!
By utilizing these free resources, teams are able to get organized, save time on tasks that need completing, automate different aspects of their business, and save money while also being able to provide their agents with a superb value stack.
Want to Learn More About the Additional Value that Our Group is Providing for Real Estate Team Leaders that no Other Group at eXp Realty is Providing? Click the Button Below to Learn More About Our Incredible Group!
8- Make Your Agents a Part of Your Team
When it comes to how to retain real estate agents on your team or brokerage, one of the best ways to do so is by making your agents not just feel like they are a part of the team or brokerage, but actually make them a part of your business.
One way to do this is by rewarding your top agents with equity in the team or brokerage.
This can be done in a number of ways, such as giving them a percentage of the company’s profits, offering them a commission bonus for every new agent they refer to the team or brokerage, or simply giving them an ownership stake in your business.
Remember that real estate agents are independent business owners. They are not tied down to any team or company by contract like employees are.
This is why providing agents with actual ownership in your business is the absolute best agent retention tool that you can implement in your team or brokerage.
Not only is this going to provide massive value to your agents, but it also separates you from the rest of your competition by an extremely wide gap.
Real estate agents “rent” their businesses.
The nature of the business for a realtor is that they rely on their personal success and brand to make money, but since every sales agent needs to be sponsored by a brokerage and some are a part of real estate teams, splitting their commissions with the company, they are essentially paying “rent” to their teams or brokers to run their business.
By providing ownership in your business to your best agents, you are essentially letting your agents actually own their businesses vs renting it.
Also, giving your agents ownership in your business also solves a major issue for real estate agents.
As we mentioned earlier, real estate agents rely on their personal success to make money. This means that their business has no value at the end of their careers and has no real equity in their businesses.
No agent, not even the top producers, can sell their real estate business and retire at the end of their careers.
By providing agents ownership in your business, you are giving these agents an exit strategy one day when they do decide that they want to exit the business and actually retire to enjoy the life that they have created for themselves.
If you are a real estate team leader or brokerage owner that wants to retain 80-100% of all of the agents in your real estate business for the remainder of their careers by providing them with ownership in your company consider partnering your business with eXp Realty, the “agent-owned” brokerage.
eXp Realty is held under the publicly-traded company eXp World Holdings on the Nasdaq (EXPI) and rewards their agents with equity in the brokerage through stock awards. Agents can earn stock in the company for reaching performance milestones in their sales or recruiting business.
By partnering your team with eXp Realty, you can give your agents the opportunity to earn actual ownership in the brokerage that they work at!
Click Below to Learn More About Partnering Your Team with Our Incredible Group at eXp Realty!
Reward Your Agents for Referring Other Agents to Join Your Team
Another way to make your agents a part of your team is by rewarding them for referring other agents to join your team.
This can be done in a number of ways, such as giving them a commission bonus for every new agent they refer to the team or brokerage or actually sharing the profits or revenue of your business to your agents.
Real estate agents are always getting asked by other agents who are looking for a change or new agents entering the industry which team/brokerage to join and agents always refer them to the brokerage that they are currently at.
By giving your agents a financial incentive whenever they refer another agent to join your team or brokerage, you are making your agents feel like they are contributing to the growth of the team/company.
Consider giving your top agents the opportunity to become satellite team leaders, co-team leaders, recruiters, or managers.
Real estate agents are ambitious are always looking to move up in their businesses.
Most solo agents who are looking to do more in their business look for ways to go from being a solopreneur as an agent to an entrepreneur as a team leader. After all, that is exactly what you went through as a team leader yourself.
If you are a real estate team leader or brokerage owner looking for ways to reward your agents for referring other agents to join your company, consider partnering your business with eXp Realty and taking advantage of the revenue share model.
At eXp Realty, real estate agents have the opportunity to earn overrides on the production of the agents that they refer to join the company for agents that they either directly or indirectly recruited to the company all the way up to agents who are 7 generations removed from the agent that they directly recruited into the company.
As we mentioned earlier, real estate team leaders at eXp Realty are able to develop their agents into individual agents and still earn residuals from their production.
But because the revenue share opportunity is open to every agent at eXp, you can not only develop your agents into independent agents, you can actually develop them into team leaders like yourself and are actually heavily incentivized to do so through the revenue share model!
Learn more about revenue share at eXp.
If you want to take advantage of this opportunity for team leaders to not only retain their agents but exponentially grow your team. Click Below to Learn More About eXp Realty is Sharing Both Company Revenue AND Profits to Your Agents!
How to Retain Real Estate Agents For Real Estate Teams and Brokerages: Are You Ready to Take Your Business to the Next Level?
Retention is an issue for real estate team leaders and brokers.
One of the best ways to retain real estate agents is to provide them with the services and tools they need.
As a real estate team leader, you are also faced with retention challenges as well through how to keep your agents productive not only during the busy spring and summer seasons but year-round.
If you are looking for additional revenue opportunities that allow your company to retain more agents on your team/brokerage without having to hire additional employees, pay for third-party services, invest in costly software, and expand your office space consider partnering with eXp Realty!
Reduce Liability. Increase Scalability. Learn More About the Additional Value that Our Group is Providing for Real Estate Team Leaders that no Other Group at eXp Realty is Providing by Clicking the Button Below