In order to start a real estate team, potential real estate team leaders need to know the different real estate team structures and the pros and cons of each.
Many real estate brokers and real estate team leaders don’t know how to best structure their real estate teams. This can lead to less than optimal results, such as not having enough agents or failing to meet the needs of different clients. In this post, we will explore the various ways that real estate agent teams are structured and discuss what makes each type successful.
Table of Contents
7 Real Estate team Structures:
- Traditional Agent Team
- Lead Team
- Buyer Agent Team
- Client Team
- Mega Expansion Team
- Coaching/Mentorship Team
- Virtual Team
1) Traditional Agent Team:
This is the most common real estate team structure and works well for individual real estate brokers or realtors that want to grow their real estate businesses. An agent team consists of a larger number of agents, who report up to one realtor as their primary broker or team leader.
In a traditional agent team, agents usually get value from the team leader in the form of support, training, coaching, or having access to leads and different systems in their business. Agents on a traditional team usually work under the same splits, follow common systems, and run their real estate transactions to a transaction coordinator.
While this traditional real estate team structure is simple with lots of benefits, it also has some drawbacks that make it less than ideal for certain brokerages or agents – specifically when there are more experienced agents on a particular agent team who don’t want to help newer members in any way.
2) Lead Team
As companies continue moving toward becoming digital businesses rather than physical locations (such as brick and mortar retail stores), lead generation is an important priority that many real estate teams aim to implement.
In this situation, you may consider creating a lead team if your business has enough agents on staff but want assistance generating more leads through various internet marketing strategies such as SEO or PPC – making sure they’re both qualified and efficient at finding prospects ready to buy or sell their properties.
On a lead team the team leader is giving value to their agents by generating leads for them using their own personal brand. The team leader is also responsible for allocating the generated leads to the agents on the team in a fair way, as well as managing and coaching the agents on how to close more real estate deals.
Lead teams can be extremely successful when they have an effective system for lead distribution and follow-up, along with well-trained and qualified agents who are good at working digital marketing campaigns. The best way to split commissions with agents on lead teams is to only take a percentage of an agent’s commission at closing when the team leader have provided the lead.
3) Buyer Agent Teams
The third type of real estate team structure is the buyers agent team. A buyer agent team ypically has a real estate team leader who only takes seller or listing clients and hires buyer agents on their team to assist potential buyers to purchase the team’s listings.
In this type of real estate agent team structure, the lead listing realtor can easily manage all aspects of listing their own clients’ properties including marketing the properties, negotiating offers with other realtors, and closing deals. The team leader or lead listing agent will work all the listings and assign buyer clients who are looking to purchase their listings to the buyer agents on their team.
They will provide additional training or coaching for their buyer’s agents as needed since they will be working directly under the team leader – making it an ideal situation for new real estate agents or those looking to get started quickly in the industry. Also, as certain buyer agents on the team begin to improve their skillsets and start to get listings of their own, they can easily transition into Satelite lead listing agents and start their own team of buyer agents as well.
This is one way that many top producing realtors choose to organize their teams because you get access to both types of real estate clients (seller and buyer) without having spent the time working with buyers.
4) Client Team
A real estate client team is a smaller real estate team that consists of realtors who work together to serve the same set of clients. The members on this type of real estate agent team each have their own specific role, such as being an expert in buying homes or selling properties.
An example would be if there are two agents working for one broker and they specialize in representing luxury buyers only. This way it allows them to offer more value and added services since both realtors focus on meeting all the needs of a high-end home buyer so they can better provide property searches, referrals, market expertise, etc., which benefits everyone involved including the client.
In most cases, client teams are formed of agent partnerships of no more than 5 agents. This way there will be enough work for each agent to do and enough commission for each agent on the team to receive after a transaction closes. As a client team grows and gets more clients, they usually evolve into buyer agent teams where each agent on the team will take their own listing specialty and give all buyer clients to their buyer agents.
Commercial real estate teams are almost exclusively structured this way, with each agent specializing in a specific type of property or transaction.
5) Mega Expansion Team
Mega expansion teams are real estate teams that are operational in multiple markets in multiple MLS areas and have a satellite office or team leader in each market. Mega expansion teams are incredibly capital intensive.
In order to be successful with this real estate team structure, the mega expansion team must have an effective system for lead distribution and follow up, well-trained and qualified agents who know how to work digital marketing campaigns, as well as a detailed business plan laying out their goals and strategies in expanding to multiple markets.
Mega expansion teams are usually a result of large agent teams that are dominating in their own market and want to use their experience and capital to expand to new markets. In the past, mega expansion teams have been the best option for real estate teams to grow their market share.
Since this type of real estate agent team is so large it can be difficult to manage all aspects of the business without proper planning – which is why it’s important to have a clear vision for what you want your mega expansion team to achieve. Some of the most common reasons brokers set out to build a real estate team with this type of structure is because they want to tap into new markets, want their brand to be known nationwide or even globally, and/or have an interest in working directly with realtors who are experienced so they can bring in more production.
6) Coaching Team
A coaching team can be implemented if your real estate business has an existing roster of agents, but you don’t have enough leads to distribute to make it profitable. In this situation, consider becoming a coach or offering mentorship to your agents instead!
On this type of team, the team lead is an agent who can mentor or coach the agents on his or her team by giving them value in the form of advice and duplicatable systems rather than leads. This way, the team leader can grow of team of agents organically instead of having them depend on the team for business like many agents would on a lead generation team.
The mentor or coach’s job is to work with the agents on their team in order to guide them through the process of transitioning from being a new or mediocre real estate agent into becoming high level, top-producing agents – making sure everyone on the team can receive value from the leader’s training and increase their own production business.
If you already have a coaching program in place for your agents, but want to explore other options for growth and development – this is where consulting comes in! By hiring consultants, brokers can provide their existing teams with additional training programs that cover topics such as sales strategies, marketing methods, company branding standards, and more. This way they are able to stay up to date on what’s changing within their industry while improving results by leveraging expert who specializes in a variety of areas.
7) Virtual Real Estate Agent Teams
A virtual real estate agent team consists of independent contractors who meet specific criteria (such as having an established work history) so that they may work as realtors for a realty firm without needing to be physically located in the same region. Since virtual real estate agent teams operate online, it’s possible for these realtors and brokers to work with clients anywhere across the globe!
This type of team is great for team leaders who want to grow their business in an unlimited market share because they are now able to attract agents from around the world to their team and therefore tap into the clientele base of each agent’s local market.
The best way for team leaders to offer value on a virtual team is to implement a coaching or mentorship structure where they are able to provide their agents value from a broad business, sales, entrepreneurship, or expertise standpoint and leverage the leads that the agents are generating themselves instead od generating leads for the agents. This way, they are able to not only help more agents, because they no longer have to invest in marketing in a new region, but also help the agents on their team develop into more productive and independent agents that can run their own scalable business.
Learn more about virtual real estate teams and how you can be a part of team for FREE at no additional cost or split!
Bottom Line
There are many ways to structure a team that can help meet different goals, but it’s important to think about the scalability of each form. The key is understanding where you want to take your business in the future before making any decisions! What type of real estate agent team do you have now? Do these pros or cons sound familiar?