Stop the agent recruiting and retention revolving door

For far too long, the real estate industry has treated agent recruitment as a numbers game. We herd people through career nights, licensing classes and onboarding sessions, celebrating every new license as evidence of growth. Then, when many of those agents leave the business within a year or two, we point to the industry’s high failure rate as though it were inevitable. As leaders, shame on us. Who’s at fault? Who is responsible for the revolving door that has defined real estate for decades? Is it the agent who enters the business expecting leads to be delivered on a silver platter? Is it the person who loves looking at homes, watches real estate shows and assumes that enthusiasm alone will translate into a successful career? Or does the responsibility belong to brokers who recruit agents without investing in them, holding them accountable or setting honest expectations about what it takes to succeed? The truth is that responsibility exists on both sides — but brokers and industry leaders must be willing to own our part. I say that as a former broker-owner who genuinely loved coaching new and developing agents. There is an incredible rush in watching an agent close a first transa...