Has anyone here made it big/successful in brokerage?
Starting at a top IS Iteam at a large brokerage house this month. Very excited about the opportunity. I feel like brokers get a bad rep, but there’s bad apples in every business no matter what role.
That being said, it’d be great to hear from some brokers on here who’ve “made it” or have stuck through it to become lifers.
Based on the most helpful WSO content, success in brokerage is absolutely achievable, but it requires a specific mindset, work ethic, and resilience. Here are some key insights from brokers who have "made it" or stuck through the grind:
Top Performers Can Earn Big: At large brokerage houses, the top agents can make over $2M a year. For example, one broker transitioned from working at a nightclub to becoming the top agent in their office, driving exotic cars and earning significant income.
Work Ethic is Key: Brokerage is a "you eat what you kill" environment. Success comes from relentless effort—making calls, following up, and staying persistent even after setbacks. Former military personnel and athletes often excel due to their discipline and ability to grind through challenges.
Building Relationships is Crucial: Successful brokers emphasize the importance of creating strong, meaningful relationships with clients. Meeting two new clients weekly and fostering two strong relationships annually can lead to a consistent deal flow over time.
Volatility and Patience: Income in brokerage can be volatile, and it takes time to build a solid book of business. Many brokers experience years of hard work before seeing significant financial rewards.
Survivor Bias: Many people wash out of brokerage due to the grind, lack of stability, or personality mismatch. However, those who stick with it and adapt often find success and a fantastic quality of life.
Team Strength Matters: Being part of a strong, reputable team can provide exposure to high deal volume, quality institutional networking opportunities, and better exit options if you decide to pivot later.
If you're starting at a top IS team, you're already in a great position. Focus on learning, building relationships, and staying persistent. The road can be tough, but the rewards are there for those who commit and excel.
Sources: Getting Started as a Broker, How strong is Marcus & Millichap?, Beginnings of a broker, 5 Things that Determine Your Success as a Commercial Real Estate Broker, Two Offers - Need Advice
I have friends who are 10-12 years in. They found a great team, joined, haven’t left. Both by year 5 & 6 thought about moving to the principal side but saw their upside in brokerage and decided to stay. They work around the clock but also make $500-700K per year. They enjoy it but it takes a special person. Brokerage is a hampster wheel. Source, sell, close, repeat. Very hard life because day time is business development and night time is actual work. When I was a broker - 7 AM-9AM was analytical work, 9-5 was business development, 5-730/8PM was analytical work. Saturday was analytics and organization. It’s a tough business but If you can figure it out, it’s amazing. Personally, I would join a team and than try to go off on my own. If you join a team, you can be an ‘execution person’ your entire career and make 500k-1M per year in cities like NY.
I know of brokers clearing $5mm+ per year net after house split in NYC. I’ve become pretty friendly with a number of names people have heard of on this forum and even top notch capital markets/investment sales guys in NYC are telling me that 9 out of 10 years they are not making as much as the top leasing brokers in the NYC office.
Do you have any insight on how leasing commissions are structured? I know top groups can crush it but always thought the economics were more favorable for D/E and IS teams.
There’re some differences across markets/product type but generally it’s 4% of aggregate rent to tenant broker and 2% for LL broker.
What’s different on the capital markets side is that the larger the deal size, the lower the percentage. You might get 2% on a $15M sale but 0.5% on a $100M sale.
In NYC the money is in leasing. It’s much higher volume and more consistent. Back of the napkin, the tenant rent gets 32% of first year rent and landlord rep gets 19.5% (for a 10 year deal).
So a 10,000 SF lease at $80 PSF, tenant rep makes $256,000 and landlord rep makes $156,000. The largest commission I’ve ever seen paid in NYC was $19M and the largest I’ve worked on that unfortunately fell apart was $24M.
It varies significantly by region and product type in my experience. However, tenant rep broker is usually getting a “full commission” and LL rep broker is typically getting 50% of a “full commission”. What a “full commission” actually means can mean 1,000 different things and has been the topic of quite a few litigations.
Also, the downside of investment sales at the bigger level is you start seeing a cap on earnings set at a specific dollar amount. I’ve seen agency agreements for leasing cap the earnings at X number of years in the calculation but have never seen it capped at a specific dollar amount.
If it’s so plush then why does brokerage draw such ire from the monkeys on this site? I always wondered that as some of the best people I know are on the advisory side. Always hated that stigma.
Ozy will be here soon to throw in his shade I’m sure.
It’s his bat signal
My POV from an ex-sales brokerage analyst:
I'm still eating crumbs, but part of a team who's "made it" (~$1.8B in sales this past year).
I can attest to the comments above on the nature of the business and the "type" of person who does well within it. At times it feels like an organized crime ring with constant territory threats, prostitution of work, and large egos threatened by any deduction to their personal brand. But damn is it exhilarating when a deal closes and the fruits of months work comes to fruition in a sweet 1099 tax deductible payment.
Hah, anything looks plush after you've already succeeded. Don't be taken by survivorship bias. Someone below said "For every successful broker, there are 20-30 failed attempts." Remember that.
The brokers being discussed here are hyper-capable at what they do and hyper-successful as a result. It is a thread specifically about people who have "made it big." It isn't for the people who tried it and were smart but just didn't have the personality for it. It isn't for the people who took the job even though they can barely tie their shoes just because cold calling at M&M has the lowest barrier to entry in the industry.
It’s worth noting that there’s a lot between “highly successful” and “failed”. Lots of brokers stay in the game because they’re comfortable making $2-300k per year. They’re not rainmakers, but they’re not failed.
The top of the pyramid is much more exclusive, but they’re high performers and earn their fees. Strive to be them. The viral Linkedin self-promoting losers are an embarrassment. The top capita markets broker in our market (among the top in the country) has like 54 linkedin connections and no photo lol
I deal with brokers a lot (brokers selling sub-10 units, not JLL's IS team to be clear) and I have a love-hate relationship with them. I hate them because they are selfish scumbags who honestly aren't very bright. I love them because they are selfish scumbags. Let me expand:
1.) I have only ever come across 2 or 3 brokers who were actually looking out for their client's best interest and not their own. Now how does a broker lookout for themselves instead of their client? They prioritize offers that gets them a higher commission despite the offer price being lower via prioritizing direct buyers. For example, if you want to buy a $1mm house and hire a broker to represent you, when you submit an offer on the property, the selling agent will have to split the commission with your broker. If the commission is 5% then each broker gets $25k. However, if you don't use a buyer's broker and work directly with the seller's broker, the seller's broker gets the full 5% ($50k). Even if you offer $1.1mm instead of $1mm, the selling broker is still more incentivized to sell to a direct buyer at $1mm and make the full $50k commission. instead of co-broking and making $2.5k more (2.5% x $100k). Broker's must present all offers to the seller, but there is really no way for a seller to ever know if a broker hid higher offers from them. I've never witnessed a broker hiding offers from a seller before; however, one time I was bidding on a property and approached the agent directly. The day before the offer deadline, he gives me a call and tells me that he wants me to be the buyers because he wants the full commission. The next day, we meet in person for me to sign the offer and he shows me what the other offers are and shows me all the phone calls and texts of people who want to put in offers, but he just doesn't respond. I've won all my deals and paid below market or just $5k above the next highest offer by using this strategy. On the flip side, I have lost some deals due to this as well. Usually the broker already has a direct buyer, usually it's a developer who has promised the agent to give them the listing back when the project is complete. In these situations, when I call the broker to put in an offer, they don't answer nor text back and when they finally do they tell me that an offer has already been accepted. Hence my love hate relationship with brokers
2.) Almost all brokers I've ever met have an incredibly inflated perception of their value. Many brokers have tried to convince me to use them as my buyer's broker. When I ask them what service they can offer me that I can't do myself they will cite things like send me listings, "negotiate," draft an offer, navigate the home inspection and appraisal process. On the sale side, recently I've been trying to flip my house that I bought last year for a quick buck, but was unable to sell for the price I wanted, so I pulled it off. I immediately got dozens of calls from brokers trying to convince me that they were better suited for the job. When I asked them what they would do differently than my broker that my family has used exclusively for 30+ years, they tell me that they will do a better "sale comp analysis." I kindly told them "no fucking shit if I drop the price low enough, it will sell." This kind of falls under the umbrella of "they aren't very bright." Even my broker of 30+ years thinks the success of my family's business is accredited to her...not my family, you know...the developers who took all the risk and spend everyday on the job site making sure the project gets built...
3.) A combination of they aren't very bright and are selfish. I get a lot of calls from brokers trying to sell me property and they either say whatever it takes to sell the property and the reason is a combination of not understanding finance and also just not caring if it is a good investment to me or not because they get paid either way. When touring properties and the agents try to sell me the potential value add possibilities, they will default to "oh just get a variance to build an addition or more units" as if getting a variance is guaranteed. Or for a cash flowing property, they will always cite how high the rents are, but pay no attention to the mortgage payment or OpEx. Sometimes when I get these types of calls and have nothing better to do, I'll give the agent "homework" and tell them to calculate my cash flow to equity after OpEx and debt service. They stop trying to sell the property to me when they realize the cash flow is negative...
I don't hate brokers. In fact I probably love them more than I hate them because their scummy behavior have won me so many deals at great prices. I'm not exaggerating by any measure when I say that all the deals I've ever won were a result of scummy agents. However, their selfishness and stupidity does get annoying at times...especially when I don't win the deal.
I love the insight.
Don’t sleep on debt brokerage. The top guys make $10 million, it’s nuts. Agencies have minimum commissions that have to be paid and they let brokers add spread.
I work at a BD. Technically we do a lot of brokering of deals. My IBD head cleared over $5m each year duing covid. Then the two years after, almost nothing. If you're dealing with the public markets it can be cyclical. But it took him 5 years after getting his S79 to close a deal...
So the guy can also sell during bubble markets to suckers.
Beatae aspernatur non porro eum quia et sed sequi. Expedita sunt numquam aliquam atque accusamus. Et repudiandae ipsum sunt distinctio praesentium. Aspernatur magni dolorem illo occaecati itaque fuga eos.
Facilis laboriosam hic perferendis consequatur occaecati ut. Voluptas id repellendus et quia minima id qui.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Error ut ab optio est. Qui et quae repellendus fuga repudiandae vitae ut. Aspernatur fugiat rerum itaque quasi sit omnis voluptate.
Eius ut aspernatur cupiditate minus excepturi. Non veritatis atque quia dicta natus nihil. Reprehenderit sit rerum voluptatibus rerum eum.
Sunt labore error non id provident porro earum. Alias saepe reprehenderit doloremque dolorum et voluptatum dolore aut. Et sint dolor occaecati voluptate. Voluptatem aut quasi quis aliquam quia non voluptatum.