Your Name. Your Brand. Your Client List!
“Sitzer will change every real estate and lending dynamic. Expect staff cuts, commission reductions, office downsizing, and higher broker fees (desk rental, marketing, etc.).
So, “just say no” to the offer of a free, brokerage-branded website and email addresses, and start with what you’ll always have control over.
Mr. Feldman writes the following in the “1st person”.
Inman: Your Broker’s ‘Free’ Website /CRM Is a Gilded Cage
By Markus Feldmann Sept. 06, 2023
A newly minted real estate agent faces many choices and decisions, the key among them obviously being, “Which brokerage should I join?“
Unfortunately, even though that decision will have far-reaching consequences for those new agents, very few agents take the time to interview a variety of brokerages or broker models to make sure they join the brokerage that’s right for them.
Often, agents are blinded by the immediate access to numerous tech platforms and the “extra bling” a brokerage might offer.
One can fully understand why a free website provided by the brokerage might seem like the cherry on top of a sweet deal at first glance. But things aren’t always as they appear.
I’m not trying to deter anybody from joining a brokerage that offers free tools and accessible technology. In other words, simply because a specific brokerage offers those free tools doesn’t mean it’s not the best fit for you.
My goal is to encourage a new agent to think twice before gleefully signing up for every free service their new brokerage offers.
Pros and Cons of a free website and a free email address
There certainly are savings when agents don’t have to pay for their website hosting and email addresses. However, I believe that the long-term consequences far outweigh the short-term cost savings, so I encourage every agent to consider what they willingly give up carefully.
Here’s why you should think twice:
What the brokerage pays for, the brokerage owns. If you ever decide to leave, you usually have no control over anything associated with your broker-owned email address or your website.
If you get your website and email address through your brokerage, both will be inextricably linked to it.
For example, your email address may be JohnDoe4RE@largebrokerage.com, and your website might be www.JohnDoe4RE@largebrokerage.com.
That is fine if you keep your broker affiliation the same; however, there is a good chance your license will be hung at various brokerages over the lifespan of your real estate career.
Should you decide to move to a different brokerage, losing access to your website means that all the SEO efforts you’ve poured into establishing your online presence and reputation are wiped out. You’ll have to start from scratch.
Similarly, a move to a new brokerage would necessitate
obtaining a brand-new email address, which is a hassle in and of itself.
Add to that the potential that past clients may not be able to reach you via your old email address, the tech glitches that could occur when migrating all your contacts onto a new email server, and the additional efforts you’ll have to take to update every one of your marketing pieces, and those free tools the brokerage is offering will quickly lose some of their luster.
In other words, what initially looks like a great and generous deal (“Look at all the free stuff I get!”) may turn out to be more of a golden cage tying you to your brokerage for as long as possible because you don’t want to go through the hassle of what undoubtedly feels like having to start all over.
That’s why every agent should insist on their email address and website, which are unaffiliated and separate from their brokerage.
