Article Highlights:

  • Real estate transaction coordinators are grossly underpaid given the services they provide to facilitate the closing of multi-million-dollar deals.

No careers have as many famous quotes attributing the symbiotic relationship between investment in the industry and wealth creation as those in real estate.

From,

“Real estate cannot be lost or stolen, nor can it be carried away. Purchased with common sense, paid for in full, and managed with reasonable care, it is about the safest investment in the world.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt, U.S. president

To,

“Ninety percent of all millionaires become so through owning real estate. More money has been made in real estate than in all industrial investments combined. The wise young man or wage earner of today invests his money in real estate.” – Andrew Carnegie, billionaire industrialist

Or my personal favorite,

“There’s always money in the banana stand.” – George Michael Sr.

It’s no secret. There’s money to be made in real estate. From investors, to brokers, to agents, to escrow officers, nearly everyone dipping their hand in the swirling vortex of cash perpetually whirled about by the industry has either become wealthy or has the potential to become wealthy. NEARLY everyone. An analysis of each step in the real estate transaction process demonstrates that once an offer has been accepted, the transaction coordination far and away requires the most manual labor hours before closing than any other step in the process. Of course, the amount of work put in by the agent before going in to contract is intangible, so it can’t be said they’re less deserving of what they earn, especially since the prioritization of brokers in the industry tends to mirror that of the Wolf of Wall Street convention, “sales over everything.” However, considering transaction coordinators are responsible for the successful and efficient completion of what are often multimillion dollar deals, and considering they often make a salary of less than $50,000 a year, it’s fair to say that they deserve more. One of the reasons this problem has persisted is there has been no competition to oppose the current structure of the real estate transaction process. No challenge to the status quo, and thus, no incentive to change. Until now. By switching from being a salaried transaction coordinator, to a variable per transaction fee coordinator, transaction coordinators can finally earn an income that accurately reflects their contribution to the process. We calculated the average projected income for transaction coordinators under the current regime by state against the average projected income for transaction coordinators if they switched to REBO (download the report here). If you have any questions, please email our CEO, Brad Clayton at brad@realestatebackops.com.

Written by:
Tommy Wolf
California Licensed Realtor
tommyw@realestatebackops.com
DRE # 02044169