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Last week, it was Keith Copley in Manhattan.
A few days before that, it was multi-agent teams in both Washington and Oregon.
Earlier that same week, it was Beau Blankenship and Jacob Watkins in Florida.
And in the opening days of the month, it was Maurice Boschetti and his team, also in Florida.
So what do all these names have in common? They were all real estate professionals who were recruited to a new company in recent days. And they’re just the tip of the iceberg.
A little over one year ago, Intel published a series on agent recruiting in real estate. The series was inspired in part by a firehose of recruiting announcements from brokerages across the country — more than Inman could ever hope to cover — and drew heavily on Inman Intel Index data. Ultimately, the series revealed that many agents were fielding near-constant offers to jump from one brokerage to another.
But as the names above suggest, the firehose was never turned off. Recruiting announcements have continued apace since Intel first reported on what last year we dubbed the “recruiting wars.” So, to understand how this story has developed over the last 12 months, Intel in February once again included questions about recruiting in our agent survey. The responses to those questions suggest that large numbers of agents continue to field frequent recruiting inquiries. And if anything, such inquiries have only intensified over the last year. But at the same time, most agents also have no plans on switching brokerages in the near future.
Everyone is getting calls
More than 400 agents answered Intel survey questions about recruiting, and overwhelmingly they’re getting recruiting calls — and getting them recently.
- In total, more than 76 percent of respondents said that another broker has tried recruiting them in the last 60 days.
- More than 11 percent of respondents said they were contacted sometime in 2024. That means a total of nearly 90 percent of survey respondents have received a recruiting call sometime in the last year.
- Meanwhile, only about 10 percent of respondents indicated they had not received any recent recruiting calls.
These numbers are similar, but slightly elevated, relative to what Intel found last year. At that time, 71 percent of survey respondents reported getting a recruiting call in the last 60 days while another 12 percent took a call sometime during the previous year.
There’s a certain logic to these findings. Conditions in the housing market today do resemble those from a year ago, with tight inventory and higher mortgage rates lingering. Forecasters have also predicted something of a repeat of 2024 in 2025.
In that light, it makes sense that last year’s intense recruiting environment would continue into 2025 as brokers look for agents with proven track records. However, it was not a forgone conclusion that recruiting intensity would actually tick up — which is what happened.
A recruiting story happy ending
Tiffany McQuaid ran a successful brokerage for years in Naples, on Florida’s southwest coast. But several years ago at an Inman Connect event in New York, she met Ryan Serhant. The two hit it off to the point that Serhant would send referrals down to McQuaid.
Tiffany McQuaid
“We did a lot of business together,” McQuaid said. “And he would send great referrals and speak so highly of my company. You know, say, ‘the best real estate brokerage in Naples.’ And it just kind of kept evolving.”
Eventually McQuaid began using Serhant’s Sell It training product, which her team loved. And the closer McQuaid got to Serhant, the more she admired what she described as a generous leadership style.
“I just kind of thought to myself, ‘wow, there are a lot of similarities between our organizations,’” McQuaid recalled.
McQuaid is no stranger to the type of recruiting calls Intel survey respondents reported getting. She told Inman that she frequently gets inquiries, and that she tries to hear them out. But in the past she always told recruiters she “wasn’t ready” to move.
“When you’re used to building your own thing with your own vision, it’s very hard to integrate that into a structured, corporate kind of environment,” McQuaid said of attempts to recruit her and her company. “It’s like fitting a square peg into a round hole. So the reality is no matter how many times those people knocked on my door, no matter what they offered me, I would have never done it because that’s not what I was building.”
But something different happened as McQuaid continued crossing paths with Serhant. And those interactions eventually came to a crescendo in February when, after 13 years helming her own firm, McQuaid brought her company to Serhant’s brokerage. Asked why she did it, McQuaid pointed to something other than money.
“I have been the mother to my company and my team for the last 13 years,” she said. “And now we’re bringing in a dad.”
Calls are constant
Intel survey result showed that recruiting calls are widespread. But that’s really only half of it. In fact, respondents were also asked about the frequency of recruiting inquiries, and a majority indicated that such inquiries reach them often.
- A plurality of respondents, or nearly 37 percent, indicated that they field recruiting attempts at least once a month. Another 16 percent receive one inquiry per week, while almost 30 percent are contacted every quarter.
- Taken together, that’s roughly 83 percent of respondents who are facing multiple recruiting attempts every year.
These numbers also roughly line up with last year’s findings, when for example 32 percent of respondents said they were fielding recruiting inquiries at least once a month.
If you’re happy and you know it
McQuaid’s experience contrasts with the type of flood-the-zone recruiting attempts most agents apparently field. The survey results, for instance, paint a picture of constant and widespread recruiting attempts, while McQuaid decamped for a new company only after years of relationship building.
But McQuaid wasn’t the only person who focused on leaders with a certain je ne sais quoi when it comes to recruiting. Jeff Samuels — executive vice president of brokerage operations at The Agency — told Inman last week that he’s similarly focused on intangibles.
Jeff Samuels
“I was asked, ‘Jeff, what kind of agent are you looking for?’ And I said, ‘happy ones,’” he told Intel.
The comment is notably in the same genre as one from Coldwell Banker Warburg’s Kevelyn Guzman, who told Inman in January that her secret recruiting weapon was “just being nice.”
Samuels also recalled his own journey to The Agency, which he joined four years ago from Compass. At the time, Samuels didn’t actually know much about The Agency. But he had gotten to know Rainy Austin — who did a stint at Compass at the same time as Samuels — and became convinced she was “just one of the greatest people and leaders I’ve ever known.”
“I don’t know how I got her to pick up my call,” Samuels recalled, “but I called her and I said, ‘I’ll sweep floors wherever you work.’ I joke that it’s not the best negotiating tactic. But I said, ‘Tell me about The Agency.’”
Quantity verses quality
The connecting thread in the stories of both McQuaid and Samuels is that they ultimately made moves — and are looking for other people interested in making moves — based on culture and relationships. And that’s a key takeaway because Intel’s survey results actually show that the vast majority of recruiting queries fall on deaf ears.
- Among agent respondents, nearly 70 percent said they will not be switching brokerages this year.
- On the other hand, only 6.5 percent said they do plan to switch brokerages.
- Intel also asked brokerage leaders about their biggest challenges, and recruiting ran away with a plurality of responses (32 percent). Leaders also pointed to recruiting as the biggest challenge over the coming 12 months.
One possible interpretation of these numbers is that while agents are flooded with recruiting calls, those efforts are having limited effect. Most good agents know they have options, but nevertheless have no plans to make a move. And that raises the specter of inefficiency; someone is making a lot of calls, with very little to show for it.
But agents are still making moves. The examples mentioned at the beginning of this story are just a few examples of a larger trend, and Inman typically reports on at least several such moves each week.
The lesson then — from people like McQuaid, Samuels, and others — appears to be that relationship quality matters more than recruiting inquiry quantity. McQuaid captured the idea.
“I’m blown away because there’s so many huge producers and each one is more friendly than the next,” McQuaid said of her new home at Serhant. “They’re super encouraging. They’re saying, ‘we’re so happy to have you on board.’ It’s just a giant love fest. There’s just a special sauce.”
Email Jim Dalrymple II
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