Where Do Your Deals Really Come From? A Reality Check for Agents

If you have heard about Resident Realty's Standard Plan, $50 per month plus $300 per transaction side with 100% commission, there is a good chance your first reaction sounded something like this:

"I get all my deals from my brokerage."

It is one of the most common reasons agents give us for staying where they are. For a few agents, it is true. If your brokerage hands you a steady flow of qualified buyers and sellers, that pipeline is worth paying for, and you should weigh it seriously.

But it is worth checking before you assume it. So start with one question.

Where Did Your Last Ten Closings Actually Come From?

Not where it feels like they came from. Where they actually came from. Pull up your last ten closed transactions and label each one with its true origin:

• Past client. Someone you already helped buy or sell.
• Referral. A past client, friend, or professional contact sent them to you.
• Sphere of influence. Family, friends, neighbors, the people you know from your kids' school or your gym.
• Your own marketing. Your website, your social media, your mailers, your ads.
• Open houses. Buyers you met at a listing you held open.
• Your own prospecting. Expireds, FSBOs, door knocking, calls you made yourself.
• Brokerage-generated. A lead your brokerage produced and routed to you, one you would not have found on your own.

Be strict with that last category. A buyer who called the number on your yard sign came from your listing, not from the brokerage. A sphere contact who also happened to see your brokerage's logo is still your sphere. The test is simple: would this deal have happened if your license hung somewhere else?

Many experienced agents who run this exercise find that the overwhelming majority of their business comes from relationships they built themselves.

What the National Data Says

Your own ten closings are the number that matters most, but the national picture points the same direction. According to the National Association of REALTORS 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, 43% of buyers found their agent through a referral from a friend, neighbor, or relative, and another 15% used an agent they had worked with before. Only 6% found their agent through a website. On the listing side, 37% of sellers were referred to their agent and 29% used an agent they had worked with previously, which means two out of three sellers arrived through a relationship.

To be fair about what that data measures: it tracks how consumers found their agent, not how many leads brokerages hand out. But it tells you what clients are actually responding to. They hire a person they know or a person someone they trust recommended. That relationship is attached to your name, not your brokerage's sign.

Run Your Own Numbers

Here is a simple worksheet. Fill in one row per closing for the last twelve months, or your last ten closings if that goes back further.

Then do two things:

1. Add up everything you paid your brokerage over the same period: split, transaction fees, desk fees, franchise fees, technology fees, and anything else that came out of your commission or your bank account.
2. Divide that total by the number of closings you marked "Y."

The result is what you are effectively paying for each deal your brokerage actually produced.

A Worked Example

These are illustrative assumptions. Replace them with your own numbers.

Say you closed 12 sides last year at an average gross commission of $9,000 per side, on a 70/30 split with a $500 transaction fee. Two of those 12 were brokerage-generated.

• Gross commission: 12 x $9,000 = $108,000
• Brokerage's share: $32,400 in split plus $6,000 in transaction fees = $38,400
• Cost per brokerage-generated closing: $38,400 / 2 = $19,200

Now the same year on Resident Realty's Standard Plan: 12 x $300 in transaction fees plus 12 x $50 in monthly fees comes to $4,200, so you keep $103,800. That is $34,200 more than the split example, in one year. At 12 sides, the Top Producer Plan, $249 per month with no transaction fee, would cost $2,988 for the year and leave you $105,012.

A brokerage fee buys more than leads, and that matters. Compliance oversight, broker support, tools, and training all have real value. The question is whether you are paying a lead-generation price for them. At Resident Realty, both plans include a CRM, your own agent website with IDX, document management and storage, a lead generation and training platform, and eSignature contracts. The full list is on our benefits page, and newer agents can lean on our mentor program.

If Your Brokerage Really Does Feed You

Then the math may favor staying, and you should say so with confidence. If six of your last ten closings came from leads you could not have generated yourself, and those leads close at a good rate, you are getting something for your split.

Just make sure you know three things: how many brokerage leads you received versus how many closed, whether those leads carry their own referral fee on top of your split, and whether that lead flow is guaranteed or simply what happened last year.

If Most of Your Business Is Self-Generated

Then it may be worth asking whether you are paying more than necessary for something you are not actually using. That is not a criticism of your brokerage. It is a calculation every agent should make, and most agents never sit down and make it.

If you want the longer version of what a split costs over a career, we broke it down in 100% commission vs. traditional splits. If you are worried that moving means losing the brand you have built, read your clients hire you, not your brokerage. And if the cost of new cards and signs is what is holding you back, we ran that math in what it really costs to redo your cards and signs.

Count First, Then Decide

Ten closings. Seven labels. One honest column. It takes about twenty minutes, and it tells you more about whether your brokerage is earning its share than any recruiting pitch can, including ours.

Resident Realty is licensed in Texas, Colorado, and Arizona and supports more than 600 agents. Agents keep 100% of their commission on both plans: Standard at $50 per month plus $300 per transaction side, or Top Producer at $249 per month with no transaction fee. You can compare the plans side by side.

If you want to talk through your numbers, call H. Craig Plantz, President and CEO, at 844-243-6866 x 7100, or learn more at JoinResidentRealty.com. Bring your last ten closings.