How Often Real Estate Agents Get Recruited: And How to Stand Out When You Call

Every producing agent in your market has heard a recruiting pitch. Most have heard plenty.

That is the first thing to know about how often real estate agents get recruited. The exact number matters less than what it means. The agent you are about to call has already heard what you are about to say, from someone else, with a nicer slide deck.

So the real question is not how often. It is what you do differently on the next call.

I am Blake Suddath, a real estate recruiter and recruiting coach and the co-founder of Inner Cirql Recruiting Systems with Tyler Lewis. This post covers what I can and cannot tell you about how often agents get recruited, what most offers sound like, and five ways to be the one an agent remembers.

How Often Real Estate Agents Get Recruited, and Why I Will Not Give You a Number

I looked for a figure I would put my name on. I did not find one.

Reader polls exist that ask agents how many times they were recruited this year. Those come from engaged audiences who chose to answer, not from a count of every licensee in the country. I am not going to hand you a percentage and call it fact.

Here is what the data I trust does say. According to Delta Media Group's 2026 Real Estate Leadership Report, covered by HousingWire and Real Estate News, recruiting top agents is a challenge for 63% of brokerage leaders. Real Estate News reported it was their biggest concern for a fourth consecutive year. When most of the brokerages in your market are working the same list of agents, those agents hear from more than one of them.

Now the other side. According to the National Association of REALTORS 2026 Member Profile, reported by NAR, HousingWire and RISMedia, the median tenure for a REALTOR with their current firm is six years. Half of agents have stayed that long or longer, even with all of those calls.

Put those two facts together and you get the picture. Agents are contacted a lot. Most of them stay put. A call is not enough of a reason to move, and they have heard that call before.

What an Agent Hears When Another Team Calls

Think about the last recruiting message you sent.

It probably had a split, a lead source, a brand, a training program and a line about culture. It probably said you are a family. Every other leader's message says the same five things.

The agent is not comparing your offer to nothing. She is comparing it to the last three that called. That is why most offers do not get a no. They get silence.

I say this to team leaders all the time. "We do have a lot of very cool things and stuff… That is not the value proposition. You are the value proposition." The features are the supporting cast. If the only thing separating you from the next call is a better feature list, you are one counteroffer away from losing.

It also helps to look at your own pitch from her chair. The reasons agents tell a team no are rarely about the split, which is what your team value proposition is for.

Five Ways to Stand Out When Every Agent Is Being Recruited

Be a person before you are a pitch. "Human beings leave other human beings. To be led. By other human beings." Agents do not switch to a brand. They switch to someone they believe in. Your first message should sound like one human reaching out to another. Skip the list of benefits. Say who you are, why her, and what you noticed about her business. How to run the first conversation is in the first recruiting appointment.

Invite, do not pitch. The most success I had, for some reason, was a Tuesday at 11am meeting. I would invite people to "just come sit in the back, I'll save you a seat in the back, be a fly on the wall." I had 67 guests at those meetings. I am "not saying, like, it's my way or the highway, I'm just sharing" what worked for me. But an invitation to watch is a different thing from a pitch to listen to. It lets her see the room, which no slide deck can.

Ask what she wants before you say what you have. Most calls open with the team. Open with her. What does she want next year that she does not have now? What is in the way? That one change moves you out of the pile. It also keeps you honest about who is worth bringing in. "They've got to want to grow." If she does not, a better pitch will not fix that. When her current broker comes up, let her talk and do not take the bait. That is covered in how to recruit without trashing their broker.

Reach her through someone she trusts. A cold message competes with every other cold message. An introduction from an agent she knows does not. In 2025, 78 of the 115 agents we hired were referred by producing agents I had recruited. A referred agent walks in already hearing from a peer what the room is like. You get there by being the kind of place your agents talk about, which starts long before the recruiting call.

Make the follow up part of the pitch. Most leaders call once. A no today is not a no. It is a not yet. Put a date on the calendar for 90 days and one for a year, and when you reach out, bring something new to say. One call looks like every other call. A leader who is still around twelve months later is not.

A No Today Is Not a No

An agent who has been in the same place for six years does not move because of an email. She moves when something changes. A split review, a manager who left, a slow year, a leader who stopped showing up.

You cannot schedule that. What you can do is be the person she thinks of when it happens.

That takes rhythm, not volume. The best recruiting habit I know is a boring one. "This will be the same day and time every week for the next 12 months for us." Pick a weekly slot for recruiting conversations and follow ups, and hold it the way you hold a closing. The goal of a recruiting event, as I put it, is to "bring the outsiders in, and the insiders closer." Agents on the outside should be able to see that the people on the inside are better off.

If you stop recruiting when the calendar gets full, the pipeline shows it a season later. That plateau is the subject of why team leaders stop recruiting when business gets busy.

Your Own Agents Are Getting Those Calls Too

Everything above works in reverse.

The agents on your team are getting the same messages you send to other people's agents. Some of them are reading them. A top producer can sit through a year of recruiting calls and say nothing to you.

The fix is not a lecture on loyalty. It is the same set of moves, aimed at your own people. Show up for them. Ask what they want next year. Give them peers worth sitting beside. "If you're attracting part-time agents, it's because you're part-time into your leadership." The same goes for the ones you want to keep.

I wrote about why agents leave in year one, and about keeping the biggest producer in how to keep your top producer from leaving. Read them as the defense that goes with this offense.

Where AI and Your CRM Fit

If you cannot see your follow up, you do not have follow up.

Put every agent you have talked to in your CRM with a stage, a next step and a date. Add one more field. What did she say she wanted? When the 90 day reminder comes up, you can open with her words, not a generic check in.

AI can draft that follow up from your notes in seconds. It can also remind you who has gone quiet. It cannot make the call or sit in the room. Use it for the admin so you spend your time on the part that stands out. Track the numbers behind it in your weekly recruiting KPIs.

The weekly rhythm behind all of this is the Territory Takeover System. The agent's side of the same conversation, what to do when a team comes calling and you are thinking about moving, is on TheInnerCirql.com in how to switch real estate brokerages. The neutral, data version of this post is the reference page How Often Are Real Estate Agents Recruited by Other Brokerages? For what happens in the room once she says yes to a meeting, see What Happens in a Real Estate Recruiting Appointment? For the overview, start on the recruiting page.

The Bottom Line

Agents get recruited all the time. The number is not the point.

Be a person, not a feature list. Invite her to see the room. Ask what she wants. Come through someone she trusts. Follow up for a year. Then do the same thing for the agents you already have.

If you want help building a recruiting approach that stands out in your market, start with one call. Schedule Your Call.

FAQ

No national survey I could verify gives one number, and the figures that circulate come from reader polls rather than a count of every agent. What the verified data shows is competition. According to Delta Media Group's 2026 Real Estate Leadership Report as covered by HousingWire, recruiting top agents is a challenge for 63% of brokerage leaders, so producing agents are contacted by more than one brokerage. Plan for an agent who has heard a pitch before.

Agents ignore recruiting messages because most of them list the same things: a split, leads, a brand, training and culture. An agent compares your message to the last few she received, and when they sound alike she says nothing instead of no. A message that opens with her business and a specific reason you reached out is the exception. It also helps that the median agent has been with their current firm six years, according to the NAR 2026 Member Profile, so a message has to give her a reason to change.

You stand out by making the leader, not the feature list, the offer. Blake Suddath says, "You are the value proposition." In practice that means a personal first message, an invitation to see the team meeting, a first conversation about what the agent wants, an introduction from someone she trusts and a follow up that continues past the first no. Each move gives her something the other callers did not.

Follow up on a schedule for at least a year, because a no today usually means not yet. Blake Suddath's approach is to book a follow up at 90 days and another at one year, and to bring something new each time instead of repeating the first pitch. Agents tend to move when something changes, such as a manager leaving or a slow year, and the leader who is still in touch is the one she thinks of. Log the date and her stated goal in the CRM so the follow up is specific.

Referrals usually work better because the agent hears about the room from someone she already trusts instead of from a stranger. In Blake Suddath's 2025 hiring, referrals from producing agents he had recruited were the largest source of new agents. A cold message competes with every other cold message. An introduction from a peer arrives with context, which is why a team's reputation among its own agents is part of its recruiting.

You keep your own agents by running the same recruiting conversation with them each year. Ask what they want next, give them peers at their level and show up consistently. Part of that is time: "If you're attracting part-time agents, it's because you're part-time into your leadership." The NAR 2026 Member Profile puts median tenure with a current firm at six years, which shows agents stay when the reasons to stay are clear.