How to Buy or Sell a Book of Business

February 10, 2020

For agents looking to retire or get out of the real estate business, it can be a bittersweet moment as they realize that all the hard work that went into cultivating their business could disappear once they’re out of the game.

One such agent is Marlene Baugh, who has served families across multiple generations, built deep and lasting relationships with her clients, and established a successful, trusted business with a team that includes her spouse, her sister, and her niece.

“It’s not just a job for me. It’s very personal,” she said. “This is my family. My clients are my family, and I could never just walk away from all that.”

More times than naught, senior agents have no plan for what’s next with their business. Meanwhile, novice agents face the daunting task of breaking into a highly competitive landscape. And more established agents, with five or ten years’ experience, want effective ways to expand their team and their reach.

“We’re terrible about that as an industry,” said Richard “Coach” Fino, Director of Agent Success at Long & Foster | Christie’s International Real Estate. “So many senior agents have absolutely no exit strategy.”

So one group is looking to move on. Another is looking to move up. What if they could help each other?

They can. The term for this is succession planning. It’s a purposeful method of either selling or acquiring an existing real estate business. As Fino noted, “the insurance industry has a program, and so does law. But nobody had put together an actual program or a platform to do that for real estate — until now.”

Want to learn more about the program that’s designed just for agents to buy or sell a book of business? Read the full article on Inman News.