Teams are popular in real estate. They are made up of real estate agents and administrative staff. Teams are a great way to defuse responsibility. When something goes wrong, one team member can point to another as the responsible party.
Most teams have some kind of a “transaction coordinator”, which seems to be a bottleneck in the system. An agent representing a buyer will tell me that I need to wait for the transaction coordinator for a signed document. In my world everything is electronic and I can send out any document and get it signed within minutes even if I am away from my desk.
There are buyer’s agents on teams; all they do is represent home buyers. The buyers are leads that the team “captured”. A buyer’s agent can have many transactions in a year and they have to work that way because they often only get a small percentage of the commissions they earn. The rest of it goes to the team lead and the broker.
If you call one team member to ask about a home the team has listed for sale, the team member doesn’t know anything about it and will pass your call along to the listing agent.
Selling real estate isn’t really a team sport. The whole point of the team is profits for the leader at the expense of the broker.
Don’t be too impressed if you are a home seller and a real estate agent tells you they are part of a team and that the whole team will work for you. They won’t.
This may sound like a cliche but when I work with a buyer or seller the buck stops here. I take responsibility for the home sale or purchase. I do work with others as I pass contracts along so that the sale can be closed. I know inspectors, lenders and people who can fix things. In a way, they are all part of my team yet I am the one who is responsible and all my clients only need one contact.
