Choosing the right real estate broker is perhaps the most important decision every real estate agent has to make. On today’s Real Estate Training and Coaching podcast, Tim and Julie Harris will share with you the top 15 questions to use when interviewing potential real estate brokerages. These questions are perfect for new agents and seasoned agents alike, who may be in need of a broker upgrade. The old question is: “What are you paying your real estate broker?” (fees / commission splits / etc), but the new question is : “What is your broker paying YOU?”
So what questions should you ask when choosing a real estate brokerage? Here are the questions, as well as why WE chose EXP Realty. In no way is this a comprehensive or a one-size-fits-all list of questions. These questions are designed to fine tune your thought process so that your brokerage choice is in alignment with your goals and ambitions.
1 – Is your income flat or in decline?
2 – Are you the best agent in your office, not feeling challenged currently?
3 – Is the environment at your current brokerage negative in nature? Are your colleagues, broker, or office manager too negative and killing your motivation? Do they just talk about how tough the market is?
Question: Are you ready to join EXP Realty now? Tim and Julie Harris are applying for the job of being your EXP Realty sponsor. Partner with Tim and Julie at EXP Realty. Text Tim now: 512-758-0206.
P.S. Yes, that is Tim’s real cell number and he really will personally respond.
P.P.S. Text (don’t call) 512-758-0206 if you are ready to join EXP Realty or if you are EXP Realty curious.
4 – Does your brokerage require you to attend too many mandatory meetings or other time consuming, non-dollar productive activities?
5 – Does your broker or office manager shoot down every idea that isn’t a super traditional activity? Do they have little or no tech support? If your brokerage isn’t 100% online and doesn’t have its own MetaVerse, how will the next generation of buyers perceive that brokerage? Most importantly, how will they perceive YOU?
6 – Does your broker take a cut out of every source of income, including home warranty sales and processing fees? Do you feel like you’re constantly being nickel and dimed?
7 – Does your broker offer zero support beyond just your basic transactions?
8 – Does your brokerage have an iBuyer program?
9 – Does your brokerage provide revenue share?
10 – Does your brokerage provide opportunities to purchase stock, or offer stock awards?
Question: Are you ready to join EXP Realty now? Tim and Julie Harris are applying for the job of being your EXP Realty sponsor. Partner with Tim and Julie at EXP Realty. Text Tim now: 512-758-0206.
P.S. Yes, that is Tim’s real cell number and he really will personally respond.
P.P.S. Text (don’t call) 512-758-0206 if you are ready to join EXP Realty or if you are EXP Realty curious.
11 – Do you feel that your brokerage is quickly becoming obsolete?
12 – Is your brokerage constantly focusing on the agent experience, education and success? The best brokers are in the agent business; agents are in the housing business.
13 – What is your legacy? Is your brokerage partnering with you to create passive income that can be inherited?
14 – Is your brokerage international?
15 – Are you feeling optimistic and excited to be at your brokerage? Are you truly excited to tell people about your brokerage, do you feel like you’re part of the next generation of the real estate industry?
What follows is Tim and Julie Harris’s recollection of their journey to EXP Realty. This was originally written in 2018, but is even more relevant now, considering the massive and continued success of EXP Realty.
Our opinion of how to choose a broker all changed on the morning of May 12th, 2018. We will never forget that day…
It started at 7:13am, when we received an email from a long time Elite Coaching client named Brandon. He was a broker of an office full of more than 400 agents. Then around 9am that same day, we received another rather panicked call from a longtime broker-client in California. Within a couple of weeks, we had accumulated close to 20 other calls, emails and texts with a similar panicky nature. They are all asking the same question!
Question: Are you ready to join EXP Realty now? Tim and Julie Harris are applying for the job of being your EXP Realty sponsor. Partner with Tim and Julie at EXP Realty. Text Tim now: 512-758-0206.
P.S. Yes, that is Tim’s real cell number and he really will personally respond.
P.P.S. Text (don’t call) 512-758-0206 if you are ready to join EXP Realty or if you are EXP Realty curious.
They were all asking:
“What is the deal with EXP Realty and why am I losing my agents to EXP?!” (Remember that this was back in 2018 and EXP Realty was still largely unknown. It’s amazing how big of a difference just a few years has made now that EXP is so quickly becoming the world’s largest real estate brokerage.
They were asking:
“Why are all of my best agents and teams leaving to go to EXP Realty?”
Honestly, at that time we still didn’t know all that much about EXP. Remember it was 2018. Like most of our industry friends, top clients and longtime most trusted advisors, we hadn’t really paid that much attention to EXP.
Don’t get us wrong…We had certainly heard of EXP. We knew that they were virtual, that they had a revenue share model and that they offered stock. We had read on Inman’s site about the executive team that they had built, and all of it was impressive, but that’s all we knew.
So we called three of the top industry leaders whom we trust. All three told us the same thing; that EXP Realty is offering agents something that no other company ever has offered: They were offering ownership AND true revenue sharing. EXP Realty was truly in the agent business. That was coming from some extremely well respected and experienced individuals. A former CEO of Keller Williams. told us that EXP is going to completely change the way brokerage works.
Question: Are you ready to join EXP Realty now? Tim and Julie Harris are applying for the job of being your EXP Realty sponsor. Partner with Tim and Julie at EXP Realty. Text Tim now: 512-758-0206.
P.S. Yes, that is Tim’s real cell number and he really will personally respond.
P.P.S. Text (don’t call) 512-758-0206 if you are ready to join EXP Realty or if you are EXP Realty curious.
WE still didn’t believe it! Like most people, we are skeptical by nature. We still needed more information before we were going to recommend any ONE brokerage to our members and listeners.
So we then called our friends at NAR and Inman. All reports came back the same, EXP is going to be the biggest brokerage in the world. In just that year alone, 2018, EXP had started with a little over 5000 agents, but ended the year with nearly 16000. EXP Realty is now one of the top five real estate brands IN THE WORLD. Fast forward to 2022 and EXP Realty is now in 21 different countries and will soon have 100,000 agents. It is realistic to assume the EXP Realty will have 500,000 agents within the next few years.
But you know us.. we still weren’t convinced! We were still skeptical. So then we decided to hire someone to pour over EXP’s public filings. (Traded as EXPI). In our minds, what they were offering to agents almost seemed too good to be true. The nice thing about a company that’s publicly traded is that all their financials are there for anyone to read. WE, however, are not experts in reading those filings, so our CFO hired someone who did it for us. Bottom line? He told us that they have an amazing company and that he would be considering the purchase of EXPI stock himself!
We were finally convinced…well, almost! Finally we met with EXP ourselves. At that point, we realized we should have told all of our coaching clients and podcast listeners about EXP years before. WE were embarrassed for not knowing more about EXP sooner and about all of the amazing things they were doing to actually help agents!
So here is the critical and very personal reason why we are sharing all of this with you…
Despite all that we had learned, we still didn’t want to talk about EXP on this show to all of you. Even though we knew it was an amazing and stellar deal for agents. Even though we were convinced that agents would massively benefit, we still weren’t comfortable talking about EXP or aligning ourselves with them just yet. So what was OUR fear?
It’s simple. We didn’t want to piss some of you off. Our (flawed) thinking was that some of you would be offended that we were promoting a specific real estate brokerage.
We have never accepted any money from any company in exchange for access to all of you. We took (maybe false) pride in believing we were ‘broker agnostic’. Why? So you would feel comfortable listening to us without questioning our motivation. After all, we’re from Ohio and integrity is our #1 job. We know that you feel the same.
Question: Are you ready to join EXP Realty now? Tim and Julie Harris are applying for the job of being your EXP Realty sponsor. Partner with Tim and Julie at EXP Realty. Text Tim now: 512-758-0206.
P.S. Yes, that is Tim’s real cell number and he really will personally respond.
P.P.S. Text (don’t call) 512-758-0206 if you are ready to join EXP Realty or if you are EXP Realty curious.
Being completely honest with you, we felt a bit tortured by this. Ultimately we had to choose from two different options.
Option #1: We could tell you about EXP and maybe lose your confidence because we were ‘aligning’ with a brokerage. Note: the irony is that by NOT sharing with you all the benefits of EXP Realty we were NOT in alignment with our founding principle, being of service to agents.
-or-
Option #2: We could tell you about EXP and be in alignment with our top level mission of being of service to all of you! This is when we came to a very obvious conclusion:
If we are sincere about our proclamation that our highest and truest purpose is to be of service to others (agents in our case), If we truly believe that our mission in our professional lives is to help those who choose to listen, then we MUST tell them about EXP Realty.
It came down to two simple questions…
1 – Does EXP Realty offer agents something that will truly improve their business and personal lives? YES.
2 – Does EXP Realty create a clear and easy to understand path for agents to obtain TRUE financial freedom? YES.
Question: Are you ready to join EXP Realty now? Tim and Julie Harris are applying for the job of being your EXP Realty sponsor. Partner with Tim and Julie at EXP Realty. Text Tim now: 512-758-0206.
P.S. Yes, that is Tim’s real cell number and he really will personally respond.
P.P.S. Text (don’t call) 512-758-0206 if you are ready to join EXP Realty or if you are EXP Realty curious.
