I am trying to find some non bias feedback from experienced agents to help me decide which way to go. My 2 choices that I have narrowed down to is to work for my local KW office where a friend of mine is the supervising broker or another friend who is the #1 Remax agent in the country 5 years in a row. The split with KW is 70/30 until I cap and then 100%. The remax team is 50/50 when I represent the buyer and 25/75 ( not 75/25) when I represent the seller on one of our listings. He has 90 listings right now. he has a full time marketing director and a closing agent that takes the deal form start to finish once I have a contract. This stays the same even if I bring the client in myself. His name is well known. I am new and I want to start making money asap. I have my list of pros and cons. I am torn. Any ideas?

Which office is going to offer you the best training?

The split is irrelevant if they don't teach you to know what you're doing, IMHO.

If money is all that matters then it sounds like your best bet would be the Remax option. However, if you want training then I would recommend KW and sign up for floor duty as often as possible and pick up some leads that way if that office offers floor duty.

Unless he has a lot of listings, I think the deal would be better for him at KW - the 25/75 is only if he represents the seller on one of his listings.

I'd vote KW.

the top remax agent has 90 listings with an average list price of 1 million. with him I will not be branding a name for myself.

it is 50/50 if I represent one of his buyers or one of my personal buyers. remember. he has a full time marketing director and a full closing agent that handles the deal from contract to closing.

Don't help build someone else's wealth and brand. Build your own. I would go with KW.

If you want to learn the business, learn the business. Don't follow someone else's footsteps. Get the training you need and have the motivation to do everything yourself.

For some reason, I have a hard time believing that the #1 Remax agent in the country lives in VA. If it were California, it would be believable because of the home prices. Just my opinion.

If it's the RE/MAX agent that I am thinking of, it would be a colossal error to not take this opportunity to learn from him. But I will say that I just watched a webinar/panel with him and from what I remember, his avg sales price is a wee bit lower than that.

The split is really irrelevant. I will say this time and again. You could work at Chuck-E-Cheese real estate firm. Most sellers and buyers ONLY care about how you focus on THEIR needs to accomplish their goals.

I see it all the time. Alot of new agents think if I join a big company with a horrible split the leads and money will come rolling in. The real truth is your daily activity regardless of the company once you have the basics will bring in the money.

I don't focus that much on volume of sales. I focus on how much profit they are making. You could do 10 million in revenue and have 10 million in costs and you are at 0 again. Granted with a corporation you can write off food,company vehicles,vacations (business trips :),retirement funds etc.

So you could still do very well and not show much personal income.

I always love how these big companies tout 70/30 and then you are at 100 percent! The reality is after the franchise fees you are in the 60's in gross commission to yourself before other expenses. In my eyes that is a very poor business model to have a great chance of making it successfully in this business.

Almost all agents never make it to the 100 percent before the year rolls over again so don't fake yourself into beleiving you are getting a good deal.

You said you want to make money right away. At Re/Max it seems for a crapply split they will feed you constant business. Here we have some foreclosure firms that will hire you as a buyers agent. They take you on a 50/50 but you can make about 90k to 100k a year for yourself and they take care of the rest. The downfall is they tell you what to do,how to do it,and when to do it. If you can live with that it can be a great fit.

My mantra has and always will be if they are not giving you leads that are closing you should not be paying those crappy splits. With either company you choose do not sign a long term contract so you can switch if you don't like it.

Why not? The "Top REMAX agent on Earth" for 2006 is from Alabama....

http://www.rw-shallow.net/news-articles/MR-03-26-06.htm

This is not the case with RE/MAX. The 70/30 Plan is known as the RAPP - or the payment plan. This is meant only for agents who can't afford to pay their monthly rent. Truthfully, I pay FAR, FAR, FAR less at RE/MAX than if I made the same money for any of the other big franchises.

Compare models side-by-side for certain income levels. That is how I figured out that I would pay nearly three times as much at two other franchises for the same amount of income. No brainer in my book.

TB -

The "RAPP" plan was around in different versions 10 years ago. I worked 2 years at a Re/Max under it. Our broker called it his Stress Free Plan. It was wonderful as long as you were generating enough income to cover the annual fees at the brokerage. I never has a problem, since I always covered the fees for both of us by April at the 70/30, then went to 95 for the rest of the year. But his agreement carried over fees into the future, so we had people that were paying last year's fees in the current year because they hadn't earned enough to cover the annual fees last year.

I do know there is a balloon office around here that has sued a couple of agents that signed on based on what they claim are promises made by the broker, then felt the promises weren't fulfilled and left. He sued them for the monthly "rent" fees and actually forced one into filing personal bankruptcy.

So you've got to have the confidence that you can generate enough commission to pay your way.

Why not work at that remax office, but not for that agent. If he has lots of listings they will be listed with the company therefore the company will get calls also. Like said above you could work floortime and pursue other marketing to get those calls.

the remax agent is an assocaite broker and everything I do will have his name on it because the it is an affilaite brokerage and has his name on it.

The best tip I can give you is to not settle for whatever the "standard" split may be. Everything is negotiable. If you are a presentable agent they your office manager or broker will probably cut you a better deal than the first offer they make.