I've just had a rather disturbing conversation with an agent when wanted to move her license to our agency. She is a newbie who has only had her license for a bit over four months. She comes out of a nursing background, is married, knowledgeable but has never been in sales but she seems to exude people skills. In the course of our discussions I asked why she wanted to leave her current Brokerage. Her reply was basically that she felt as if she were being ripped off by her broker as related to her commission split. Being naturally curious I probed a bit to which she responded with the following tale.
Being fresh out of Real Estate School and having no actual sales experience our heroin does her due diligence and interviews with a handful of established Realtors independents. Ultimately she selected a small independent operation with 7 agents plus the broker. Her selection was greatly influenced by the self espoused weekly sales training that the broker stated he performed. So she signed up and agreed to a 60/40 split, with the brokerage providing most advertising, only one desk duty day a week, a shared secretary and a few other bones. Like most green beans she immediately recruited all her neighbors, friends and relatives. And began to make a few sales and accrue a few listings. But somewhere around the end of her third month she hit a wall and went to the broker for help and advise. Being that she truly had no sales experience she asked if he would accompany her on a few of her listing appointments to help her increase her closing ratios. Her broker did and did assist her with closing a few of the transactions. Which he then told her that this was now a co-listing since he had to physically participate: When it came time to have client interactions, the broker did not participate. However when she closed a deal or two, he certainly was there to receive his personal half of the Co-listing percentage. According to her this wasn't making her happy but when she closed a very troublesome deal and her net commission on the listing side after the house side and the "Co-listing fee" was deducted was less than a $900. She'd had enough. So she was a now looking to move to another brokerage where she wasn't raped financially for help. She went on to say that during her brief tenure of the original 7 folks that were there when she came only 2 remained. And she was sure it was for similar reasons.
My question to you folks is do you agree with me that this behavior on the part of the Broker was Unethical? Charging someone a co-listing fee when you are the broker in addition to the percentage going to the brokerage seems like out and out theft. Maybe I am just an ole softly but I have assisted too many inexperienced realtors while they were learning the business by going in on a listing appointment without the least thought to being personally compensated. After all if they sold the listing or someone else did, the Brokerage still got its rightful piece. So what do you think?
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