Building the commercial brokerage workforce

By: Jennifer Sharpe//The Journal Record//August 17, 2018

OKLAHOMA CITY – With an aging workforce, the commercial real estate industry is looking to expand its numbers and broaden its broker demographic to include younger professionals and those with other career backgrounds.

The median age of a commercial Realtor is 60, according to the National Association of Realtors 2017 Commercial Member Profile.

“We are not doing enough as industry professionals to help get the young sales associates into the business,” said David Chapman, an associate professor of finance and real estate at the University of Central Oklahoma. “There is huge opportunity for young brokers, but they need help.”

Of the current 80 students in UCO’s real estate program, at least 25 percent want to be commercial brokers.

“Most commercial brokerages that I work with require brokers to have a college degree, and increasingly more of them are requiring, or at least preferring, real estate classes as a part of the degree,” said Chapman, who in addition to his role at UCO is a licensed real estate broker and owns Realty1 LLC.

The UCO real estate program offers training in real estate law, real estate finance, real estate investment, real estate appraisal and property management.

Internships are also encouraged.

“We will have at least five or six students performing internships at any given time at real estate brokerages,” Chapman said. “These are paid internships, and it is a commitment to pay these interns when they are limited on what they can actually do legally.”

Grant Stewart, vice president of brokerage for Wiggins Properties, agrees that internships can be valuable.

“In our industry, we are seeing a lot of transition. We have a lot of people who have been in the business for a long period of time,” Stewart said. “Companies recognize that we need to work on growing the talent pool at a younger demographic. We’ve really got to focus our attention on bringing new people into the industry, more so than we ever have.”

Recruiting can be a challenge due to the nature of the industry.

“A lot of your ability to have success in the real estate industry is based on your sphere of influence,” Stewart said. “Typically, you are looking for someone who has a little more age than someone coming straight out of school. I look at people in other industries, such as insurance sales, banking, and other sales-based positions, who either don’t enjoy their work or it is not the right fit. These people might prosper and blossom in commercial real estate.”

Mark Wilkinson, a broker with Keller Williams Platinum, also likes to work with those who are choosing commercial real estate as a career option after being in another profession.

“I’m getting a lot of second-career people entering the real estate industry,” Wilkinson said. “There’s something they have done before in a previous career that they were brilliant at, so what we try to do is find their authentic voice in real estate.”

In three years, Wilkinson has grown his market center from 32 agents to 185 agents, nine of whom are commercial-focused.

Wilkinson likened himself to a personal trainer for his agents.

“I step into the gap between where my agents are and where they want to be, and become their mentor or accountability partner. I try to show up for my people at a high enough level, and say, ‘Was this valuable to you? Who else do you know that’s hitting their head on some ceiling of achievement that can use my help?’ In my heart of hearts, I am a performance coach, so I am looking to help people that have had the same year over and over again, or are in a downward spiral.”

Another option for recruitment in the industry that has become increasingly more popular is to add family members to the business.

“A number of senior brokers have brought in their kids or a family member to train underneath them and gain strong experience in the industry,” Grant said.

Once new commercial real estate brokers are hired, mentorship is critical for training. That includes shadowing other brokers for a period of time.

From there, Stewart said Wiggins will begin to work those people further into the team to participate as side-by-side teammates or move them into their own portfolio.

“One of the benefits at our organization is having some in-house listings that we can shift over to that new team member in order to give them some experience and a platform to build their business from,” he said.

Wilkinson said leading with technology, sharing information and making connections globally are the most important path to training and success in the commercial real estate industry.

“Data is the true king of real estate now,” he said. “What we have discovered is that, to be successful as we train these brokers up, they have to showcase a local knowledge, but they have to have an international reach.”

https://journalrecord.com/2018/08/17/building-the-commercial-brokerage-workforce/