Agent Migration:  More Movement Trends

by | Jan 21, 2026

As I mentioned last week, our quarterly Agent Migration Report will be published the first week of February.

The Q1 update will also include recruiting insights from all of 2025.

As we crunch the data, here are some of trends that are starting to emerge:

Seasonality. Last year, agent movement spiked in January and April.

Now is not the time of year to take a break from recruiting!

Internal Brand Transfers. A surprising amount of agent movement happens

inside the same parent brand (19% of all agents who move).

Agents who stay with the same brand are 25% more productive than those agents who change brands.

Changing everything all at once typically hinders performance, at least for a while.

The Listing Wall. Listings are the main reason agents stay.

When listings start to decline, it increases the chances an agent will leave by 15%.

This is both a retention marker for your existing agents and a recruiting signal for your competitors.

The Succession Cliff. Over 20% of agents are legacy veterans (25+ years of experience).

Many of these agents are seeking an exit.

Brands that fail to offer a succession path face a massive loss of profitable revenue.

The Top-Heavy Threat. A surprising number of brokerages have a single agent or team contributing more than 30% of their production.

This creates a single point of failure and puts an organization at significant risk.

Use these criteria to quickly benchmark your own agents for flight risks and your competitors’ agents for recruiting vulnerabilities.

And then get busy.

These insights only become valuable when they drive action.

 

The Simple Psychology of Real Estate Recruiting [2nd Edition]

Unlock the secrets of effective real estate recruiting. Revised to include actionable frameworks for sharper execution and to help you turn psychological theory into a repeatable recruiting system.

Agent Migration: Q1 Had Some Big Surprises

Agent Migration: Q1 Had Some Big Surprises

While there’s a lot to digest, it’s critical to apply these insights to your recruiting strategy in the months ahead. That’s one of the reasons we’ve partnered with Lone Wolf to host a live webinar covering the Q1 Agent Migration trends you need to understand to compete effectively. Industry veterans Mark Johnson and Kyle Hunter will lead the session, simplifying the data, prioritizing what matters most, and outlining clear, actionable steps you can take.

How to Get it Right by Being Wrong

How to Get it Right by Being Wrong

There are several well-documented strategies researchers have discovered, but the easiest one to implement quickly is using a structured interview process. Develop a common set of questions for your interviews and record the answers candidates provide (take notes). And then try to hold back judgment until after the interview and when you’ve had time to review your notes.

Doing Only the Things You Like Doing

Doing Only the Things You Like Doing

For most recruiters and hiring managers, recruiting is a complex, end-to-end process containing a bunch of the individual tasks all of which they’re not going to enjoy. Those who push through unpleasant tasks not only find success but also find more satisfaction in the parts of the recruiting process they do enjoy.