Category: The Industry

How Ordinary Brokers Mistake Cash Flow For Profit

It’s darn hard for a broker to make a profit in the ordinary (traditional) real estate business.  I know this because I spent years working for one of the large national franchisors specifically to help their franchisees find ways to become profitable.  I worked with hundreds of brokers and learned to dissect their financial statements and make recommendations that might help increase the bottom line.  It was a futile effort.  Once brokers started averaging less than 30% in Company Dollar, there was little hope there would be much left after expenses.

Many of the offices I saw made no money at all.  Most bumped along at between 1% and 3% profit.  And a few — just a few– approached 5%.  They’d usually protest when I gave them the bad news.  ‘What do you mean, I’m not profitable?  I got money in the bank!  I pay my bills!’  What they had was cash flow — not profit — and there’s a big difference.  Cash flow is just the money a business kicks out from a variety of sources.  Profit is a measure of a business’s success.  Successful businesses are profitable.  Failing businesses are not.  And the problem with traditional brokers is their business model:  it is broken.

Time and again, I’d ask for financials and receive these fairy tale statements that had seemingly  been created in never-never land.  Filled with magical thinking, they usually showed piles of cash at the bottom line . . . until I started straightening them out.  As a refresher, here is how a real estate office looks at profit:

  • Gross Commission Income
  • Less Cost of Sale (which includes Agent Commission Expense and Franchise Fees)
  • Equals Company Dollar (Net Operating Income)
  • Less Expenses (Rent, Marketing, Utilities, Salaries, etc)
  • Equals Profit/Loss

And here are a handful of the most common things traditional brokers do to their P&Ls to hide the fact that they make no money:

Basing profit on Company Dollar, not Gross Commission Income.  Doing so can make a 1% profit look 5-10 percentage points higher.  Just a reminder:  Profit(%) = the bottom line divided by Gross Revenue, not by Net Operating Income.

Not paying themselves for performing the management function.  Most brokers run around all day long, cleaning up their agents’ messes, solving their problems, deal doctoring, training and recruiting, recruiting, recruiting.  Few ever budget compensation for that massive task.  I insisted they build in a salary for themselves equal to what they’d have to pay someone else to do this job– even if they never write the check.

Not paying themselves as an investor.  Most brokers sink thousands into their businesses getting them open and to the break even point.  That’s money they could have invested anywhere else . . . and gotten a return.  I insisted they build at least 8% Return on Investment into their income statements.  When they’d protest I’d challenge them to go out and find someone else who would loan them an equal amount for that kind of return.

Not paying themselves for personal production.  Over and over they’d say, ‘Oh, I just leave my own commissions in the company.’  Wrong.  You pay yourself on the same basis you pay your top agent.  If, after doing so, there is not enough money left to pay the electric bill, you put more money into your investment: the business.

Attributing ancillary sources of income to the real estate business.  Title, escrow, mortgage, insurance, termite and on and on.  I actually had a group of California brokers tell me they never intended to make any money in their real estate operations.  They just used the real estate office to generate business for their ancillary services!  Anybody who would intentionally take on the risk and liability of a real estate company with no intention of making a profit is . . . well:  there’s a new definition of insanity for you.

Not too many years ago I was doing a project for another one of the large nationals.  I was in a meeting with some of the execs when someone came into the room, fresh from a meeting with a group of their top brokers.

“How’d it go?’ she was asked.

‘Not too good,’ she replied, ‘They’re all struggling with profitability.’

‘Well, did you show them how to charge a transaction fee?’

I had to bite my tongue.  If your business model is so messed up that you have to charge your customers a fee for handling their transaction in addition to the commission you charge them to handle their transaction . . .

These are just a few of the many reasons I fell in love with Flat Fee Real Estate Models.  Done properly – which involves getting back into the real estate business and leaving the constant persuit and feeding of overpaid agents behind – allows the Broker to charge less and make more. And, the level of service to the consumer remains unchanged, even better. More to come . . .

3 Reasons Percentage Commissions Are Nuts

Percentage based commissions make no sense (and everybody knows it).  Really.

Reason one:  Um . . . ‘Scuse me?

The Green’s house sells in 94 days  for $555,000.  They pay a 6% commission to ABC Realty:  $33,300. (Mrs. Green turns to her husband in the car on the way home from closing and says, ‘Remind me again, honey – what did we get for our 30 Grand?’)

The Browns house, 3 blocks away, is also sold by ABC in 85 days at a 6% commission.  But it’s a bigger house and brings $615,000.  They pay $36,900.  Bill Green and Bob Brown are golfing buddies and compare notes.  Bill Brown tees up wondering, ‘I wonder what I got for the extra $3,600 I paid?  Did I get $3,600 more advertising?  I don’t think so.  Did my agent work $3,600 harder for me?  No.  Hmmm. . . what’s up with that?’

Reason two:  One size does not fit all.

As it turns out Green’s house was listed by ABC but sold by XYZ.  He paid 6% but it was shared among two brokers and two agents.   Brown on the other hand heard about a co-worker transferring in from out of town and put his agent in touch with the new arrival, who bought the house.  He found his own buyer and only needed to pay one broker and one agent.  But he paid the same 6%.  If you don’t think this bugs him (big time), you’re wrong.

Reason three:  But Captain, it is not logical.

Bill Green owns a hardware store.   Hammers are among the many items he sells.  He buys his basic hammer from a distributor who gets them in Korea.  He pays $2.25 for each one and has learned that they will last about six days on his shelves before being sold.  He prices these hammers at $6.98, which is enough to pay each hammer’s share of his cost of operation during their time on the shelf, and deliver a nice profit to the bottom line, something like  $4.  Bill belongs to the local business association and he knows almost every other member has some similar pricing formula . . . except ABC.

The broker’s pricing seems arbitrary, plucked from air, as if selling real estate is a big mysterious process nobody can really understand.  He doesn’t buy it.  He knows a properly priced home in his area will take about 90 days to sell, give or take a little.  He learned from his agent that the office usually carries about 40 listings at a time.  He knows his broker has a marketing budget (or thinks he does) and it should not vary much month to month.  With this information the broker at ABC ought to know what it will cost him to sell a typical house in his market.  Why doesn’t he just take that figure, even inflate it a bit, and then add a reasonable profit on top?  That’s what any other business person would do.  Hmmmm. . .

I could keep going.  There’s the seller who, through some stroke of good fortune gets a sale in 5 days instead of 95:  why does ABC still charge him  6% ?  There’s the former FSBO who is ready, willing and able to do much  the leg work in the sale:  open houses, showing the property, keeping the flyer box full.  What he needs help with is marketing,  negotiating and processing the sale.  But he still pays 6% if he lists with ABC.  And there’s the seller in the gated community who won’t allow a lock box, doesn’t want a sign and insists the listing agent be present every time the home is shown.  Seems like ABC ought to charge that guy more.

The point is, commission based pricing makes no sense at all.  The consumer knows this.  He thinks about it.  It burns inside him every time he  lists and sells.  He’s desperate to find a better way next time . . . but most never discover an acceptable alternative.  Oh, they could go FSBO, and get nothin’ fer nothin‘ .  Or they could use a discount broker and get, well, less for less.   But some sellers — the lucky ones, I’d say — are going to find a flat fee Broker and they’re going to pay exactly what their neighbor pays, regardless of price. They’re also NOT going to pay for an outside Broker if one is not involved in the sale.

See: percentage based commissions only make sense to Realtors.