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The industry is at a “pivotal point” regarding what it means to have a real estate team, and the definition of what a team exactly is is evoling. That’s according to Tommy Choi of the Weinberg Choi Residential Team at Keller Williams who spoke during a session at Inman Connect Las Vegas on Thursday.
Tommy Choi
“Teams are really brokerages and brokerages are really teams. They’re blending,” Choi concluded.
Choi and his co-presenter Renee Funk of the Funk Collection at eXp Realty discussed the exciting and ever-evolving face of real estate teams as they kicked off the Teams Track at Inman Connect Las Vegas during a session entitled “The Face of the Real Estate Team is Changing: Where We Are and Where We’re Going.”
In addition to blending line between team and brokerage, Funk pointed out that teams have also evolved to enable and support the successes of individual team members, rather than imposing a ceiling on their real estate activity.
“That is no longer,” Funk said. “We can think bigger and outside the box,” she added.
The two speakers expressed their excitement about different emerging team models that have allowed for scalability across state lines, and some models that have even spurred a new moniker among some: “teamerage.”
“All have a different model,” Choi pointed out.
Five years from now, Funk asserted that the industry would continue to be bullish on teams, and that they’d continue to give brokerages a run for their money in terms of profitability.
Renee Funk
“Teams will continue to take their unfair share of the market within the industry,” Funk said. “Five years from now, I see that as just being larger marketshare within the industry.”
“Teams outperforming brokerages,” Choi added.
The two speakers agreed that one of the crucial ways for teams to find success in the industry, is by leaders building their teams with good people, and supporting them.
“Ultimately, what brings our customers back to us are the systems and models that the team and operations side have created,” Choi said.
“It’s about the humans, it’s about the relationships,” Funk added.
Especially after the chaotic 18 months the industry has faced throughout the pandemic, Choi said team culture is paramount, now more than ever. Funk, meanwhile, challenged the industry to really ponder what it means to cultivate good company culture.
“Culture has become a buzz word that’s thrown around,” Choi noted. “Culture is something you can’t touch or feel, it’s something you have to live.”
Choi and Funk stressed that there are many paths to forming a team, and that audience members should take their time to find the one that feels right.
“There’s not one definition of success, there’s not one path that everyone takes,” Choi said. “Everyone is on their own journey and on their own path and it’s not right or wrong.”
“The direction you travel in is much more important than the speed,” he added.
