Real estate brokerage profitability

[Marlon Thomas]

Hello BP family!

Here’s a brief introduction of myself:

I am 21 years old and I am over halfway done with my real estate schooling to earn my RE license. I am planning on become a realtor for Keller Williams of Williamsburg and I am also in the process of selecting a mentor from that particular office. I have set an array of short-term and long-term goals for the span of my career as a realtor and investor. One of them is to own my own brokerage one day that provides a broad range of services. (e.g. property management, mortgage brokering, RE consulting etc.)

Even though I am a long ways a away from starting such a venture, I was wondering if a RE brokerage is, or, can be a good/profitable business to start given the fact that it may have other services to provide which increases cash flow and hopefully profitability. I am not putting the cart before the horse here, I am just curious as this is my one of my ultimate long-term goals in the industry. I am also curious to hear about the profitability difference between full-service and limited-service brokerages.

I hope I am not giving anyone the wrong notion here! I know every business is ran differently than others that are in the same industry or locations, so there’s probably no standard margin or numbers. (That’s just my hypothesis.) Once again, I am just curious and would like to hear from those that are and have been entrepreneurs, affiliates, or knowledgeable about this particular topic.