If you are just starting up and looking to become a part of a large company who is growing rapidly I happen to know of a great company, World Properties International, which was listed in Entreprenuers' April issue as a top franchise for 2007. If working solely on your own then their home office model would seem to fit perfect. World Properties offers real estate, mortgage, home warranty, insurance, and title and closing services. If you want to know more about this I can discuss it with you in detail, let me know.

I am finding myself more and more drawn to the idea of having a "one person" office. I will be getting back home from my sabbatical in July. I figured that in order to just get up to speed with building a client base, I would want to perhaps work under another broker for the first quarter or two.

Then the plan was to open my own office and start recruiting.

However, I am finding that even being 8000 miles away, I am getting plenty of buyers through my website.

I have two clients I have referred to other agents for a referral fee (one is going to make an offer on a place today as a matter of fact) and the other is still shopping around.

I also have 3 more buyers who all want to wait till after the summer months to buy - and I will be back in time to handle those folks myself.

With all that going on, without having done ANY other prospecting, I am pretty confident I could do well just working for myself.

R

You are never the safe pick. If they pick a big name like Remax or Century 21 and things don't work out, it is a bad market, but if they pick bob the broker, they will tend to blame the broker instead of the market. I have been on both sides of this argument over the years. It is easier with the big name, but still very possible without it.

We started with a one man show (the dear hubby) when he became a broker. If you're getting ready to set up shop, here's the latest tip from the bean_counter...

http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-1-10423450

This is the program we use for our fax line. Since we both use our cell phones for business, it made sense to save the $60/month for the 2 Vonage lines, especially with the connection issues we started having. We are extremely pleased with myfax which is inexpensive, allows us to check our faxes anywhere there's internet, otherwise they arrive and are sent thru email and our fax line is a toll free number! Their plans start (at this writing) at $10/mth for 100 incoming pages and 200 outgoing. We've got the $20/mth plan which saves us $40/mth over using the Vonage lines. ...and did I mention saving paper by choosing the pages we want to print?

Susan

Wow, Robert, that is the best website I've run across. No wonder you don't have to prospect. Very nice.

That is very kind of you to say.. thanks!

I am still fine tuning it tho. For one thing, the free "FSBO" listing service refuses to get off the ground. I may can that... we will see.
R