Toronto Real estate agent costs.

Many people get involved with this career, because the market is red hot, and thoughts of making millions of dollars can be very alluring. If you are reading this in 2009, you now know that the real estate market world wide was as cold as ice for a number of months until May. In May 2009, things began to pick up in Toronto, Mississauga, and several cities in Canada.

This article talks about the full costs involved to become a real estate sales person, some of which can be found on my Toronto real estate board page.

Those costs are just the beginning of the outlay.

The following is a list of real estate agent or sales person costs or fees to consider before deciding on the brokerage:

1. Toronto real estate agent franchise fees:

Many but not all brokerages are large franchises, for instance Coldwell Banker Real Estate is a franchise. If you decide to join a franchise you will have to pay the owner a franchise fee, since the head office will be charging the owner.

These fees can range from $107.00 for a specific Coldwell Banker Franchise to as high as $2000 per month depending on the split you have arranged with the franchise.

2. National Advertising Fees:

If you join a franchise, there will be a real estate agent fee back to the franchise for their National advertising campaign. The golden retriever is the national logo for Coldwell Banker. Whether or not you like golden retrievers you will be encouraged to use that logo. This fee can range from $53.00 to as high as $150 per month.

3. Technology cost:

Some brokerages may be more technologically advanced than others. They may have a sophisticated phone system that allows a number of fancy things including having salespeople tracked via computer directly to their phones. If you like to be on call 24hours a day this can be an attractive feature.

While these are great features, you have to decide as a prospective salesperson if you need this level of sophistication, since you will be paying for it monthly at a cost of about $45 to $100.

This is something you can buy later in your career at a cost that might make better sense. However, you may not have a choice depending on what brokerage you join.

4. Personal Advertising Cost:

Advertising your presence to the general public as a Toronto real estate agent is the costliest part of your real estate career. For the front, back page or inside front page of a real estate magazine that is well circulated to the community costs will start at $1500 for a single ad. Some magazines will not allow you to post single ads. Others will, but space is at a premium. In some magazines that cost is for two weeks only.

You can get space inside near the middle for a lot less at $200 for a single ad, which is black and white, and half a page. Color ads run from about $650-$1000 at half a page.

No matter where you advertise statistics show that you have to be in the face of the public at least 8 times before they remember you. Do you have the finances to begin down this path?

Most brokerages do not pay for your advertising, but if you join a sole practitioner brokerage they might be more willing to consider splitting the cost of advertising.

4 Website Cost:

Did you know that anywhere from 60%-80% of the public turns to the web before choosing a Toronto real estate agent?

As a potential agent you must make an informed decision about whether to use your companies’ website, design your own or get a dedicated real estate site. A company site can cost anywhere from $40-50 per month.

I now have real life experience to share with you after being a Toronto real estate agent for a number years. A brokerage website could be working for you or against you. Some brokerages offer fantastic websites that allow the general public to find you, because the sites are designed for the big search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN to find you.

Other brokerages offer websites that are designed only as a show and tell for your clients. If you have no clients, it is a big waste of money.

If you decide one day to leave the brokerage for whatever reason the website becomes useless, because the clients often , but not always, belong to the brokerage.

I have personally used two company websites, and have been disappointed with both of them. In both cases they were great to look at, since they were well designed, so my clients were well served.

However, since I have personally built my own website from scratch, my experience told me that I was paying for a product that was not serving my professional needs.

It turned out that my company sites could not be found by the general public and my traffic was so low that I was lost in cyberspace, but paying through the nose. Of course if I wanted to be found then I had to pay an extra $400 per month, to the webmaster to make sure the public found me.

Now, is that good or bad for you? Actually, that is much better than the magazine advertising rates, and a direction I think most people should be going in this industry.

If the above figure of 80% is correct, then why spend advertising dollars in magazines at all, especially when they have no web presence.

Well that is a decision you will have to make, and researching and asking other salespeople is likely the only way to get a satisfactory answer. When advertising in a paper product, ask them about their website presence.

5. Toronto Real Estate agent course cost.

I highlighted some of the real estate agent or salesperson course costs above. Some companies will offer to pay for the cost of the courses, which is great because they range from $400 to $650 each, but you often have to sign an 18 month contract.

In that 18 month period a lot can happen, and you want to feel secure with all the terms in the contract. The best questions you can ask the brokerage is " What are my exact monthly fees, expenses, costs under this contract? When do they start? And will I have advance notice if these costs change? ".

As a lawyer and a Toronto real estate agent, I just want you to be aware any answer that is verbal may not be valid in the written contract, but that is the only way to get a sense of what brokerage fees to expect, especially when many new salespeople do not read contracts.

However, most brokerages are fair, and must abide by strict rules, so depending on where in the world you are reading this you might want any statements that were discussed to be attached to the contract you sign.

If you feel uneasy in the pit of your stomach, trust your intuition and walk away.

For further info into the cost of becoming a Toronto Real estate agent contact me.