Richard AgamaIf you hope to make the most of your real estate career, ensuring you choose the right brokerage is crucial. For this reason, it’s prudent to understand all that a broker can offer you before officially deciding to hang your license in their office building. Review this quick guide and learn how to select a brokerage with the resources to help you build a successful career.
Assess Its Reputation and Market Presence
Selecting a brokerage is much easier when you take the time to assess its reputation and market presence. Being successful means working with a broker that knows how to sell to and satisfy customers. So ensure that the brokerage you’re interested in has a sparkling reputation. You can do this by sifting through client reviews.
Just as well, you can do a quick search of a brokerage’s current listings. If your search yields excellent results, it typically indicates a quality reputation and a strong market presence. These qualities combined will lead to more listings, which can only lead to further success in your career.
Evaluate the Culture
When you’re navigating the process of how to tell if a brokerage is right for you, it’s wise to start by evaluating its culture. Like any other business, each brokerage has:
- A brand
- Core values
- Company-wide goals
These things will contribute to your work environment and, inherently, your success as an agent. Thus, it’s always beneficial to look into how the company’s culture aligns with your values and what you hope to achieve in your real estate career.
Typically, you can get a better idea of a brokerage’s culture when you speak to those who already work there. However, you can garner a lot of good information from online employee reviews and client testimonials.
Ensure It Offers Adequate Support
It’s no secret that continuing education and support are high priorities, especially for rookie agents. For this reason, it’s prudent to ensure that the brokerage you’re interested in offers all the tools you’ll need to be successful. Perhaps you’re the type that benefits from weekly meetings or refresher seminars. If so, ask prospective brokers if they offer those types of resources.
On the other hand, you might prefer more independence in your education. But you require access to office supplies like a computer and printer. Then, you’d want to pursue a broker that prioritized that kind of support for their agents. In any case, having adequate resources available is an essential aspect of knowing how to tell if a brokerage is right for you.
Ask About Commission Splits
Finally, it’s time to talk about money. From independent boutiques to big-box franchises, there are numerous types of brokerages. And they all have their own rules about commission. Commission splits are a pretty crucial thing to investigate, as they will determine your monthly income, and inherently, how well you’re able to support yourself.
To illustrate, your lifestyle might require that you receive a full commission on each sale. If this is the case, you’ll likely want to join a 100 percent commission brokerage. Inversely, you might be able to manage a considerable cut from each check.
But you require full use of your brokerage’s facilities. Under those circumstances, it’s best to pursue a brokerage with a heftier commission split. This way, you can make ends meet and still get what you need to succeed.
