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.