If you spend time and money recruiting the best agents into your brokerage, you also need to understand why agents could look to leave. Even the most impressive brokerages are at risk of agent churn, so it is worth asking: are your agents still getting what they came for? And are you giving them enough reasons to stay?
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal gives a worrying take that real-estate professionals are reaching breaking point and walking away from the business. Yet agents are a resilient demographic who have often had long careers. National Association of REALTORS®’ (NAR) data shows 74% of agents are “very certain” they’ll remain active in the business for at least the next two years.
The question is, will they remain in place with your brokerage? Big firms’ risk agents losing agents to boutique firms. Those at smaller businesses can be lured by promises of bigger and better things.
Here’s what it means for you as you work to build the best possible brokerage.
The 5 Reasons Agents Leave The Best Brokerages
Pinpointing every reason agents drop out is challenging, but it’s worth noting that real estate attracts a demographic that may have had a career in another sector where people are joining later in life.
A 2025 Member Profile of Real Estate Agents reveals that the typical real estate agent is 57 years old and often comes from fields like sales, retail, business, or finance.
But retirement isn’t the whole picture. The actual concern is that while veteran agents are staying put, fewer new ones are entering the field. NAR’s own total membership is projected to fall from 1.6M to 1.2M. Here’s how to lock in the agents at all levels.
1. Real estate income can be slow to start
Let’s tackle the elephant in the room: all new agents have to build a strong network before the commission checks follow.
Research has shown that when agents do get 16 or more years of experience, an incredible 40% find that repeat clients make up more than half their business.
Even the best-resourced brokerages have to contend with this time lag.
If agents leave too soon during the process, the investment in training and marketing walks out the door with them.
What you can do about it:
You can’t manufacture experience, but you can make early income more sustainable. New agents need to see that leadership is accessible, support is hands-on, and momentum is possible before their personal network is fully mature.
The right technology can also reduce the time it takes to spot and act on opportunities, perhaps a client who has entered the database but can’t move forward just yet. By giving agents a clear follow-up process, that interest won’t go cold.
2. The agency proposition doesn’t feel as sharp over time
Agents joined for a reason. The problem is, that reason can start to feel less differentiated. NAR data shows that while 70% of agents focus primarily on residential sales, many grow their businesses by adding secondary specialties such as property management, commercial leasing, or corporate relocation.
Meanwhile, competitors get louder and more specific in their value propositions and their real estate advertising. It can be tempting for an agent to think the brokerage across the street is doing something radically different.
What you can do about it:
Watch for the signs of stagnation: income cycles lengthening, transactions slowing, or agents becoming less engaged with the tools, training, and support already available to them.
Investing in tools that help agents manage their database, nurture opportunities, market themselves consistently, and track business activity, something they can use every day to build a more resilient business.
3. Technology doesn’t work hard enough
As shown in a study, 58% of real estate agents use tech to aid listings daily, including apps for CMAs, contact management, and social media management tools.
That makes outdated or disconnected systems harder for agents to ignore.
Agents want tools that reduce the grind —making automated follow-up, pulling CMAs (comparative market analyses), and marketing support effortless. If your tech stack feels clunky, or worse, if they don’t trust it, they’ll start looking elsewhere.
New agents especially feel the impact of poor technology. Without an established book of business or a referral network, relying on cold outreach alone, without the momentum that automated marketing provides, leaves agents burning out fast.
What you can do about it:
Invest in technology that feels genuinely useful to agents, not just impressive in a sales demo. AI-driven lead follow-up, lead scoring, automated marketing and database nurturing can all take real time off an agent’s plate.
Consider what technology helps them achieve and remind agents of your investment. When agents can see the outcomes, the tool becomes easier to adopt. More importantly, the brokerage feels like it is giving them an advantage they would not want to lose.
4. Agents get insufficient mentorship
Agents might not always know they need a mentor, especially if they have spent years in another sector before moving into real estate. But the industry has specific nuances that take time to learn. How should they handle a client with a complex contractual arrangement? How should they approach a high-value property appraisal? What should they say when a seller has unrealistic expectations?
Mentorship is not just for newly licensed agents. Even experienced professionals can face situations they have not handled before. Yet real estate suffers the same as other sectors. A People Management study showed that up to 25% of workers receive no training at all beyond initial onboarding.
Great brokerages will fall short if support drops away, as great agents will follow.
Real estate keeps presenting new challenges in year one and, let’s be honest, in year ten.
Your agents need confident responses to those challenges that keep coming, rather than a feeling that questions are discouraged after onboarding.
What you can do about it:
Mentorship does not have to mean long sessions or classroom-style training. It can be as simple as designating a team member to be available, virtually or in person, on a set day each week.
Agents may bring specific questions from live deals, difficult conversations, or stalled opportunities. If they do not, the time can be used to cover common pressure points such as marketing tactics, calculating resale values, handling objections, improving follow-up, or navigating client expectations.
When agents know support is regularly and proactively available, they are less likely to feel tempted to look elsewhere.
5. Inconsistent follow-up systems
88% of buyers say they’d use their agent again (NAR 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers), but only 13% actually do (Zillow)
Real estate runs on repeat and referral business, but those results depend on whether agents trust the database enough to use it properly.
Too often, agents are unsure what will happen to their data, who can access it, and whether they will retain control of the relationships they have built.
As we covered in Data Ownership Is the Adoption Problem No One Is Talking About, an agent who has built a strong database of past clients and referral partners may still fall back on manual follow-ups, handwritten notes, spreadsheets, and workarounds if they are uncertain about data security.
That creates a bigger problem for the brokerage. Follow-up becomes inconsistent, marketing campaigns miss valuable contacts, and leadership has less visibility into the real health of the business. The database may exist, but it is not being used as a shared source of momentum.
What you can do about it:
When agents are not sure their database is secure, adoption becomes conditional. Tools are used partially. Workflows fragment. Follow-up depends on individual habits rather than a consistent system.
Make data ownership and transparency part of the technology conversation from the start. Agents need to understand how their contacts are protected, what happens to their data if they move teams or roles, and how the brokerage’s systems help them grow relationships rather than take control away from them.
When agents trust the system, they are more likely to use it. That means stronger follow-up, better long-term nurturing, and a database that supports retention instead of creating resistance.
Real Examples Of Brokerages Strengthening Agent Retention
Brokerages do not have to solve agent retention with guesswork. The strongest examples show a clear pattern: make the brokerage easier to work in, give agents better tools to grow their business, and make the value of staying more visible.
These issues can feel difficult to solve in theory, but the brokerages making progress tend to focus on the same thing: making support more visible, practical, and useful in the agent’s day-to-day work.
Barrett Sotheby’s International Realty is a good example of how centralized technology can strengthen the brokerage proposition. The team needed a more connected platform that would reduce tech fatigue, integrate with existing tools, and support recruitment and retention. By placing MoxiWorks at the centre of its tech stack, the brokerage gave agents a clearer hub for running their business and a stronger reason to see the firm’s support as a genuine advantage. Read the case study
CENTURY 21 Beggins Enterprises faced outdated technology, uneven agent engagement, and ambitious growth goals. By adopting MoxiWorks, Jimmy McNally (Sales Manager) attributes nearly $90,000 in additional production per agent per year to fully leveraging MoxiWorks’ marketing technology. Read the case study
JBGoodwin REALTORS® shows how the right technology can help independent brokerages compete with larger national brands. Before MoxiWorks, agents were using separate tools, which made training harder and created more inconsistency across the business.
With a centrally managed tech stack, JBGoodwin gave agents a shared system, stronger automation, and a clearer reason to see the brokerage’s technology as a competitive advantage. Read the case study
Are Your Best Agents Quietly Shopping Around?
The only way to know for sure is to ask. But you do not have to wait until an agent is already halfway out the door to act.
If your agents are frustrated by slow lead follow-up, inconsistent marketing, weak database visibility, or tools that add more admin than advantage, those problems will not stay quiet forever. They affect income, confidence, and the agent’s belief that your brokerage is still the right place to grow.
RISE by MoxiWorks helps brokerages connect their database, surface repeat and referral opportunities, and give agents a clearer way to act on the relationships already in front of them.
If you want your agents to:
- Spot repeat and referral opportunities in their database
- Follow up with interested contacts at the right time
- Build and refresh custom audiences from CRM data
- Identify their top 5 Contacts with a daily AI-prioritized contact list
- Access AI-powered campaigns and presentations, such as a two-way Canva integration for branded templates
- Move faster with pre-designed templates and writing support
When your agents can see more opportunities, act faster, and market themselves more consistently, your brokerage becomes harder to leave.
