I am really looking forward to what this Brokers forum at Agents Online will have to offer those of us making our way as Brokers in Real Estate.

As I see it, there are some logical areas to focus our attention. Here are a few.

• What is a Broker?
• How do you become a broker?
• As a Broker, should you work for yourself or another Broker?
• Operating a Brokerage Solo or open an office?
• What do you need to do in order to open your own Real Estate Brokerage?
• How do you build your brand as a Brokerage?
• How do you identify, mitigate and reduce potential liabilities?
• When recruiting agents, should you focus on quantity or quality?
• What should your business model be(IE: Classic X% commissions, flat fees, ala carte, etc)?
• How do you build your brokerage (IE: When do you hire support personnel, etc)?
• What are the best infrastructure tools to support your business (IE: Office phone systems, 800 numbers, fax back services, web site hosting, etc)?
• Should you provide other services within your Brokerage?
• Agent management issues, how do you handle them?
• Agent/Broker commission split models. How do you strike a balance that lets your Agents earn the most while supporting the Brokerages overall efforts?
• Etc.

The list could go on and on. Add to that the variation that exists from state to state and suddenly you begin to realize how valuable information on these topics can be.

Consider the above list a place to start your mind thinking along the lines of what operating a brokerage is all about. With any luck, we will have answers - or at least some good advice - about all of these issues before we are done.

For those of you just visiting this forum, you may be wondering what the difference is between a real estate agent and a real estate broker. Let me try and lay out the difference.

In the world of real estate there are basically two groups of people.

• Licensed Real Estate Agents (salesperson)
• Licensed Real Estate Brokers

Here in California, to get your real estate license, you must take a class and pass a state administered exam.

However, once you have your real estate salespersons license, you cannot simply go out and start working with clients. A licensed real estate agent (salesperson) must first find a real estate broker who will allow them to "hang" their salespersons license in their office.

The point of this is to provide the salesperson with someone to help and guide them. The broker will usually provide some level of infrastructure to help the salesperson do their job. For each sale the salesperson completes, the broker will usually get some portion of the proceeds from that transaction.

A broker usually starts out as a real estate salesperson. They must take more courses and then pass a longer state exam in order to become a broker. The requirements for becoming a salesperson and a broker vary from state to state.

This forum is intended for brokers and aspiring brokers to come together and share ideas and experiences that we can all benefit from.

SOME RULES:

SOLICITATIONS: Please remember that this forum is NOT for solicitations. Any solicitations posted here will be marked as spam and edited to delete the solicitation. If your signature for the post includes a link for the solicitation, the post will simply be deleted to prevent any benefit from solicitation posts.

Please also be aware that no matter how cleverly cloaked in requests for feedback, ideas, etc. ALL solicitations will be dealt with the same. If your post is 99% discussion of a topic and 1% solicitation, it gets the boot as a solicitation.

There are other areas on agentsonline.net that are specifically designed to allow folks to solicit for one thing or another, please make your solicitations there.

COURTESY:
We are all adults and should act as such. As soon as posts start taking discussion from good natured exchange to personal attack, abusive language or just plain unacceptable behavior, that post will be deleted.

Thanks,
R

I'm trying like crazy to pass the broker's test. I've taken it twice now....it's the math that I have a problelm with. I had a brain injury and I am unable to carry too many issues within one problem to resolve. I've passed the state and the General... all except the math. Any way, I don't know what I want to do with it when I get it. I like the company I'm with but I need leverage with the owner and this will help. Just thought I'd claim my seat here. Thanks

Does your broker's textbook include a chapter that lists all math formulas? I learned some of them for the first time ever, like principal calculations, term loans, basis points and ad valorum taxes.

This is one example of why I think the online brokers courses have a lot of merit. I can do practice tests over and over again and when I get a wrong answer I have a pop-up explanations. I can even get pop-ups to justify why my answer was correct. its just input, input, drill, drill.

This topic has been locked to prevent Solicitation posters from trying to post here so that they will always be at the top of the forum list.

In addition, previous solicitation posts to this thread have been deleted.

R