Rethinking the Brokerage/Agent Relationship

What differentiates Pinnacle Real Estate Partners from other brokerages? When we started Pinnacle Real Estate Partners, we were offered the chance to franchise our brokerage.  We felt there were three elements of our business architecture that didn’t fit into a nation franchise framework.  We were not willing to  give up these 3 key elements and chose to stay independent.  These elements are important to our business structure.  They are:

A platform for career agents to build their own brokerage

Maximum commission retention – Most successful Real Estate agents at one time or another say to themselves: “why don’t I just start my own brokerage and keep 100% of the commissions!” In reality, starting your own brokerage has tremendous upfront and on-going costs, so to keep 100% of your commissions on your own, you have to recruit other productive agents and have systems for paying them so you can pay all your bills. And you also have to manage those agents, provide services for them, and a space for them. Pinnacle Real Estate Partners shortcuts all of that for you. You can recruit other productive agents into our company and not have to manage them or have systems to pay them, etc.; in return, Pinnacle will increase your retained split on your commissions (see our Compensation Plan).

Pinnacle Real Estate Partners manages the basics of a brokerage platform – You don’t actually have to get your brokerage license, we do that, but you can build your business as if you were an independent brokerage. We provide the office, maintain the technology platform, insure the accuracy of data with the online portals, provide the legal and financial liability, oversee contract compliance, create the marketing materials and online presence, etc.  You just maintain your lead generation systems, business processes and team structure (if applicable).

 

 A fair and nurturing environment for new agents

High Commission Splits – Because Pinnacle does not have a parent franchisor that demands part of the agent’s commission, we can offer higher entry-level commission splits to newer agents. Depending on the franchise we are being compared to, this can mean at least  a 6-8% increase in retained commissions to our new agents.

An independent brokerage system, not a national franchise 

We are heading into the most revolutionary changes the Real Estate industry has seen in 50+ years. This change is primarily being driven by the advancements digital technology and the Internet has brought to both the consumer and broker side of the equation. From other industries that have gone through similar watershed change the lessons are clear: large organizations that are financially tied to complex existing systems usually cannot move fast enough to get out of the way of fast, new, well-funded companies that are moving at the speed of technology. In the Real Estate industry the large franchises built on old Real Estate paradigms and systems are extremely vulnerable to the changes being brought about by powerful companies like Google, Facebook, and Zillow.

At times like this, independent brokerages can quickly navigate the fast winds of change to nurture Realtors through historic industry transformation.

Not bound by imposed thinking and systems – Realtors are, by their very entrepreneurial natures, creative people, who typically figure out what works best for their own business, and then like to continue to execute on their proven formulas. Large franchise systems, on the other hand, like to create and impose over-arching structures on the entrepreneurial Realtor, which can become claustrophobic and limiting. The word “independent” when applied to a brokerage platform like Pinnacle Real Estate Partners can equally be applied to its agents: they are independent of the imposed systems and thinking forced down on the market from national franchises.