How to Recruit Real Estate Team Agents and Keep Them (2026)

The problem: You only look for people when you're desperate, and the ones you train leave because once they can find their own business, your split is just a bill.

The fix: It starts with a list you already have and ends with one page most team leaders never write.

What changes: You hire people you've already watched work, they get a reason to stay that isn't leads, and you become the leader good agents call first.

By D.J. Paris, president of sales and marketing at Kale Realty and host of the Keeping It Real Podcast. The fix is below. If you want to talk it through, there's a 10-minute option right after it.

What's really going on: you hire in a hurry, and the split turns into a bill

You only look for people when you're desperate. Somebody leaves, the leads pile up, and you hire whoever is free that month. You've never seen them work. That's the finding half of the problem.

The leaving half is simpler than it feels. You train someone, they get good, and they learn to find their own business. From that day on, your split is just a bill. They're paying for leads they don't need anymore. Nobody did anything wrong. The deal just stopped making sense for them. So the fix starts with a list you already have, and it ends with one page most team leaders never write.

Move 1: recruit from across the table. You already have the list.

Some of the best agents you'll ever hire impressed you on the other side of a deal: answered the phone, hit every date. Pull your closed deals from the last 24 months and write down the agent on the other side of each. Call the best ones.

You were great to work with on [address]. If you ever think about joining a team, I'd want the first conversation. To the best agents across a deal

Tell your managing broker before you offer anyone anything.

This works because you've already watched them under pressure, and no interview shows you that. The call asks for nothing, so it's easy to hear. Next to each name, write the one thing they did that impressed you. Then the compliment is specific. If they say they're happy where they are, say "Good. I just wanted you to know," and leave it alone. The mistake is pitching your split on that call.

Move 2: hire on a task, not an interview

Give them one small task with a deadline that touches no client.

Pick any active listing in [area]. By Thursday, send me the price you'd put on it and the three comps you used. To anyone you're thinking of hiring

Don't say how to format it. What shows up is what your client would get. The ones whose work shows up Wednesday are the hire. The ones who need a reminder just showed you next year.

Give every candidate the same task and the same deadline, so you're comparing the work and nothing else. Judge what's on the page: the comps, the reasoning, the care. If they ask how you want it laid out, say "however you'd send it to a seller." The mistake is the friendly nudge on Thursday morning. Don't send it. Whether they need the nudge is the test.

Move 3: make the split stop being a bill

Three pieces. This is the one page.

• Two splits, not one. Leads you hand them pay the team split. Business they bring in themselves pays them a lot more: [X].
• The exit deal, on day one. Write down what they take if they go, like people they brought, and what stays, like leads the team paid for. People leave ugly when nobody ever said how leaving works.
• At 90 days, ask the question below. Then change one.

If this team were yours, what would you change first? To each team member at 90 days

Put all of it in a written team agreement your managing broker approves. Everyone's paid through the brokerage, signed clients are the brokerage's call, and they're independent contractors, so ask what you can require.

With two splits, the day they can find their own business is a day staying still pays. If the 90-day answer is "nothing," ask what the most annoying part of their week is. The mistake is asking and then changing nothing. That's worse than never asking.

Do this today

Be the leader good agents call first

A leader who does this isn't hiring in a panic anymore. You've got a short list of agents you've watched work, a task that shows you who delivers, and a page that says how pay and leaving work. People know where they stand with you. That's a reason to stay that has nothing to do with leads.

Who this works for, and who should read something else

Frequently asked questions

Still stuck on this one? Book 10 minutes with D.J. No strings, not a recruiting call. I'll call you, and I won't bring up Kale unless you do.