Being the creator and/or member of a real estate team is a relatively new phenomenon within the business of real estate. The median year real estate teams became established was 2014 and most typically, real estate agents joined teams in 2016.
(Coincidentally, 2016 was a year of peak “mania” according to Tim and Julie Harris’s 5 real estate cycles.)
The National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) takes a look at real estate teams in its latest, annual 2018 Teams Survey. NAR sent out online surveys to 50,436 active REALTORS and received back 3,483 useable responses.
Here are some highlights from NAR’s 2018 Teams Survey to give us some insights into who these team members are and what these team members actually do. Unfortunately, there is no data available in this survey that sheds light onto why REALTORS choose to become team members so we can all just assume the obvious.
Who are real estate team members?
NAR’s 2018 Teams Survey tells us that 26% of real estate agents are members of teams. These team members have a median age of 57 years and an average tenure of 12 years as an active REALTOR. . The median size of a team is 4 real estate professionals, 80% of whom are licensed real estate agents.
The majority of team members, 65%, works in residential real estate only. Nearly one third or 30% works in both residential and commercial real estate. A good majority of real estate team members, 56%, works 40 hours and more a week.
The majority of REALTORS responding to this survey, 58% of them, had not ever before considered joining or starting a real estate team while 9% of the respondents had strongly considered and 30% had briefly considered joining or starting a real estate team. Interestingly enough, 16% of the respondents to NAR’s 2018 Teams Survey had previously been a team member and a whooping 84% had never considered becoming a real estate team member.
What are these real estate members doing?
88% – agents
50% – brokers
47% – marketing
47% – administration
34% – transaction coordinator
32% – open house/showing staff
32% – assistant
32% – team leader
34% – manager
17% – stager
14% – listing syndication
7% – lending
6% – legal
3% – appraisal
What are the compensation arrangements?
38% – fixed commissions
22% – graduated commission splits
13% – 100% commission splits
(There is no data in this survey that compares earnings of team members to non-team members.)
