Growing Your Business
When to Hire a Transaction Coordinator and What One Handles
Updated
Bottom line: Hire a transaction coordinator once you know the contract paperwork well. Then hand over deadline tracking from contract to close so your hours go back to clients.
When is the right time to bring in a transaction coordinator?
Learn the paperwork first. One of the REALTOR® Magazine 30 Under 30 agents profiled in a RE/MAX News feature gives that order directly: master the documents, then hire.
Once the forms are second nature, the same agent says a coordinator can change your business.
What does a transaction coordinator handle from contract to close?
RISMedia describes the TC role as carrying a deal from signed contract through closing so it moves without snags.
RISMedia names deadlines as one duty: a coordinator helps keep every party to dates such as inspection periods, financing contingencies and closing dates.
What changes in your week after you hand off the file?
One agent in the RE/MAX News feature expected the handoff to feel like stepping out of the deal. Instead, it freed that agent to show up more for clients.
Another agent in the same feature moved administrative work off his plate and put the time into deeper client relationships.
Mittelsteadt, also profiled there, points to the moment she quit doing everything herself and started relying on other people's strengths.
For a busy practice, the pattern is the same: the paperwork goes first, and the relationship work stays with you.
What does Keller Williams Southwest put behind your practice?
Our office at 1650 Highway 6 in Sugar Land has 14 people behind you, covering marketing, technology, a productivity coach and compliance.
You get weekly one-on-one coaching, classroom training, and a yearly business plan reviewed every month.
A 12-agent Associate Leadership Council sets office strategy, so producing agents have a seat where those decisions get made.
If you want to talk through where a coordinator fits in your plan, Jana Hayes can walk through it with you.
Filed in The team, for agents who are growing.
Questions & answers
What do Sugar Land agents ask about this?
Will a transaction coordinator charge me less if I send them a lot of files?
Possibly. RISMedia reports that agents and brokers who expect to use coordinator services frequently may be able to negotiate a lower per-transaction fee. A lower fee is something you negotiate, not a published discount. Bring your expected yearly file count to the first conversation. The coordinator can then price the volume you are offering rather than one deal at a time.
For a starting point, RISMedia notes that some coordinators charge a flat fee per transaction, from $300 to $1,000 or more. The article ties where a fee lands to factors it sets out alongside that range. Ask each coordinator what moves their price, and get any volume rate in writing before you send the first file.
If I join a team, does a brokerage still sit over my transactions?
Yes. RE/MAX News notes that a real estate team, even while it runs as its own entity, still operates under a brokerage. Here, the team is Keller Williams Southwest, Powered by Keller Williams, and the brokerage is Keller Williams. Ask any team you are weighing which brokerage it operates under before you go further.
The same question matters once you bring in a coordinator. Ask the team how its compliance staff and your coordinator split the review on each file. Confirm which brokerage name appears on your documents before your first contract goes through.
Should I hire my own transaction coordinator or join a team that has systems in place?
It depends on what your practice needs. One voice in a RE/MAX News article on why agents join teams said the answer varies with the individual agent. A coordinator takes deadlines and paperwork. A team can add coaching, planning and shared staff around you. Weigh which gap is slowing your production before you choose between them.
Some agents end up with both. If you are weighing a team, ask how it handles contract-to-close work and who on staff does it. Compare that answer with what an outside coordinator would cost you per file.