7 reasons to join a real estate team

If you're like most real estate agents, your top goals include building a robust, healthy client base, then nurturing those relationships in order to gain referrals and build your business. But often, finding the time to generate leads and prospect for clients — all while doing the many other tasks required for success in real estate — poses a challenge.

Some agents choose to join a real estate team in the hope of overcoming these obstacles. Indeed, teams are an increasingly popular way to join the industry. While they're not a great fit for every agent, teams can offer benefits.

Read on to explore these 7 benefits of joining a real estate team, so you can decide if it's the right move for your career.

What's a Real Estate Team?

First, some basics: What is a real estate team? Usually, teams are structured as a group of members that manage transactions, while leaders handle marketing and lead generation. Team leaders determine members' focus and tasks, as well as how they're compensated.  

A typical structure may look something like this:

• Team leader
• Lead manager
• Transaction coordinator
• Members (often buyers' agents)

For many agents, especially those just starting out, joining a real estate team offers a number of advantages. 

1. Gain Skills Quickly

Real estate coursework offers training on legal issues, paperwork and other technical aspects of the industry... but it doesn't provide that key hands-on experience. After all, the best way to learn is by doing. Being part of a real estate team provides the first-hand practice you need to help build your skill set.  

A good team will provide you with lead-creation opportunities, so you can gain real-world experience with time management, negotiation, sales and other key skills. Since you'll be working with actual home buyers and sellers, you'll learn quickly.

2. Learn from Mentors

As a real estate agent, you simply don't have time to reinvent the wheel. It makes more sense to learn from others' successes... and avoid their mistakes, too. Joining a team usually means you'll work with more experienced agents. Because you're all working together toward common goals, these seasoned agents may be more willing to share their knowledge with you to help you succeed.

Plus, you'll be exposed to different perspectives and approaches that you might not otherwise consider. This will help you determine which methods work best for you. Learn from the other agents on your team by asking them to talk about their successes, failures and best practices.

3. Expand Your Network

When a real estate agent first launches their career, they will often turn to their own friends, family, co-workers and personal contacts, asking for referrals in order to start building their network. While this is a great way to get started, over time the contact list simply gets... exhausted.

Joining a real estate team makes this part of the job easier. Through your colleagues, you'll have access to a much broader pool for networking, from potential clients to vendors and other professional and industry connections.

4. Get More Leads

Along with expanded networking opportunities comes better access to leads. Real estate teams have dedicated people working on generating leads, which are then distributed among team members. 

Most teams will have multiple lead generation channels operating, increasing efficiency. As part of the team, that means you can spend your time following up on, rather than trying to generate, leads.

5. Better Lead Coverage

Too many leads, too little time... sounds like a terrible problem to have, right? But in reality, if you don't have time to follow up on a potential lead right away, you might lose that business. "Speed to lead" has never been more relevant than in today's market, where prospective buyers and sellers have 24/7 access to online listings and an expectation of instant response to their queries.

If you're not constantly on top of your phone, email, social media and texts, you might miss a key opportunity. But when you work with a team, there's always someone else there to help respond in a timely manner. That means fewer potential clients slipping through the cracks. 

6. Diffuse Costs

Real estate agents have to invest in their own success. Over time, these costs — MLS fees, technology access, marketing expenses and more — really add up. 

Joining a real estate team helps diffuse these costs. You're not shelling out for everything yourself; rather, you contribute to the expenses. Some teams may even cap costs for members, resulting in even greater savings. 

7. Increased Collaboration

Let's face it: While some people go into real estate because they enjoy working solo, not everyone is cut out to be a lone wolf. Working on your own may offer the freedom of being your own boss, but it's also easy to get stuck. Maybe your lead generation strategies aren't as effective as you need them to be, or your marketing efforts have fizzled out.

When you're part of a real estate team, collaboration may just be your new best friend. If a problem arises, you don't have to solve it alone. Instead, you've got the wisdom, expertise and knowledge of your teammates to draw upon; after all, you're all working toward the same goals, so you all share each others' successes. Having trusted team members to rely on when you need help can become a key benefit.

Joining a real estate team can offer benefits to agents at many stages of their careers. While it's not for everyone, it may be a good choice for those who wish to enjoy increased collaboration, better coverage (and often better leads), an expanded network, and the possibility of mentorship.