The TRUTH About Real Broker After 6 Months

As someone who's been in the real estate business for 20 years, switching companies was not an easy decision. But after six months at RealBroker, I can honestly say this move has completely reshaped my business. And if you're thinking about the company that you're going to go to, or maybe you're thinking about making a change, trust me, you'll want to hear what I've learned. It's not just about better systems and collaboration. It's about a whole new level of support and opportunity that I never thought was possible. Now, if I'm being completely honest, this is a video that I didn't think I would ever make. And the primary reason is because there's a lot of videos out there talking about RealBroker and why it's cool and all of that stuff. And I thought, why would I do a video like this? Why do people care what I have to say? But then I thought, well, these are things that I learned. These are things that I wish I knew when I decided to make that transition. Maybe I would have made that transition quicker, or maybe in some cases it would have made that transition even easier because I spent a lot of time going back and forth, wondering whether or not I was making the right decision. So with that, I wanted to take you through what I've learned over the last six months of being it real so that if you're considering making a move like I did, then you have a better idea of not only the company that you're going to, but some of these hidden opportunities that I found really, really useful in my day-to-day business. Now, I know some of you are watching this going, who are you? My name is Jeb Smith. I've been a real estate broker for 20 years. In fact, you might know who I am from some of the videos I do on YouTube, or maybe some of the masterminds we've been in, but that's really not important and not the reason we're here today. But with that said, as a real estate broker, I was an independent. That's how I actually started my real estate business, as an independent broker for over 10 years, where I ran both a mortgage and real estate company. And the reason I bring this up is because I do actually have a licensed company with the Department of Real Estate that I could choose to do business with, where I could pay absolutely no fees, no cap at all, no fees whatsoever. But instead, I chose to hang my license with a company like Real because of the things that we're going to talk about in today's video. Now, taking you back a step, I was an independent broker for 10 years, as I mentioned, and then I left there and went to Remax. Now, the reason I left being an independent and went to a company like Remax is because I was looking for something different. I was looking for a little bit of collaboration. I was kind of stuck in an office by myself. I wanted to be around other people. I wanted to be pushed. I wanted competition. In addition to just being around like-minded people that would help me grow my business. And I found that in those first three years at Remax. And from Remax, I transitioned to Coldwell Banker, where I was for six years. And for me, Coldwell Banker was a learning experience. I went to Coldwell Banker because I wanted to up my price point. I wanted to be around real estate agents in my community that were doing business at a higher level, at a higher price point. And I thought by being around people like that, it would not only push me to be a better real estate agent, but also help me raise my price point. And it did exactly that. I made a lot of friends during that period of time and was around a lot of great real estate agents. But here's one important lesson I learned about being at a company like that. And this might ruffle a lot of feathers out there, and I'm probably going to get some comments on this, but I found very, very little value in the company other than the name. And I realized that's why a lot of people go to Coldwell Banker to begin with is because they've been around over a hundred years. They have that name. It's a staple in the industry. And if you go into a listing presentation and you mention you're with Coldwell Banker, chances are the seller on the other side knows of that company and they know the reputation. And along with that, they offer fancy systems and all of these different things, which if I'm being completely honest, you'll probably never use. I never did. In fact, I never really even promoted the fact that I was at Coldwell Banker. And that's one of the main reasons that I ended up leaving is because I am my own brand. People hire me for me. They don't hire me because I say I'm with Coldwell Banker. In fact, I never went into a listing presentation and talked about Coldwell Banker. I talked about me. I talked about what I was going to do, what I could do to help them sell their home, how I was going to help them get the most money, how I was going to help them accomplish their goals. Never really bringing up the fact that I was at Coldwell Banker. And with that, I was paying a pretty good percentage of my compensation, of my commission that I earn on every single transaction to Coldwell Banker without ever really using their name. Now, you might be watching this going, OK, Jeb, why did you finally end up deciding to make the change? I made the change because I was at the end of my contract with Coldwell Banker and it was either time for me to renew with them or look for another opportunity. And for me, the opportunity wasn't completely clear because I wasn't sure I wanted to transition to an online broker. In fact, if I'm being honest, I talked crap on online brokers for the better part of two years after having multiple conversations with people that had transitioned to real. In the back of my head, I was always thinking of the company as somewhat of a multi-level marketing scheme. In addition to wondering whether or not they would actually be there as the market changed, I knew a change was starting to happen in the real estate industry. And one reason that I was staying at Coldwell for as long as I did is because I knew they would probably stand the test of time. If something happened in the industry, major changes, they were actually going to be around. Whereas on the flip side, I thought some of these online brokerages like real, like eXp might end up going out of business with all these changes. But then as I started to think, well, what's the worst that happens? If you make a change to a company you don't like, what's the worst that can happen? You just pick up and leave. You go to another company. And as a broker, I always have that opportunity. I always have that fallback to just go back to doing business as my previous company. I made the move as of April 1st and I've not only been super happy about the move, but I've been super excited to talk to people about the move, which is exactly why I'm here today. So understand as someone that's been in the business 20 years, I had options out there. I had companies willing to pay me to move over to their company for a specified period of time. And I chose to forego that because I saw the opportunity with real as not only a better move for my business short term, but also an opportunity for growth in the long run. So with that, I want to talk about my transition over to real. It's really, really simple. All I did was fill out an online application as well as paid a small fee and I was more or less ready to go. The biggest headache once I was approved, which more or less happened same day, was transitioning everything I had into the new company name. Because I've been at Coldwell Banker for the last six years, I had a lot of things that said Coldwell Banker. My website, my social media, my email platform, my database, everything said the name. And so that transition was probably the hardest, but with that, a very, very minor inconvenience. Now I was fortunate enough to apply to real when I already had a couple of escrows. I was already in escrow on a couple of transactions. I had a listing and a purchase for the same buyer that I was already under contract when I made that transition to real. Now, one of the cool things is when you make that transition, they understand you have business and they understand that you have an agreement with your previous company. So they allow you just to basically transfer everything over. Previous broker gets to close them in their name. They keep their split. Real doesn't take anything from those transactions, but at the end of the day, it doesn't hold you from being able to make that transition until all your deals are closed out, which was really, really nice for me. Now, as I started on April 1st, I had a couple of listings that I knew were going to come to the market. And because of that and the clients that I had going into escrow, I was able to cap within the first two months of being at real. So during those months of April and May, I paid in that $12,000 cap, which meant anything above and beyond that, I get to keep a hundred percent of, which if I'm being honest was one of the main reasons I made that transition. So basically what they do is they take 15% of your commission until you hit that $12,000 cap. At which point, anything above and beyond that is yours to keep. Now, for me, it wasn't really much of a change from Coldwell Banker. It was more or less the same thing that I was paying Coldwell Banker, except at CB, there was no cap, which means at real, I get to keep more of the money I make. And one of the other cool things about real is that you don't pay any monthly fees to be associated with the company. A lot of the brokerages out there, a lot of the big brokerages that you've heard of, and a lot of the smaller ones as well, charge a desk fee, whether or not you have an office or not, you're paying a monthly fee to that company. One of the cool things about real is there are no monthly fees. So if you're not doing business, you're not paying them any money. Now, the last thing I want to talk about when it comes to compensation and getting paid, it's very, very easy. They do CDAs on every single transaction, which is really, really cool. So you basically just have a document that you or your TC or whoever works for you forwards to escrow so that when that deal closes, you actually get paid the same time that real gets paid. The money gets deposited directly into your account, or in some cases you might get a check, but either way, you're not sitting around waiting on a check to be cut. And the same thing is true when it comes to leases. For those of you out there that do leases with companies, one of the very, very cool things about real and their platform is that you can send a link to the property owner, the person that's supposed to pay you, and they can take a photo of the check and it will deposit directly into real's bank account where you more or less get paid immediately versus them sending you a check, then you in turn having to send it into the company and so on and so forth. Now, for those of you who don't do leases, it doesn't really matter, but it's just a cool piece of technology that they offer that makes business way more convenient. Now, the next thing I want to talk about is the stock benefit with real. Now, this is one of those things I underestimated. I didn't really put too much thought into it because I didn't know if I would actually contribute. I wasn't a hundred percent sure how it worked, but now that I'm there, it's one of the things that I look forward to the most. So basically how it works is whenever you close a transaction with real, you have the opportunity to buy company stock. Now, the way I did it is I didn't enroll into their program until I had capped. So I was paying 15% of my commission up until the point that I capped, at which point I was then getting a hundred percent of my commission. Well, because I had been paying 15% of my commission for the better part of six years and the two months I was at real, missing that 15% of my commission is not really a big deal because I had already built it into my budget. So once I had capped at real, I decided to enroll into their stock program, which basically meant that every single time I closed the deal, 15% of my check went to buy company stock. And based on how much stock you purchase, real will actually match a percentage of the amount you're contributing to buy you additional shares of that stock. Now, understand, these are RSUs that can't be redeemed immediately, but after three years of staying at the company, you'll have access to that stock, but either way it goes into your portfolio. And with that said, from the time I've been there now, which has been just over six months, I've personally contributed $12,347 to buy real stock that's presently worth $16,958. And that's not only because the share price has gone up since I purchased it, but it's also because they've contributed 635 shares to my portfolio during that same period of time. Now, part of it was because they contribute based on the percentage that you buy, but they also reward you for doing things like capping. They gave me 150 shares when I hit that $12,000 cap. In addition to that, they also give you $16,000 worth of shares if you hit elite status, which is exactly what I want to talk about right now. So like with any real estate company out there, when you hit a certain level, you're given some sort of reward. Now with most companies, you're given a piece of paper or a plaque, or they do a night out with the entire company and you're given some sort of an award. But with real, it's a little bit different. When you actually hit a certain status of elite, they give you $16,000 worth of company shares, which means if the price of the company continues to go up, that $16,000 worth of stock is also going to increase in value. And at the time we're video, real consists of about 21,000 agents and it's the fastest growing brokerage in the United States. And because it's this cloud-based model with very little overhead and you have a lot of agents looking to join, my guess is revenues are going to continue to increase, which is going to translate directly into that share price. Meaning that the value of the stock that I own today is probably going to be worth considerably more in the future. Now, if you're watching this going, Jeb, well, how do you hit elite status? Well, this is one of the things that I was actually pleasantly surprised on. When I came to the company, I thought that the only way to hit elite status was to hit $500,000 in gross commission income. Now, as a real estate agent, who's been in the business 20 years, hitting $500,000 in GCI isn't easy, especially with the changes happening in the market with buyer compensation, affordability, all of those things play in to the number of transactions that you're doing, which translates into your bottom line. With that, there's been plenty of years in my career where I didn't hit $500,000 in GCI, so by no means is that a certainty. But I found out after joining, in fact, about two weeks ago that there's another way to hit elite status, and that's by paying $6,000 in post-cap fees, which essentially translates into closing 21 transactions after you've capped. Now, if you're watching this going, Jeb, what does all that mean? Well, when you're actually paying towards your cap, that 15%, you're not paying any additional fees at that time. You're just paying to meet that cap. But once you hit that $12,000 cap, and you're no longer paying a percentage of your commission to the company, every single time you close a transaction, you're paying $285 to the company to more or less cover your E&O and that sort of thing, which basically means if you close 21 transactions after you cap, you're going to hit that $6,000 in post-cap fees. Now, hitting that $6,000 in post-cap fee can come from leases. It can come from referrals. If you do an out-of-state referral to a broker in another area, you get a check where you're going to pay that post-cap fee to the company, which goes towards the $6,000 of your fees, which ultimately goes towards your goal of hitting elite status. So if you're one of those agents out there that does 30, 40, 50 transactions a year, which a lot of you do, even in a lower price point, it can be a much easier way to hit that elite status versus being someone in a super high price market that deals with luxury real estate, where it's very, very easy to hit that $500,000 in GCI. And the reason I think this is so cool is because it gives everyone out there an opportunity to meet that elite status and ultimately get rewarded with that $16,000 of company stock. Now, a lot of what I've talked about here today has been commission-related, talking about the caps, talking about status and all of that stuff. And the reason I'm bringing that up is because that's why most people make a move. But with that, what I'll say is one of the most important things that came out of this move is realizing that the culture here at Real is nothing like I've ever been a part of, and that's a good thing. Everything here is more or less open source. People share information all the time. We're currently using Workplace as a company chat. And when someone posts that they have something, they're more or less willing to share everything to everyone, even the people in their market, which in turn creates this really collaborative culture. On top of that, you have free access to training. You have webinars going on every single day from top agents, from people helping you learn different systems, and it's all completely free of charge. On top of that, we at Real have the most powerful leader in the real estate industry when it comes to wanting their agents to succeed. I'm fortunate enough to be in Orange County, where Sharon lives. I've had an opportunity to see him speak multiple times. And not only am I impressed in the way he manages the company, but the way he goes out of his way for his agents in order to help them win listings. He's out on listing appointments with clients. How many companies do you know where the CEO of the company is going out with a listing agent in order to help them win business? Or on the flip side, how many times is the leader of your company filming a video to the seller of the house that you're trying to win the listing on, helping them understand Real, helping them understand the culture, helping them understand the company, helping them understand the luxury component? Because it's so new and a lot of people aren't aware of the company, the leader here, Sharon, is not only providing the mentorship for all of our agents, but other agents in the industry by being completely open about everything, but he's also on your team, boots on the ground, helping you deliver on the promises that you're making to your clients. And I can honestly say I've never been a part of anything like that. Now I realize I've only been at the company six months and I'm probably going to experience a lot of other things, which I'll document on this journey. But if you're considering joining Real, where you have additional questions, reach out to me directly using that link below as I would love the opportunity to help.