Hi I am just new agent I was wondering the best way to pursue this venture. Go it alone or to team up. Any advise and comment would be appreciated. If any body is successful in going it alone please share and those who are successful in doing it as a team ifyou can share how it works out that will be great.
thank you.

I would only team up with someone after you both come to an agreement of how the workload is going to be shared and you're both confident that you're each satisfied with what you're going to be doing.

I have successfully teamed up on certain listings with a couple agents in my office. I tried it again with a different agent and it was a disaster. She agreed to do certain stuff, I agreed to do the other stuff and she continually dropped the ball on what she was supposed to be doing. Then accused me of trying to "take over" when the customer was upset and I was trying to keep the customer happy....that didn't work out so well.

If you team up, put your agreement in writing, both sign it and perhaps even have your broker review and initial it. If there is any kind of contentious breakup, there won't be any kind of long term effect.

Kind of like a pre-nup prior to a marraige

Thank you for the reply. So It seems that teaming up would be an advantage as long as it is organized properly, and well documented. But I still cant figure out the mechanics of how it works any website to check what are common set up of a team?

It's simple really. The reason for doing a team is to play off each other's strengths, which are hopefully different from yours - an area where you are weak, the other person should be strong.

My team gone bad sounded good at the beginning:

I was going to handle all the internet stuff, take the photos, do the virtual tour, etc. This is what I love doing.

She was to handle the seller: take care of all the paperwork, keep the seller informed of what was going on, do the open houses, etc.

When it came apparent that she wanted me to do more of her work as well as hers, I ended the "partnership." It was not very pretty....lol...but I felt that she was trying to take advantage of me.

You also need to agree on commissions: how will it be split? What if one of you brings the buyer? In my agreement with the above person, we were going to split the selling side of the commission 50/50 unless either of us also brought the buyer - then we agreed to just split the entire commission 50/50 - one would have the list side, one would have the sell side.

Other agreements typically are whoever brings the buyer gets the full buyer side of the commission plus half the listing side....the co-lister gets half the listing side...

There are no cut and dried partnership plans - each one will depend on the individual team.

Someone who hates prospecting may want to partner up with a strong prospector and do the "behind the scenes" work while the prospector gets the clients. Someone who sucks at photography and has awful writing skills may want to team up with someone who takes good pictures and has basic grammar down...etc.

Agreed! Only team up AFTER an agreed upon workload split. If you dont, one person will likely end up doing more work, get resented at the other one and it will begin to fall apart.

i have some stong thoughts on teaming...it is not the answer to get business...repeat...not the answer to get business...a team needs a stong foudation...a team leader or rainmkaer if you will...

when your business gets to be more than you can handle, bring in the first member...either a buyer agent or admin..i would go with the admin...free your money producing time up sot that you can focus on high income producing activity...

you...lead agent
admin
buyer agent

once you get there, you will know where you need to go next...\


dont team up to share little businessl...team up because you have more business and you want to delegate out the low paying jobs... be a lead agnet...

2 agents with no business called a team only makes half of the commission on a deal few and far between.

read the champion team by Dirk Zeller...good book.

I agree with the order above, lead, admin, buyer. It fits the typical growth curve of the successful agent perfectly.

Teaming up with anyone PRIOR to having a lot of business is a prescription for failure. It appeals to the herd mentality and warmth in numbers thing, but when there is no business, and each deal represents a much-needed commission, and you have to split that commission with another agent rather than plowing the money back into marketing, a team is pretty much a guarantee of failure.

If you are new to the business, the last thing you need is a team or a teammate to share an already-meager income. The first thing you need is business. And income to further build the business.

By the way, the failure rate of non-spousal real estate teams is phenomenally high. It is just an arrangement that seems failure-prone. It is all happy and sweet at first, then usually it pretty quickly goes down the tubes when the reality of splitting the commission reveals the economic no-win situation beneath.

However, married agent teams seem to do very well. All the money is going to the same place, so that keeps everyone positive and involved.

I've never actually worked in a team, but I tend to agree with the previous posters.

In my opinion, unless your market niche is in high-end/luxury real estate, there's not going to be enough love (ie, money) to go around.

The exception to that I guess is if you've partnered with someone who is really good at generating and developing leads to pump up deal volume.

My wife and I are a team. Works great as we each have strengths and weaknesses. But we both make sure we can do it all. Because there will always be times we have to cover for each other. She's gets listings and I do the marketing & internet stuff. But the client side we both do as that's what we need to cover each other on.

Works great but it helps we really get along well. And it's a combined household income so no problems there. Clients like that one of us is usually available to assist any time. As new agents this has been a help to us well to support each other. If our business grows we might bring in more but for now this team member loves our setup.

My 2 cents.

Thanks for these info. I was thinking that team builds more business. I thought as new agent this will help me grow but I guess I have to grow first and then team up if you need to get to the higher level. It is a lot clearer that I have to focus more on building myself up. Thanks guys. and with the spouse I have my wife not as an agent but she is my stager. I guess it wont have any conflict with our set up.

Bob, I love your name "Bobbing4REOs"...it's creative, humorous and it actually captures the nature of the REO business from an agent's perspective. You'd probably do well in the advertising biz. Nice work!

I am currently teamed up in this business. Our team works because we both have the same goal in life and we talk about everything.

Having the same goal is one thing; equally sharing the work is another!