A broker in a mid sized metro gets the same pitch from three rivals in a month: higher split, lower cap, newer app. She loses two agents anyway, and neither left for the best split. One followed a team leader; the other wanted coaching she could not get. That is the real job of hiring real estate agents. You are not filling a vacancy. You are persuading a self employed professional, who already has a license and a book of clients, that your office will make their business better than the one they have now.
The pool is large and stable. The National Association of Realtors reported 1,469,127 paid members at the end of the third quarter of 2026, only 1.5% fewer than a year earlier, according to Real Estate News. Most of those people are not looking. Your work is to find the ones who are about to.
Know who actually moves
The most useful 2026 data on agent movement comes from a study by Recruiting Insight and Lone Wolf Technologies, built on recorded closings in four of the largest MLSs from Q4 2024 through Q3 2026 and summarised by Real Estate News. About 1 in 8 producing agents changed affiliation over a year, and the study found no clear link between brokerage model type and gains or losses. A cloud firm, a franchise and a boutique can all win or lose agents.
The predictors are behavioural. Agents who moved within the past year were 1.7 times more likely than the typical agent to move again. Agents in offices that lost more than 20% of their people to rivals were 1.9 times more likely to leave, and 1.2 times when the office lost 5% to 20%. Holding a broker license and producing under $4 million a year were further warning signs, and agents showing three or four of these signs were 1.8 times more likely to switch. One assumption did not hold up: a 25% drop in an agent's production made no difference to the odds of a move.
Write the agent profile before you source
Decide what kind of agent fits the office you are building. A luxury team, a first time buyer practice and a commercial desk need different people, and a recruiter who chases every license holder wastes the broker's calendar. Agree on these points with the managing broker:
- License status and state, including whether you want broker licensed agents who could run a team
- Minimum closed transactions or volume over the last twelve months
- Price band, property type and neighbourhoods
- Solo agent, team leader or team member
- What your office offers that matters to this profile: leads, coaching, admin support, brand or lower fees
This is the same discipline we recommend in recruiting project managers: start from the work being done, not from the title.
Where to find producing agents
Closed sales are public enough to source from. MLS data your brokerage can access, listing portals and county records show who closed what and where. Build a list of agents whose volume sits in your target band, then layer on the movement signals above: recent moves, an office that has been losing people, a broker license. State licensing lookups confirm status before anyone spends time on a call.
Team leaders are a second channel. Recruiting one leader can bring a whole group, which is why brokerages announce team moves and why the same study traced big production swings to a few group exits. Watch for teams whose leader has just earned a broker license or whose brokerage is in the middle of a merger.
Referral from your own agents is the third. Agents know who is unhappy in their market long before it shows up in the data. Pay a referral fee where your state allows it and track which agents bring in recruits.
Software can do the list building. Brokerage tools such as Recruiting Insight now bundle a CRM for recruiters, per Real Estate News, and general sourcing agents can search the wider web against your profile. For example, Noon's page on recruiting real estate agents describes treating state licensing as a hard filter and reaching agents by email and SMS, since many reply between showings.
Make an offer that is not just a split
Money is the first reason agents leave, but the study listed seven more: brokerage direction and leadership, protection from risk, training and coaching, a distinct brand, digital marketing and technology, office culture, and general dissatisfaction. A recruiter who only talks splits is competing in the one dimension where a rival can always go lower.
Tailor the pitch to the warning sign you found. An agent in a shrinking office wants stability and a leader with a plan. A newly licensed broker may want a path to run a team. A mid producer may want transaction coordination so they can take more listings. Put the numbers in writing: split, cap, fees, what is included and what costs extra.
Run the first conversation like an interview
Agents are interviewing you as much as you are interviewing them. Ask about their last twelve months of business, where their leads come from, what support they pay for today and what would make them stay where they are. Listen for the reason they would move; if you cannot name it by the end of the call, they probably will not.
Check the basics before an offer: license status, any disciplinary history on the state regulator's site, errors and omissions coverage, and non solicitation terms in their current agreement. Your managing broker should meet every finalist, because the broker relationship is what most agents say they are buying.
Time your outreach and measure it
Migration tends to rise in the winter after the holidays, when agents review the year and plan the next one. Start conversations in November and December so decisions land in January. Track the funnel the way you would for any hire: agents contacted, conversations held, office visits, signed agreements and twelve month retention. Retention matters most. An agent who leaves after six months cost you the recruiting time and the onboarding.
If you also hire employed staff such as transaction coordinators or office managers, our guides to recruiting recruiters and recruiting accountants cover salaried hiring, which works very differently from agent recruiting.