Brokerage Leads Are They Worth the High Commission

3 Aug 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:18

In this short dialogue, Becky and a co‑speaker discuss the drawbacks of brokerages that provide leads but lack responsive, local support—what they call “shiny‑object” brokerages. They note that agents often have to email distant managers and may wait a week—or never— for a response. The conversation then shifts to the financial calculus of taking brokerage‑generated leads at a high commission split (e.g., 50% on 30 deals) versus building one’s own lead pipeline (e.g., 15 self‑generated deals). The speakers argue that self‑generated leads can yield comparable or higher earnings with less work, offering better work‑life balance. They acknowledge that brokerage leads can be a stepping stone for some agents but warn that reliance on them can trap agents in a high‑cost, low‑control model, and they encourage agents to consider how to transition away from that dependency.

The other one is the shiny object brokerage is support. You know, they they don't have a boots on the ground broker or manager that they can pick up the phone and call. They have to email them, and they may be in another state, and they may get a response in a week, or they may not get a response at all. So those are two conversations that I've had recently that have come up when kind of on the subject of agents and you know how to choose a brokerage and what's important when they're looking for one and those kinds of things. So.
And if I could piggyback on something you said, Becky, we've talked about this before. If somebody's getting leads from their brokerage and they're getting, let's say, a 50% cut, and let's say you did 30 deals in a year, and if you learn how to create your own leads and your own customers and you did 15 deals a year, more than likely you might make more money doing half the amount of work. You have to have a life. You have to have balance in your life. So getting leads, yes. That might be important to somebody, but you're— it's like you're sleeping with the devil. You know, you're, you're giving all of this money away for the brokerage to find you those leads.
And that may work for some agents as well, but I mean, if anybody who that's a stepping stone for them, like, how do you get out of that position where all of your business has been handed to you through leads?