Why Agents Leave Brokerages, and the Marketing Fix
Quick answer: Agents leave for leadership and culture first and money second. Marketing support ranks low on exit surveys, at 7% in one study. That low number hides an opportunity: marketing is where agents feel leadership and culture every week, through how their listings look, whether their wins get noticed and how fast leads reach them. Brokerages that make that support visible, personal and consistent give agents fewer reasons to take the next recruiting call.
On this page: How often agents leave · Why they leave · Where marketing fits · What it costs · Seven moves · Retention calendar · Warning signs · After the settlement
How often agents leave
Every study counts differently, so compare methods before you compare numbers.
| Source | What it counts | Agents who switched |
|---|---|---|
| Courted, 2025 report (recruiting software company) | All agents in its MLS data, 2025 | 16%, about 230,000 agents |
| Mike DelPrete, using Courted data (independent analyst) | About 1.4 million agents, June 2023 to June 2024, excluding agents entering or leaving the business | 10% |
| Recruiting Insight with BoldTrail (recruiting data and software companies) | Active agents in four MLSs, 2024 | 13% |
| Recruiting Insight with Lone Wolf and MyBFFSocial, 2026 report (vendors) | 184,097 productive agents in four MLS regions, 2025 | 6.8%, up from 6.0% |
The public brokerages report their own numbers. Compass reported 95.5% agent retention for the second quarter of 2026, and 98.7% when agents with $20,000 or less in GCI are excluded. Real Brokerage reported quarterly agent churn of 6.1% but revenue churn of only 1.9%, which means most of the agents who left were small producers.
Two more patterns from the research matter for retention planning:
- Newer and mid-size producers move most. DelPrete found agents producing $1 million to $10 million churned at the highest rate, and agents with 12 to 23 months in the business were the most likely to switch.
- Big offices leak. In the same analysis, agents were 33% more likely to leave offices with more than 500 agents.
NAR’s 2026 Member Profile puts the typical member’s tenure with their current firm at 6 years. Agents who make it past the early years tend to stay put, so your retention work matters most in an agent’s first two years with you.
Why agents leave, ranked
In a survey Recruiting Insight reported in May 2025, agents who had changed brokerages named their top reason:
| Reason | Share of agents |
|---|---|
| Better leadership or culture | 40% |
| Better split or compensation plan | 23% |
| Other | 19% |
| Marketing support | 7% |
| Technology | 6% |
| Training | 2% |
| Support navigating industry changes | 2% |
Other research points the same way:
- Culture before pay. A BAM and 1000WATT survey of more than 630 agents and brokers found 38.67% of agents who switched named culture or leadership as the top reason.
- Vision matters. A 1000WATT survey of 600 real estate professionals, reported by HousingWire in 2025, found culture, a clear vision and training drive loyalty more than pay or technology.
- Economics still count. Real Brokerage’s June 2026 survey of its own agents ranked splits and economics first. It is a brokerage that competes on economics surveying its own agents, so read it as one side of the picture.
How Brokerages Use Marketing to Recruit Agents covers the recruiting side of this research. This guide is about keeping the agents you already have.
Where marketing fits
Seven percent looks like a reason to skip marketing in a retention plan. Look closer at what agents mean by leadership and culture. They mean feeling supported, seen and set up to win. For most agents, marketing is where that shows up every week:
- Their listing goes live with strong photos, a clean flyer and a post the team shares, or it goes live with nothing.
- Their closing gets a spotlight, or it disappears into a spreadsheet.
- A lead from the team website reaches them in minutes, or in hours.
- They get help building their own name, or a brand kit they are not allowed to touch.
Recruiting Insight’s reading of its data is that agents see operational support as expected, so they rarely name it. When every brokerage claims “full marketing support,” agents stop counting it. The fix is to make your support specific, visible and personal, so agents can feel the difference and would lose something real by leaving.
No study yet proves that a marketing program raises retention on its own. The moves below are practice that lines up with what agents say they value. Track your own numbers to see what works for your team.
What a departure costs
- Direct cost. Survey research shared by Lone Wolf CEO Matt Fischer at Inman Connect put the average cost of losing one productive agent at $18,036, plus about 200 days to get a replacement fully productive. The same research found 74% of brokers say retention matters more than recruiting, only 15% feel confident they would spot a flight risk in time, and 44% do not track it at all. Lone Wolf sells retention software, so treat these as estimates.
- The productivity gap. Courted found the top 100 brands recruited 1.9 agents for every agent they lost, yet grew net volume only 1.8%, because the agents who left were 46% more productive than the ones who replaced them.
- Volume walking out. Recruiting Insight and BoldTrail found agents who moved in 2024 averaged $7.8 million in volume, with a median of $3 million.
Run your own number. Take an agent’s company dollar over the last 12 months, add what you would spend to recruit and onboard a replacement, and add the months of lost production while that new agent ramps up.
The marketing fix: seven moves
1. A marketing kit in the first 30 days
Give every new agent a ready-to-use kit in their first month:
- headshot session
- bio written with them
- business cards and email signature
- social profile setup
- a “just joined” announcement post
- a short walkthrough of how to request marketing help
The first 90 days set the tone, and a new agent who launches with a professional presence has a reason to stay before a competitor calls. The 90-Day Marketing Plan can anchor the schedule.
2. Listing marketing done for agents
Agents spend their own money and hours on every listing. Take that work off their plate with a standard package: photography standards, a listing flyer and property page, a just-listed and just-sold post set, and a short video when the listing warrants it. Write down what every listing gets so agents can see the value and compare it to a competitor’s pitch.
3. Room for each agent’s personal brand
Agents care about their own name, and NAR’s broker reporting notes the personal touch is often lost after rebrands and mergers. Give agents a co-branded kit that follows the team’s standards and your state’s advertising rules, with space for their name, photo and voice. Brand consistency across every agent covers how to set the guardrails, and the team advertising and naming rules guide covers what each state requires.
4. Spotlights and recognition
Recognition is on HousingWire’s list of top retention strategies, and it costs very little. Run a weekly agent spotlight, celebrate closings and milestones, and feature agents in your newsletter and social posts as collab posts, with their consent. The same content does double duty as recruiting proof, as Agent Attraction Content explains.
5. Fast, fair lead routing
For newer agents, leads are a lifeline. A lead that waits an hour is a lead the agent never had a fair shot at. Route team leads in minutes with clear rules agents can see. Speed to lead and lead routing walks through the setup.
6. Content training, including AI
Teach agents to make their own content in a weekly or monthly session: what to post, how to film a listing tour on a phone, how to use AI tools for drafts, and what compliance review looks like. Training builds skill agents keep, and it ties them to the people who taught them. Using AI in real estate marketing covers the rules.
7. A vision agents hear about
Agents who know where the team is headed are happier where they are. In the 1000WATT survey, 87% of agents who said their brokerage has a clear vision were happy there, and fewer than half of the rest said the same. Share the plan in a short monthly video or email from the leader: the goals, the wins, what is changing and why.
One rule for any paid support: if you fund ads for your agents, build real campaigns in Meta Ads Manager or Google Ads. Skip the Boost button. Organic social or paid ads explains why.
A retention calendar
Put these check-ins on the calendar for every new agent:
| When | What to cover |
|---|---|
| Month 1 | Marketing kit delivered, profiles live, “just joined” post published, first lead routed |
| Month 3 | Review first listings and leads, adjust the content plan, ask what support they wish they had |
| Month 6 | Production check, spotlight their first wins, set a personal brand goal |
| Month 9 | Training needs, lead flow, anything a competitor might be offering |
| Month 12 | Anniversary post, year-one review, plan for year two |
After the first year, a quarterly one-on-one keeps the conversation going. HousingWire’s reporting on regular check-ins makes the case that a short, steady conversation catches problems before an agent starts taking recruiting calls.
Early warning signs
Watch for these before an agent walks in to resign:
- marketing requests stop
- they skip training and team meetings
- their social profiles drop your brand or logo
- lead acceptance slows or they pass on leads
- production drops for two quarters in a row
- they ask detailed questions about their agreement or what they own
Treat any one of these as a reason for a conversation, and three as a reason for a meeting this week.
After the NAR settlement
The practice changes that took effect in August 2024 added pressure, and agent counts have come down slowly. NAR membership peaked at 1,600,886 in October 2022 and stood at 1,453,690 at the end of May 2025, and NAR’s 2026 budget plans for about 1.2 million members. Switching between brokerages has held steady: Courted found the same 16% in 2024 and 2025. No study ties agent switching directly to the settlement.
For retention, the takeaway is simple. Agents who stay in the business are working harder for each deal and paying closer attention to what their brokerage gives them. Show them, every week.
Key takeaways
- Between 1 in 15 and 1 in 6 agents switch brokerages each year, depending on how you count.
- Agents leave for leadership and culture first and money second. Marketing support ranks low on exit surveys.
- Marketing is where agents feel leadership and culture day to day. Make it specific, visible and personal.
- Losing a productive agent costs real money and months of ramp-up time.
- Start with a 30-day kit, listing marketing done for agents, room for their own brand, recognition, fast lead routing, training and a clear vision.
- Check in at months 1, 3, 6, 9 and 12, and watch for the warning signs.
Free templates: the Brokerage Marketing Audit, 90-Day Marketing Plan and Team Marketing Budget.
Sources
Show all 15 sources
- HousingWire, Courted: 16% of agents changed brokerages in 2025 (Courted sells recruiting software)
- Mike DelPrete, 10% of agents changed brokerages in the last 12 months (2024)
- HousingWire, Study shows brokerage leadership is driving agent movement (2025) (Recruiting Insight and BoldTrail data)
- HousingWire, Agent movement flat, but $15.7B in volume changes hands (2026) (Recruiting Insight, Lone Wolf and MyBFFSocial data)
- Compass, Second quarter 2026 results
- The Real Brokerage, Second quarter 2026 results
- National Association of Realtors, The Feature Sheet: 2026 Member Profile
- Recruiting Insight, The real reason agents change brokerages (2025) (a recruiting data company)
- BAM, Agents adapting, not leaving (BAM and 1000WATT survey)
- HousingWire, Real estate agents show conditional loyalty to brokerages (2025)
- Real Brokerage, June 2026 agent survey (a brokerage surveying its own agents)
- Inman, The recruiting and retention crisis brokers can’t ignore (2026) (Lone Wolf survey research)
- National Association of Realtors, What top agents want from a brokerage and Agent retention strategies (2026)
- HousingWire, 13 of the best real estate agent retention strategies and Why regular check-ins are the unsung heroes of agent retention
- Real Estate News, NAR in 2026: a new plan, new leaders, fewer members and The Real Deal, NAR braces for membership drop (2025)
Frequently asked questions
What percentage of real estate agents switch brokerages each year?
It depends on who is counting. Courted's 2025 report found 16% of agents changed brokerages in 2025. Recruiting Insight, which counts only productive agents, found 6.8%. Mike DelPrete's analysis of Courted data found 10% over 12 months in 2023 and 2024. Most studies land between 1 in 15 and 1 in 6.
What is the number one reason agents leave a brokerage?
Leadership and culture. In a survey Recruiting Insight reported in 2025, 40% of agents who switched named better leadership or culture as their top reason, and 23% named a better split. Surveys run by brokerages that compete on economics rank money first, so read each one with its source in mind.
Does marketing support keep agents from leaving?
Agents rarely name it as the reason they left. In the same survey only 7% did. No study yet proves that a marketing program raises retention. Marketing is where agents feel leadership and culture every week, though, through their listings, their brand and the recognition they get.
How much does it cost when an agent leaves?
Lone Wolf survey research shared at Inman Connect put the average cost of losing one productive agent at $18,036, plus about 200 days for a replacement to become fully productive. It is a software vendor's survey, so treat it as an estimate and run your own numbers from the agent's last 12 months of company dollar.
Should a brokerage boost agents' posts to keep them happy?
No. Boosted posts tend to buy cheap reach without results, and they can hurt a page's organic reach. If you fund paid support for agents, build real campaigns in Meta Ads Manager or Google Ads with a clear goal and audience.