Are you generating more real estate leads than you can handle alone? Or maybe you have big plans about how to scale your real estate business to help more people realize their dreams of homeownership. Whatever the reason, creating your own real estate team may be the most logical next step.
It’s not quite as simple as hiring a few real estate agents, though. We’ll walk you through how to build the ultimate real estate team — and mistakes to watch out for along the way.
1. Get organized and compile your leads
Before jumping in, you want to build the groundwork for your new real estate team.
You can start by organizing your leads using customer relationship management software (CRM) or another sales lead tool that can help you easily see all of your leads and next steps. You might consider testing different CRM options until you find the one that will best work for you.
Once you’ve settled on the software, get all of your leads entered so you can stay on top of your prospects and always know where you are in a client deal.
2. Review your finances
You can’t jump into building a real estate team without having a financial plan in place. Since real estate deals come with upfront expenses, you’ll want to make sure you have enough capital on hand to cover these expenses for the first few months of starting your business. Not sure where to start? You can get an idea of how much you’ll need by reviewing Keller William’s annual economic and budget model.
Next, you’ll want to make sure you know how you’ll handle commissions for your team of agents. While you might be used to keeping your commissions for yourself, this might not be the best practice for a real estate company.
Although keeping a 100% commission agreement in place is an option, you could also consider a 50-50 split that increases in the agent’s favor as they close more deals or meet more business goals. You should also consider how much commission your company will charge.
3. Set up your business
Now it’s time to make sure your business is good to go before you start hiring. This might include everything from forming your partnership, corporation, or LLC with the state, copywriting your business name, and drafting a well-defined business plan with specific goals for your team.
It’s also important to figure out if your team will have a specialty. Will you cover commercial real estate or just residential? Will you focus on niche offerings like rent-to-own properties? This is the time to determine what you want your team to tackle.
You might also want to develop a website, get your marketing strategy in line, and create social media accounts if you plan to advertise there. You’ll also want to make sure you have all financial aspects of your company covered, from accounting to escrow.
4. Create your business agreement
Before hiring your team, make sure you have a strong business agreement in place to ensure you cover the essential job duties of each real estate agent, their responsibilities and expectations, and performance goals.
This might even include initial compensation numbers, expenses that the company covers, monetary motivational incentives, and a non-compete clause. It’s a good idea to work with a lawyer on this agreement before sending it out for the first time to make sure you’re fully covered as the business owner.
5. Start looking for your team
Now you’re ready to begin hiring for your team. You could consider reaching out to your professional network, advertising on LinkedIn or other job boards, or looking for recent graduates with real estate licenses.
Aside from real estate professionals, you may also consider an office administrator to help with accounting and running the daily aspects of the business, a buyer’s agent to help with lead conversion, and a listing agent if your team is large enough to warrant one.
Mistakes to avoid when hiring team members
1. Don’t just look at experience
Hiring a rock star agent who knows how to close a deal and has a solid history of selling homes may be compelling, but that alone doesn’t mean they’re right for your team. You’ll want to make sure they’re a good culture fit and someone who’s looking to stick around for the long term to help grow your team.
2. Don’t skip personality tests
One way to find out if a real estate agent will fit well with your team is by giving them one of the popular business and science-based personality tests, like the Gallup Strengths Assessment or the Myers-Briggs personality test. This can help you determine what motivates them, what their best qualities are, and what their weaknesses are, so you can ensure you’re finding the right fit for your team.
3. Don’t interview solo
If you’re just starting out and don’t have a team yet, you may need to interview on your own for the first couple of positions. But once you have a few employees on board, you can include them in future interviewing processes, to make sure new candidates gel with other team members.
4. Don’t hire too soon
You also want to make sure you map out a clear interview process, with well-defined steps and stages. You don’t want to hire someone after one conversation — that might not give you enough information to make an educated choice.
Decide how you want your interview process to go, and make sure you explain the steps to your candidates. Although getting talent in sooner may seem like the best solution, hiring the wrong person could be a costly mistake.
The bottom line
If you’re ready to create your own dynamic real estate team, it’s important to start planning, getting organized, and reviewing your finances before jumping in.
Once you’ve laid the groundwork, you can concentrate on naming your business, officially forming your company, and lastly, hiring the right agents to get your team noticed. And don’t overlook administrative support — you’ll want someone helping your agents with daily tasks and keeping your operation running smoothly.`
Luke Babich is the CEO and Co-founder of Clever Real Estate.