This week’s AG Flash Poll asked what our readers thought of real estate brokerage models and the results were quite interesting. While most people who answered the poll questions were currently licensed at a traditional, full service real estate brokerage, not all seemed to have faith in that model.
While 64% would start a traditional, non-rebate, non-discount, full service brokerage if they had to set out on their own in 2011, 16% would offer full service at a discount with the least popular option being the rebate model. Although the rebate model gets a lot of press, especially on the coasts, our readers deemed it to be the least desirable model in which to be the broker.
All of those answers are relatively predictable as where you hang your license is typically where your comfort zone already is (so why change?). What did surprise us, however is which models were believed to go extinct first with answers all over the place. Nearly 30% believed that discount brokers who offer partial service would go first, but the remaining respondents were almost equally split between traditional full service, discount full service and rebate real estate models.
So what does the future hold?
Last week, we discussed the rise of the independent broker but drilled down into more detail this week to learn that if AG readers had to open their own brokerage today, most would stick to the traditional full service real estate brokerage model, but there is nowhere near a unanimous vote for which model will die off first.
One respondent opined that “brokerage firms will further move toward niche marketing. Some brokers with experience will charge monthly or hourly fees, or will charge by a predetermined negotiated fee for services to be performed.”
Tell us in comments what real estate model you think will outlast the others.
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Matt Thomson
January 14, 2011 at 1:21 am
The agent-centric model is the one that will last. Agents want to be self-sufficient, thus the popularity of independents. However, agents benefit from tools and systems offered from big box companies and most agents, admit it or not, thrive in an actual workplace and suffer when working from home or in their cars or in a coffee shop. Synergy is a real thing.
Thus, a big company that offers great tools, great support, great training, positive synergy, yet is focused on the agent and not on themselves and lets the agent brand themself and not the company, will survive.