Why do Real Estate Brokers choose to work for other Real Estate Brokers; i.e. Century 21, rather than opening their own business?

[Kenny Ware]

I've had my California Brokers licesse and for a few years and I'm alway curious why brokers work for other brokers..

[Dan Mackin]

level of responsibility is one reason. Some prefer to leave the document maintenance responsibilities to another person. Some prefer to have the well known name to stay associated with. A good agent in some cases would just prefer to work on selling instead of all the issues of running a full business since their splits won't change too much anyways. 

[Mary B.]

^^^That and the nationally known franchise that's been established for decades has already created a brand that most people feel that they know via familiarity with years of marketing and advertisments as well as someone they love and trust doing business with said franchise at some point in time, as apposed to an unknown brokerage firm with none of that familiarity. It's one thing to not know the individual broker/salespeople but people tend to feel like they know the brand these people represent; whether its Prudential, Berkshire etc. I'm sure that helps with sales. I'm speaking from a consumers point of view. Of course there's the yang to that yin... My coin.

Kudos,

Mary

[John Thedford]

Lots of reasons. The broker of record has lots of duties AND major liabilities. They also have overhead including rent, water, electric, insurance, etc. On top of that they have the state looking at them to make sure they AND their agents are compliant. Opening an office sounds great until you start looking at all the additional work. See @Joel Owenspost about why he doesn't have agents. It is often like babysitting. The agent screws up and the broker can get fined.  There are good reasons to get a brokers license including the higher level of education. Agents can achieve that and still work for another broker and avoid the problems associated with running their own business.

[Levi Bennett]

I would be a broker, but I would never want to have my own firm. That's way too much responsibility.

[James Wise]

Two different business models.

Being the owner of the brokerage is a different animal than being an agent. 

Some go out on their own only to realize that they preferred the role of an agent more.

[Joel Owens]

I have always made my own path in life.

When I first become a broker I thought I would like having agents and all of that. Most of them frankly are duds. You know most of them do not have what it takes when you look in their eyes and see mediocrity and quitting before they start. Talk is cheap but actions and results speak volumes.

For my wife's birthday I let her get whatever in the mall yesterday. There was a kiosk in the middle. They had a designer flat iron for about 300. The lady was just out of college and did my wife's hair and demonstrated all of the items of the product and even threw in Moroccan oil for free for 140 all in.

She is in college and majoring in business. She asked what I did with my business and then said if I ever needed help she wanted in and gave me her number on back of a card. I could tell she had the fire and the skills just needed the knowledge. Those are one of 1,000 really. A great salesperson can sell anything. It's the same process just different information.

I wasn't thinking of adding any salespeople to my brokerage but if I did this person I would seriously look at.