I'm taking my test in a couple weeks and a friend asked me to join his team. I'm meeting with him next week to discuss the particulars, but I wanted to get a sense before we meet about how a team works.

Specifically, what is a "typical" structure. He mentioned he would get 50% of my commissions and 50% would go to the team for advertising/marketing. Typically what happens if he brings in his own lead? Does he get full commission for that or does he contribute a percentage to the team? Does he get leads and toss them my way and vice versa?

I am excited about the opportunity to learn under his guidance so that I am not making mistakes at my clients expense while I get my feet wet.

Really there are not enough details provided. Is your friend the owner/broker of the RE company or is he an associate broker/agent working for someone else who is owner/broker of the company. I suspect your friend and you would be working for someone else who owns the company. Is your friend on a commission split or paying a desk fee? Is the RE company a franchise with various fees for every transaction closed? A team could be looked at as a subset within a RE company with some duplicitive costs. Try taking an average sold transaction if you were not a team member vs on your own with the owner? Also factor in whether the mentoring/leads friend give are better than if you did it with the owner/broker.

[quote=Retsof Yor]Really there are not enough details provided. Is your friend the owner/broker of the RE company or is he an associate broker/agent working for someone else who is owner/broker of the company. I suspect your friend and you would be working for someone else who owns the company. Is your friend on a commission split or paying a desk fee? Is the RE company a franchise with various fees for every transaction closed? A team could be looked at as a subset within a RE company with some duplicitive costs. Try taking an average sold transaction if you were not a team member vs on your own with the owner? Also factor in whether the mentoring/leads friend give are better than if you did it with the owner/broker. [/quote]

Thanks for your reply. My friend is an sales agent at Re/Max, not the broker. He is on a commission split. He does have to pay the broker and the person he pays to process all the paperwork. I have not problem splitting fees and commissions with him as I will be getting benefits as well (I won't be learning at my clients expense and I can tell clients they are getting 2 agents for the price of 1, as opposed to them being worried about working with a new agent).

You probably mean he'll take 25% of your Commissions, and the Team will take 25%; but what does the Brokerage get?


Who's paying for those . . . . and what do they consist of? Do they commence prior to your 1st Closed Sale?

Team of Realtors? I feel like I should have known about this sooner. Is it common for agents to team up? What are the pros and cons?

It's common for REALTORS to partner up with 1 or 2 other REALTORS. That way you split the income and costs eveningly and can easily cover for each other allowing you to take holidays with no concerns.

Teams are less common, normally you have 1 big name REALTOR who generates most of the leads and the business and then you have the team members who are often less experienced agents who actually deal with the clients the big name is bringing in.

Of the 2 options I'll take the first 1 assuming you can find other REALTOR who are having a similiar level of success.

I have a team. I pay all my buyer agent expenses and I take a flat 30 percent of his commissions. I run his business thru my numbers and since I am at a reduced brokerage rate due to my volumes, he also gets the increased benefit of a slightly higher commission rate. It works as he needs the leads and I take the bigger business

Thanks for the informational post..!!!

This is all interesting but if the little guys are working off of the BIG guy's name and the little guys are screwing up and clients are aware of the screw ups because it is their transactions that are getting screwed, would this not affect the BIG guy's reputation?

If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself or find one VERY trustworthy and educated person to share. You'd have to really trust that person.

I can see it all for an agent to get some education and experience (but also at some other guy's expense of reputation) but when I see little guys STAYING little guys...I'm not seeing alot of ambition there and would fear that would be reflected in 'service' to the clients.

As Fox Mulder always said, "Trust no one."

I usually consider the term sales team a joke. It is not usually and alliance of agents working as a voluntary team. It is usually one main agent and his assistants, yes you may have a nice title but you are just a hired assistant to Joe Blow and he will make it seem like your an equal but your not, your just a sub agent of an agent of the broker and this allows him to pay you on commission instead of a paycheck.

For many agents this is better then nothing, they need it for some mental reason. A real team works as equals and splits everything equally and in most cases you are no where close to that. I am a broker and had many a agent form a sales "team" but I only actually had one agent with many assistants no matter how they viewed themselves.

A true "team" is usually two or three agents that band together to utilize the individual talents of each team member. Maybe one is great at closing listing appointments and generating listing leads, another has a lot of patience and loves working with buyers and a third may be a generalist that can do all of the phases of real estate. They have a written agreement about how expenses and commissions earned will be distributed within the team and cover for one another to gain the necessary down team to stay vibrant in the business.
At some point, they may add an unlicensed assistant to complete the mundane daily tasks and usually one will be designated the team leader for promotional purposes.
One other point, depending on your state, many real estate commissions have enacted rules about how teams must advertise and promote their businesses. In our state, a team must have the name of a licensee, like the Frank Sinatra Team, and cannot advertise in another name. And they must still identify the brokerage business and display the brokerage phone number on all materials.