How I became a full time referral real estate agent

After 15 years in real estate, I have a 100% referral business. When most real estate agents say this, they mean that 100% of their clients come from referrals from other clients. When I say it, I mean that I refer 100% of my clients to great real estate agents who specialize in exactly the type of transaction they are about to do. In other words, I’m a full time matchmaker.

I started matchmaking clients 10 years ago when I decided to stop working with sellers. At the time I was practicing real estate in a county with the highest rate of foreclosure rate in the state of Washington, and frankly, telling sellers their house was worth 30-50% less than what they’d paid for it was just not how I wanted to spend my work life. When I switched companies I asked my new managing broker not to print me any signs, and started referring my friends and past clients to agents who specialized in their neighborhood and who were a good personality fit for them. I found I enjoyed this process quite a bit. Connecting a client with an agent who loves doing exactly the kind of transaction they are doing is very satisfying- but I was still a very busy buyers agent and didn’t imagine this would be my whole income.

In 2017 I did the math and realized that thanks to a full pipeline of amazing clients from my community marketing efforts (learn more here) it would be possible to transition to matchmaking all of my clients to great real estate agents and living off of the referral fees. I spoke about my plans to go full time referral at Genuine Hustle Raleigh 2017 in this talk. If you’re interested in the real income numbers, philosophy, and follow up process for a full time referral agent check out the talk here.

In the first year of going full time referral I decided to put the business model to the test and did something I’d always wanted to do, take a sabbatical. I moved to Portland, OR (a place where I had no license and knew no one) and tried to focus on running my business from afar and turning my focus to bigger issues. Early into that first year I did an interview with Erin Bradley of the Pursuing Freedom Podcast about how I built my business through Niche Marketing. The focus of my daily life moved from managing transactions and real estate market to resting and reevaluating my relationship with the real estate industry, work in general, and the world I live in.

In 2016 I’d completed the American Leadership Forum program in Tacoma and the resulting experiences with my cohort of leaders opened my eyes to the systemic injustices in the real estate industry and my complicity in the racist result we have in America today. Almost all white real estate agents. Majority white male leadership and ownership of brokerages. The majority of property in America is owned by whites. My industry was not the meritocracy I’d believed it to be, and I needed time to learn more and figure out how to interrupt and dismantle the oppressive systems I’d built my career off of.

This brings us more or less to the present day. I’m still on sabbatical in Portland, OR while running my real estate website MoveToTacoma.com. Tacoma is one of the fastest gentrifying cities in America with some of the highest rising rents and housing prices- and my referral business (like that of most of my peers) is built on this corrupt and oppressive system. Back when the Newsday Investigation story broke (revealing widespread but unsurprising steering by real estate agents on Long Island) I wrote this article, “Dear White REALTORS: We have a racism problem.”

I am entering my 16 year of my real estate career. When it comes to marketing and business models, I’ve got it pretty figured out. I’ve managed to continue a successful career outside transactions and have closed over 150 referrals in less than 3 years. But what does it mean to be an ethical white real estate agent? How can I reconcile the success I’ve found with the impact my work has had on communities of color in my city. I can’t. And yet for now I’m still in this industry- wrestling with these questions and trying to get as many of my peers and colleagues to do this work as well. Our industry has been responsible for systematically robbing generations of Black Americans of their share of wealth. How can that be reconciled? Like the fixer uppers we sell to our clients, can this racist business be rebuilt, or is it a tear down?

Suggested resources for White REALTORS® wanting to learn more and do better:

Videos:

How the Racial Wealth Gap Was Created- Race: The Power of an Illusion by PBS

The Disturbing History of the Suburbs by Adam Explains Everything

Reading:

The Color of Law: The Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

News:

How Racism Kept Black Tacomans from buying Houses for Decades by Kate Martin

Black and White Homeownership Rate Gap Has Widened Since 1900 by Skylar Olsen