Real Estate Recruiting With MLS Production Data: How to Find Agents Worth Calling

Most recruiting lists are a phone book with a license filter.

Every agent in the county. Sorted alphabetically. Handed to whoever has the time to dial this week.

Then the team leader wonders why nobody picks up, why the people who do pick up are not a fit, and why recruiting feels like cold calling with extra steps.

The calls were never the problem. The list was.

I am Blake Suddath, a real estate recruiter and recruiting coach and the co-founder of Inner Cirql Recruiting Systems with Tyler Lewis. I work with team leaders and broker owners on recruiting. This post is about real estate recruiting with MLS production data: what the numbers tell you, what they cannot tell you, how to build a target profile before you pull a list, and how to turn that list into conversations with agents who are worth your time.

Here is the short version. Production data tells you who to call. It does not tell you who to hire. You need both halves.

Why Most Recruiting Lists Waste Your Week

Recruiting is the pressure brokerage leaders feel most. According to Delta Media Group's 2026 Real Estate Leadership Report, covered by both 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 the fourth year in a row.

When something is that hard, the instinct is to do more of it. More dials. More messages. A bigger list.

That instinct burns out recruiters and leaders fast, because a bigger list of the wrong people is just more rejection. A newly licensed agent with zero closings, an agent two hours from your nearest office and a 30-year veteran who has turned down every team in town all look the same on an alphabetical list. They are not the same call.

A short list of the right agents beats a long list of everyone.

What MLS Production Data Tells You About an Agent

MLS production data is the closed and active transaction history tied to each agent: how many deals they closed, their volume, whether they work more listings or more buyers, which brokerage they are with and where they do their business. Most teams get it through their MLS or a production data tool built on top of it.

Used well, it answers four questions before you ever pick up the phone.

Are they producing? Closed units over the last 12 months tell you whether this is a working agent or a license on a shelf.

Which way are they trending? One number hides the story. Twelve months compared to the 12 before that tells you whether an agent is climbing, steady or sliding. All three can be good recruits. They are different conversations.

Where do they work? The addresses on their deals tell you whether they sell in the market your team can actually support.

What kind of business do they run? A listing-heavy agent and a buyer-heavy agent want different things from a team. Knowing which one you are calling changes the first question you ask.

Before you build anything, check your MLS's rules on how member data may be used. Each MLS sets its own, and the last thing a recruiting system needs is a compliance problem.

What Production Data Cannot Tell You

Here is where most data-driven recruiting goes wrong. The leader finds the agents with the biggest numbers and calls them first.

Production data cannot tell you if someone is coachable. It cannot tell you if they are kind to your transaction coordinator, if they want to grow or if they will make the agents around them better. That is the half that decides whether a hire works.

In a recorded interview I said it this way: "If you're a jerk, I don't want to work with you. I don't care if you sell a thousand homes. Or you run a hundred person team." The filters I care about are growth mindset, coachable, full time and positive energy. "They've got to want to grow."

None of that is in the MLS. You find it in conversations. So the job of the data is to get you into the right conversations, and the job of the conversations is to decide.

Build Your Target Profile Before You Pull a List

Do not start with the data. Start with the agent you want. Then use the data to find them.

On a working call with a team about their recruiting pipeline, I walked them through the profile we filter for. A minimum of four sales in the last 12 months. Within 60 miles of a physical office. At least 10 months in the business. And a ceiling on years in the business, which for that team's model was 17 years, because very long-tenured agents tended not to be looking for what the team offered. We also agreed not to recruit in markets the team could not support yet, no matter how good the names looked.

Your numbers may be different. The point is that you decide them on purpose, write them down and filter for them every time, so the list reflects the team you are building instead of whoever happens to be licensed nearby.

A good profile answers three things. A production floor, so you are calling working agents. A geography, so you only recruit people you can support. And a fit, the type of agent your team actually helps, whether that is experienced agents who want leadership or growing agents who want a system. If experienced agents are your target, the full playbook is in how to recruit experienced real estate agents.

Read the Trend, Not the Total

Two agents both closed 12 deals last year. One closed 20 the year before. One closed six.

Same total. Completely different call.

The agent who went from six to 12 is building. They want more of what got them there, and the conversation is about the next step. The agent who went from 20 to 12 may be stuck, burned out or missing support they used to have. That conversation is about what changed.

Look at tenure at their current brokerage too. An agent who just moved last month is probably not moving again. An agent who has been in the same place for years with a flat or sliding trend may be more open than you think. They just have not had a reason to talk.

None of these signals mean an agent will leave. They tell you what to ask about. That is all data should do in recruiting.

Turn the List Into Conversations

A great list does nothing until someone calls it. And the first call should never sound like you just read their MLS history.

"I saw you closed 14 deals last year" makes most agents feel watched. Make the first call about them. Where they want to be next year. What is working. What is not. The data stays in your notes and shapes your questions. It does not become your opener. I wrote out the words that work in recruiting scripts that do not sound like recruiting.

Then add the best filter you have: your own agents. Run the list past your producing agents and ask who they know, who they respect and who they would want on the team. In 2025, 78 of the 115 agents we hired (68%) were referred by producing agents I had recruited. Production data finds names. Your agents tell you which names are worth calling. I break that loop down in why agent referrals became our best recruiting source. For the data on how teams source and track those referrals, the reference page on how real estate teams get recruiting referrals covers the numbers.

Once you have a yes to a first conversation, move fast and book the second meeting before the first one ends. The reasons are in why speed wins in agent recruiting.

And if the person making those calls is a recruiter on your team, The Inner Cirql has a useful guide on how many calls a real estate recruiter should make.

Five Production Data Recruiting Mistakes

Only calling the top of the list. The highest producers in your market get recruited constantly and usually have the least reason to move. The agents just below them, who are climbing and want leadership, are often the better first calls.

Recruiting where you cannot support. A great agent 90 minutes from your office who never sees your team is a hire you will lose. Geography is a filter, not a suggestion.

Treating the data as the pitch. Agents do not join a team because you know their numbers. They join people. I said it on a call: "That is not the value proposition. You are the value proposition."

Pulling the list once. Production changes every month. A list pulled in spring is stale by fall. Refresh it on a calendar, the same way you run your recruiting time block.

No record of who you called. If the list and the conversations live in two places, you will call the same agent three times and forget the one who said "call me in March." The list belongs in your CRM with a stage and a next date for every name.

Where AI and Systems Fit in Production Data Recruiting

A CRM holds the list, the stage of every agent and the next date to reach out. AI can summarize an agent's last 24 months of production into two lines, flag who just crossed your production floor, spot an agent whose trend turned and draft notes after every call so nothing gets lost. That turns a raw export into a short, ranked list a person can actually work this week.

What AI should not do is make the call or decide who fits. The data narrows the field. People decide. The tools worth looking at are in real estate recruiting software and what you need. For a side-by-side of the tool categories, the reference page on the best real estate recruiting software covers what each one does.

In the Territory Takeover System, target lists and recruiting numbers are reviewed in the weekly operator one-on-one with Tyler and me, the same day and time every week for 12 months, so the list gets refreshed on a calendar and not when someone remembers. The full picture is in what the Territory Takeover System is, and the hub for team leaders is the recruiting page.

For the neutral reference version of this post, see How Do You Find Real Estate Agents to Recruit?

The Bottom Line

Real estate recruiting with MLS production data works when the data has a job. Build your target profile first: a production floor, a geography you can support and the type of agent your team helps. Read trends, not totals. Keep the data in your notes and out of your opener. Run every list past your producing agents. Then let conversations decide who fits.

A short list of the right agents, called consistently, beats a phone book every time.

If you want help building your target profile and the system that works it every week, the first step is one call. Schedule Your Call.

FAQ

You use MLS production data for real estate recruiting by filtering agents against a target profile you set in advance, then calling the agents who match. A useful profile has a production floor, such as a minimum number of closings in the last 12 months, a geography your team can support and the type of agent your team helps. The data narrows the list, and conversations decide who fits. According to Delta Media Group's 2026 Real Estate Leadership Report, reported by HousingWire and Real Estate News, recruiting top agents is a challenge for 63% of brokerage leaders, which is why a focused list matters.

The most useful production numbers are closed units over the last 12 months, the trend compared with the prior 12 months, the split between listings and buyers, and where the agent's deals are located. Total volume on its own can mislead, because two agents with the same total can be heading in opposite directions. Tenure at the agent's current brokerage adds context, since an agent who just moved is rarely ready to move again. These numbers tell you what to ask about, not whether someone will join.

A good target profile sets a production floor, a geography and a fit for the kind of agent your team supports. One profile Blake Suddath has walked a team through uses at least four sales in the last 12 months, a location within 60 miles of a physical office, at least 10 months in the business and a ceiling on years in the business that fit that team's model. The exact numbers should match your team. What matters is deciding them on purpose and filtering for them every time.

Not always, because the top producers in most markets are recruited constantly and often have the least reason to move. Agents just below the top, especially those whose production is climbing and who want leadership, are often stronger first calls. Real Estate News reported that recruiting top agents was brokerage leaders' biggest concern for a fourth consecutive year in Delta Media Group's 2026 survey. Production data helps you find the climbing agents that a top-of-the-list approach misses.

No, production data cannot tell you if an agent is coachable, positive or a good teammate, and those traits decide whether a hire works. It only tells you who is producing, which way they are trending and where they work. Fit is found in conversations, and producing agents already on your team are a strong filter because they know who they respect. In 2025, 78 of the 115 agents hired (68%) were referred by producing agents Blake Suddath had recruited.

AI helps with real estate recruiting lists by summarizing each agent's production history, flagging agents who cross your production floor or change direction, and drafting notes after every call. A CRM then holds every agent's stage and next contact date, so the list does not go stale between pulls. AI should not make the call or decide who fits. According to Delta Media Group's 2026 report, reported by HousingWire and Real Estate News, 63% of brokerage leaders find recruiting top agents a challenge, and that challenge is solved in conversations a system can support but not hold.