The Great Migration: Agents flee Legacy Brands for Low-fee, Cloud-based Brokerages
Key Points
- Real estate agents are jumping ship: They are abandoning traditional ‘legacy’ brands for shiny new low-fee, cloud-based brokerages like it’s a Black Friday sale and they’re chasing the last big screen TV.
- Numbers don’t lie: Year 2024 is already looking rather lonely for legacy brands that still use telephone and fax machines as their agents opt for the more tech-savvy, low-fee options. Connor McFly is surely smiling somewhere in time!
- Attraction of low-fee models: One does not need the wisdom of Solomon to realize why agents are migrating. It’s all about the Benjamins! Financial benefit is the primary driver fueling this great migration.
- Cloud-based brokerages, the Promised Land: These new guys are offering better technology and lower overhead costs. Imagine all that saved on paper alone!
- Impact on Market Share: Cloud-based brokerages, once the little catfish in a big pond, are now becoming the big sharks. With more agents comes increased market share. Watch out, legacy brands. Winter’s coming!
- Cloud is the new cubicle: Agents can work where they want, whenever they want. No more water-cooler gossip and stolen lunches from the office fridge. It’s a whole new world. It’s like teleworking had a child with the real estate industry.
- The Future of Real Estate: Legacy brands must evolve or risk becoming antique relics.
Hot Take
The real estate industry is rappelling down the mountain of change at an astonishing speed. Legacy real estate firms who are slower to adopt innovation are like tiny sloths trying to outpace greyhounds. Here’s news for you, my old-fashioned comrades, this is not an episode of Looney Tunes where the tortoise wins. And low-fee cloud-based brokerages aren’t some passing trend like mullets or fanny packs. They’re more like smartphones – once you have one, you can’t imagine how you lived without it.
As the “Afro” became the “undercut”, agents are moving from established brands to more flexible, profitable and free business structures. There’s just something in the cloud-based brokerage kool-aid that agents can’t resist. I mean who wouldn’t love the digital freedom coupled with a fatter wallet at the end of the day?
So, I say to our esteemed legacy folks, put on your dancing shoes and boogie with the tune of our times: technology and cost-effectiveness! After all, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. And dear lord, stop using a fax machine! It’s not vintage; it’s ancient.
Original article: https://www.inman.com/2023/11/16/the-agent-migration-from-legacy-brokerages-continues/
