Junior slot on a luxury team where the split math doesn't obviously work

14 sides across a team, how many people are on the team? If there are four juniors already, three to five sides for you means the team needs to grow deal count or someone has to leave. I'd want last year's actual per-person side count, not the projection. Same thing happens on the construction side when a GC tells you how many jobs are in the pipeline and it turns out two of them are still in permitting.

The percentage question you're circling is the one worth pinning down, and the direction of travel supports your caution. Redfin's analysis after the new commission rules found buyer-agent commissions on luxury homes ticked slightly lower, while commissions on more affordable homes held or rose. So the high end saw marginally more fee pressure in percentage terms. What cushions it is that the percentage is applied to a very large number. A 25 basis point drop on $3.4M is $8,500 off the side, and the side is still worth more than most general-market transactions produce in full.

Run your decision at 2.0% rather than 2.25% and see whether it still clears. At 2.0%, three sides at your 27% net is roughly $55,000 and five sides is about $92,000. If the offer only works at the top of both ranges, it's a thin offer.

The assumption doing most of the work here is deal flow, not fee level. Your comp is 30% of something you do not source. On a luxury team, access to inventory and to buyers runs through the lead's relationships and reputation, and those are exactly the assets that are hard to replicate. That's what you'd be buying with two years and a non-solicit. It's also why the general-market alternative isn't automatically better, since owning your own leads in a crowded general market means competing with a large supply of agents for clients who have less reason to pay for expertise.

Ask for named side counts per junior for the last two years. If the lead won't produce them, that's your answer on flow.

Take the general market. Three to five sides a year of someone else's clients teaches you how to open a lockbox for rich people. You'll learn more in twelve months doing eleven cheap deals you sourced yourself, and you'll have a database at the end of it. Still, girder is right that the per-person number matters, and if it turns out you'd be the only junior my answer flips.

Dumb question but what's a non-solicit actually stop you doing here? If you meet a buyer at an open house on their listing, are they the team's client forever or for a period? I'd want that defined in months and in writing, because "clients of the team" can be read very broadly and it's the sort of thing you only find out about when you try to leave. An attorney in your state should look at it before you sign.

The clothes line is funny but it's also real. Budget the actual number. Car that doesn't embarrass anyone, decent photography if you ever get a listing of your own, dues, and the fact that you'll be driving people around at your own fuel cost for two years. I'd call it $12k to $18k a year at the low end of respectable in that price band, which eats most of the difference between your three-side and four-side scenarios.

Boring point, but four months licensed and a two-year lock is a long commitment to make on Friday. Ask for a one-year term with a renewal. If they won't move on the term at all, that tells you how they think about juniors.

flint, I don't think eleven cheap deals teaches the same thing at all. The people who buy $3.4M houses run a different process, and you learn that by standing in the room while it happens, not by doing volume at the bottom. rigging, the thing I'd push on is whether the lead actually intends to hand you relationships or just labor. Ask who introduces you to the past clients. If the answer is nobody, you're renting yourself out.