Evaluating Brokers

[Tami Lumpkins]

Good evening!  I am waiting to take my licensing exam and deciding on a sponsoring broker.  I talked with one tonight - we went over commission, office fee and start up fees.

Doesn't seem to unreasonable - small monthly office fee, lots of training - (looks like I could have some sort of training every day of the week), mentoring, decent split (less your first year, but can quickly get to 100% if you are producing).

Office fee included Central Showing System, E/O, advertising (something about protecting the agents leads online, little fuzzy on that), phone forwarding, email, copies, mobile app, website - not sure what else.  It didn't include "office space" - which seems to you can rent by the month - but what if I just want a desk for an hour or two?

There was a small start up cost that included business cards, a sign, and some set up fees for various things - it was less than $300 - is that common? I would imagine I would be spending as much for those things anyway.

What they seem to be weak on is leads.  He said you can do open houses for other's listings - but no "desk time" - so you are pretty much on  your own (though the entire first week of their 4 week course is building leads)

And I think my weakest area will be generating leads.  I don't know a lot of people, and am not the most outspoken person.

But I don't know what I don't know.  So - anything I should ask when I follow up?  I will be interviewing at least two more brokers - though I'm having a hard time identifying brokers to talk to - seems the market around here is dominated by very large brokers.

Any insight would be helpful.

[Dennis Seeman]

Just a few months ago I went through what you are going through now.  I too, was concerned about lead generation as that is a weakness of mine.  I was also interested in someone who would support my investment activities.  I interviewed with KW twice and a few other big names.  KW was at the top of my list.  As others have indicated, they will give you an excellent foundation.   I felt their training program was top notch.  However, I went with Weichert Realtors who would provide me with more help where I needed it most, lead generation.  The Weichert Lead Network consists of a national call center that takes inquires from the internet and from direct calls, scrubs them and then warm transfers them to a live agent.  They also have an international relocation services arm that works with many of the corporate relocation companies.  Referrals from this business are also placed with local agents. PM me if you would like to discuss any further.