I recently passed the Florida Real Estate State Exam but of course I have a hundred questions about day-to-day real estate activities that they don't teach you in the course. One thing that I am not clear on even after school is how referral fees work between agents. One section in the curiculum talked about not being able to take or give fees to non-agents for referrals. But how does it work between agents if you refer business to someone in another state, or in your own state in a different city? What is the law on that, does anyone know?

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Liane Jamason, Realtor
Keller Williams Realty
Tampa FL Homes|Free List of Tampa Short Sales & Foreclosures|TampaRealEstateGeek.com

Liane Jamason is a Realtor in Tampa Bay servicing St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Tampa, Carollwood, Westchase, Ybor City, South Tampa, Davis Island, Brandon, Riverview, Apollo Beach, Ruskin and beyond!

From what I understand, the referral fee is agreed upon before passing the client to the agent you are referring to out-of-state. The fees are not fixed, or regulated in any way; you simply decide before sending the client out.

I obviously want to help my fellow agent at another KW out of state, so I will refer within my company.

Since you are interviewing, this is a good question for your new prospective broker as different brokerages may have different policies on this subject.

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Steve Castaneda, Realtor
Keller Williams Realty
The MyHomeHouston Team

Specializing in Houston Real Estate. Feel free to visit my Houston Real Estate Blog or read about Real Estate Technology for agents.

While I am not in Florida, I believe we have many of the same rules. If you referred someone to me here in Atlanta, you and I woud sign a broker referral agreement.

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Ryan Ward, REALTOR® - Keller Williams Realty Consultants. (404) 630-3187
Atlanta Real Estate - My featured area is Alpharetta Real Estate and it is where I call home. Read my Atlanta Real Estate blog.

You will find most people requesting or giving between a 25-30% referral fee for closed transactions, you can of course offer more if you don't mind dipping into your commissions - as a new hungry (Not as in starving but as in motivated) agent, you might want to see if you can entice some good referrals by offering a higher split.

Btw congrats on passing your exam, that is awesome for you! What area are you servicing?

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Since my practice is outside the realms of residential, when a friend or family member requires residential services I "refer" the business out. Recently, a family member passed over and I made a referral to someone I felt comfortable would provide superior service. If I were to walk into a residential brokerage, I would seek out the newest and hungriest looking broker in the office. The days I spent in that condition was when I worked my hardest and learned the most. It was part of the finest experiences in my professional career.

If I understand your question about referral fees correctly: Typically, non-licensees cannot be paid a referral fee from a licensee; except between property management and tenants, or former tenants, and provided they had been a resident during a six month period prior to the referral.

Congrats on your achievement! Now the work begins!!!

Best of luck.

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[B]J. Christin Gray
Land Use Planning and Real Estate Developments
JC Gray & Associates
Portland, OR

Riverview/Brandon (which is near Tampa) Florida is the area I am looking to find a broker in.

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Liane Jamason, Realtor
Keller Williams Realty
Tampa FL Homes|Free List of Tampa Short Sales & Foreclosures|TampaRealEstateGeek.com

Liane Jamason is a Realtor in Tampa Bay servicing St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Tampa, Carollwood, Westchase, Ybor City, South Tampa, Davis Island, Brandon, Riverview, Apollo Beach, Ruskin and beyond!

You could go to a broker's website, then search for your area. I know KW has this, as do most of the other big ones.

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If you're not remembered, you never existed.

Hi Liane,

First, congrats on passing the exam!

Once you sign on with a broker, you'll more than likely join the Greater Tampa Association of Realtors, from there you'll get access to floridarealtors.org, which has a standard Referral Agreement. You're Broker should be able to walk you through the steps of completing the agreement. It's really simple and straight forward.

I hope this helps, good luck with your broker interviews.

Calum

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Calum MacKenzie
Tampa Real Estate | Wesley Chapel Real Estate | Sun Valley Real Estate

You will get some of that in the FL post-licensing courses, but I also recommend taking the GRI courses as soon as possible. I did that in my very first year, which happened to be in north FL. The GRI courses satisfied all of my FL post-licensing education requirements, as well as giving me a great foundation of practical RE marketing and general practice info. I also worked my first year at a large regional brokerage (Watson Realty) that provided a two week in-house "success school" that we all had to do. The 50/50 commission split sucked, but I got a great start to my career, with minimum outlay on my part, and worked with some great experienced agents in the process.

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Ron Goodman, GRI, REALTOR®
Prudential Colorado Real Estate
Denver Colorado Real Estate: Highlands Ranch, Parker, Littleton, Castle Rock
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