Question about my first year in commercial real estate.
Hey r/commercialrealestate, longtime lurker here with a question about my first brokerage. I apologize in advance for the wall of text. 

TLDR at the top to save time: I feel like I fucked up in choosing my first brokerage which churns and burns new agents after they exhaust deals from their networks. 

I began my foray into commercial real estate  around a year ago by joining one of the larger local brokerages in my city.  The brokerage does around $150m in sales annually and tends to have around 10 agents at any given time.  

However there was nor is any training to speak of and after multiple ignored requests to be taught or mentored I’ve pretty much given up asking. The general consensus from the several partners who run the brokerage pretty much amounts to either figure it out on your own or don’t which is somewhat frustrating. When I’m not actively working on something for an existing deal the lack of any guidance leads to me sitting at my desk most days reading industry news, textbooks and other stuff by commercial realtors on how to basically try to do my damned job. 

In the year since I’ve started I’ve sourced several deals of varying sizes from my existing network; from tenant rep, retail, office, and industrial leases to apartment complex sales. On each of those deals I’ve been required to bring on one of the senior partners to oversee the deal, which honestly sounded great in the beginning as I’m more than happy to split a commission for the opportunity to learn from someone with more experience. However the reality was vastly different with the other agents never doing any work on the deals or offering any guidance and just expecting their share of the commission at the end. Often without even knowing the details of who the buyers, sellers or the tenants were. To make matters more frustrating there has never been any reciprocity from the senior agents by bringing me or other new agents onto any of their deals. It’s been exclusively the other partners. 

Our brokerage also uses lead/client database management software which all new agents are required to utilize for the purpose of “better tracking their network to source leads”.  So if I have an off-market 80 unit apartment complex I’m selling I can search for multifamily buyers inside the brokerage database which shows me if fellow agents have an existing relationship with any of those buyers and then reach out to whichever agent has the relationship and ownership of the client/buyer database entry. However it’s been a regular problem with new agents to have our client and network database entries reclassified under the senior partners to show them as the agent who should be contacted for that particular individual. This is particularly troubling to me as I have individuals I’m very close with in my database who own $100s of millions worth of property who I’ve know since long before I even thought about doing commercial real estate and no other agents should be contacting them. 

On the subject of other new agents, during the year I’ve been with the brokerage I’ve seen 4 other new agents come and go. Most inside of 6 months and after exhausting their individual networks and families for deals and sharing similar frustrations to mine. 

My main question amounts to, is this typical for commercial real estate brokerages? Is it pretty much a figure it out on your own industry? A lot of this behavior leaves me with a bad feeling and suspicious that this brokerage is taking advantage of inexperienced agents.
[{"id": "ijuzpfb", "text": "You learned a lot of how this business works. It runs on the blood of dumb young kids. \n\nYou learned your lesson, you are on your own and these people only care about themselves and you get what you kill. take everything you can from this place and go someplace else. \n\nThis is normal for most young brokers and is almost a sadistic rite of passage. \n\nAnother thing I learned, this is a relationship business and by treating all these kids so poorly, they are doing themselves dirty. How many of these brokers that leave are going to bring these clowns in on deals? \n\nAnyway, don\u2019t feel bad, learn your lesson and move on. Find better brokers to work at and you can search for other broker alumni from this chop shop to commiserate with.", "replies": [{"id": "ijv2sr4", "text": "That\u2019s unfortunate, but what I suspected. Are there even brokerages out there who train new agents, or do I pretty much just need to find any brokerage to put my license with while I try to figure it out on my own?", "replies": [{"id": "ijvb87e", "text": "It is a crap shoot and depends on your niche. If it is only sales, the nnn and multi family people, it is mostly just cold calling and exactly like where you are now. These are your Marcus and matthews type places. The goal here is to eventually run your own pyramid scheme and not be as sleazy as the next guy. \n\nIf it is leasing, whole different story. \n\nLook at what your contract says. Usually anything sourced while you were at your current place means they get a cut. Usually brokers will sandbag, not enter in any activity, jump ship and then do all those deals at the new place. If your brokers here are petty, and they probably are they can threaten legal action so be prepared. \n\nBut if you are super fed up, just jump to Keller Williams or something, they may not have training but not like you are learning a lot here. \n\nAnyway, good luck. Don\u2019t get bummed out and don\u2019t burn your current relationships or network. It takes a couple years to figure things out. \n\nFirst rule of brokerage: GET PAID", "replies": [{"id": "ijvcxy4", "text": "So how do new agents learn this industry if the senior agents often aren\u2019t willing to mentor?", "replies": [{"id": "ijvf9pb", "text": "Trial and error? Major firms may have a young broker program that covers basics such as cold calling and prospecting techniques or crm tools or networking events to meet appraisers or property managers ect. \n\nYou do sales, which means the basics were covered in getting your real estate license. \n\nAnd if you are buy side, it means knowing how to read pro formas, secure financing, put together cash flow models and projections and basically walk the buyer through the sale and handle random shit that comes out of the woodwork. \n\nIf you are sell side, that is putting together an om, marketing it, taking and qualifying leads and holding the sellers hand and dealing with random bullshit that comes your way. \n\nSo a big part of the business is dealing with random bullshit and having experience in how to get things done. \n\nThe first sale is the hardest but gets easier the more you do and are familiar with common pitfalls ect. \n\nIf the deals you did were super smooth, you probably could have done them yourself. The downside is if you have a deal with a bunch of hair on it, how hard is your senior broker going to work to fix it? If not at all, then you simply exist to feed these senior guys deals and you will be the guy with the most seniority after one year because \u2026 this industry runs on dumb young kids.", "replies": [], "depth": 5}, {"id": "ijvjpue", "text": "they don't.  90% fail. New agents are designed to be free labor", "replies": [], "depth": 5}], "depth": 4}], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ijv7pws", "text": "its typical particularly at the bigger brokerages.  I'd suggest finding a boutique/smaller brokerage that does deals you are interested in and meet with the managing broker.  There are a lot of places where individuals or partners worked at the large brokers then got tired of the shit you are talking about, or got stuck because their specialty had a high producer who they could never hope to get above and advance who are more relaxed on these things and are more focused on building their business vs taking every penny from you they can.\n\nThe downside is you can get a bit stuck without the higher connections of a CBRE etc.  Look at your NAI's and ones that focus in your market.  \n\nYou really need to decide what you want to do.  If you want to do huge deals you are going to have to tolerate some level of corporate bullshit.  You will sometimes have to initiate it too.  I'd respond by, in your example, going to whoever put their name on my client and having a chat about how they are a life long relationship and they were clear they wanted you handling their business.  Sometimes you gotta push back so people don't walk all over you.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]