Moving your license is one of the few decisions in this business you make rarely and live with daily. Most brokers do it two or three times in a career, which isn't enough repetition to get good at it. That's why so many moves get decided on a single number in a recruiting pitch and regretted around month six.
Below are seventeen questions worth asking any Washington brokerage, including this one. They're grouped by theme, starting with money and ending with the ones almost nobody thinks to ask until they're already on the way out. A brokerage that's thought about its own model will answer all seventeen without hesitating. If a recruiter deflects on more than one or two, that's your answer.
The money
1. What's the total annual cost at my actual production?
Not the monthly fee. Not the split. The total, run against the number of transactions you closed last year.
This matters more than most brokers expect, because plans cross over against each other at different volumes, and a brokerage offering three flat plans usually has two crossover points sitting inside its own menu. A plan that's obviously cheapest at two deals can be the most expensive at fifteen. Ask for the arithmetic at your real number, and ask specifically where the crossovers fall between the plans on offer. Any brokerage that can't produce that in five minutes hasn't done it.
2. What's billed on top of the monthly fee and the transaction fee?
The usual suspects: errors and omissions coverage, MLS dues, lockbox or key access, association dues, technology or CRM fees, transaction coordination, marketing packages, franchise fees, per-listing charges, and desk or office fees if you want somewhere to work from.
Ask for the list in writing. "No hidden fees" is a marketing line, not an answer.
3. Is there a cap, and does it reset on my anniversary or on the calendar year?
This matters if you're comparing against capped-split brokerages. A cap that resets on your personal anniversary behaves differently from one resetting in January, especially if you join mid-year and end up paying into two partial cycles.
4. Do I have to join the National Association of REALTORS®?
In Washington this question has real money attached, for a structural reason that doesn't apply in most states. The Northwest Multiple Listing Service is independent and member-owned, and it isn't affiliated with NAR. MLS access here doesn't run through NAR membership the way it does almost everywhere else, so brokerages can and do differ on whether they require it.
Association dues run several hundred to over a thousand dollars a year depending on your board. If a brokerage requires membership, that belongs in the cost comparison from question 1.
5. How and when do I get paid?
Direct deposit, mailed check, or in-person pickup. Same day at closing, or on a payment cycle. This sounds minor right up until you're three weeks into a cash-flow gap.
What's required of me
6. Is there a minimum production requirement?
Some brokerages will part ways with you below a threshold. Some quietly move you onto a worse plan. Ask whether one exists, what happens if you miss it, and whether it's ever actually been enforced.
7. Is there floor duty or opportunity time, and is it optional?
If it's required, it's an unpaid time cost and it belongs in your comparison. If it's technically optional but that's where the leads come from, it's effectively required. Ask which one you're dealing with.
8. Can I run a team, or operate a DBA under my own branding?
Rules vary widely between firms, and they're often not written down anywhere until somebody asks. If you're building something with your own name on it, find out now what you're allowed to put on a sign, a website, and a business card.
Support
9. How many brokers does each managing broker supervise?
Washington firms operate under a designated broker, with day-to-day supervision commonly delegated to managing brokers. That's a licensing structure, not a service level. The service level is the ratio, and it varies enormously between firms.
Ask for both numbers and do the division yourself. Then ask the follow-up that actually matters: when I call at 6pm on a Friday with a contract question, who picks up?
10. Is there a transaction processing team, and is it included?
An in-house team catches missed deadlines, unsigned addenda, and forms that went out incomplete. Whether one exists, whether it costs extra, and whether it's one overloaded person or an actual department are three separate questions with three separate answers.
11. Who reviews my contracts before they go out?
Some firms review everything. Some review nothing. Both are defensible, but you should know which one you're joining, particularly in your first couple of years or your first year in an unfamiliar property type.
12. What does training actually look like, and who teaches it?
"Extensive training" can mean weekly live sessions taught by producing brokers, or a login to a national video library nobody opens. Ask for the current schedule rather than a description, and ask who taught last week's session and what it covered. A firm that runs real training can tell you immediately.
Tools and leads
13. What technology do I get, what does it cost, and can I take my data when I go?
Personal website, CRM, lead routing, design support, listing media. Ask which are included versus billed, then ask whether you can export your contact database on the way out. Some CRMs make that deliberately difficult, and you won't find out until the day you need it.
14. Are leads provided, and on what terms?
If they are, ask about referral fees, distribution rules, and whether priority is tied to production or to which plan you're on. If they're not, that's a perfectly good answer, and it should show up in the price.
Leaving, which is when it counts
15. What are the exit terms?
Read this part twice. What happens to pending transactions if you leave mid-deal? Who pays the transaction fee on something that closes after you're gone? Is there a notice period? Do listings stay with the firm or travel with you, and what does the listing agreement actually say about that?
16. Does errors and omissions coverage follow me after I leave?
Almost nobody asks this, and it's the one that can cost the most. E&O is typically written on a claims-made basis, which means a claim filed after you leave, about work you did while you were there, may or may not be covered depending on how prior-acts or tail coverage is handled.
Ask who carries the policy, whether prior acts are covered for departed brokers, whether tail coverage is available, and who pays for it. Get the answer before you need it, because afterwards is too late to negotiate.
17. What's your broker turnover, how long has leadership been in place, and who owns the firm?
Turnover is the most honest metric in this industry and the hardest one to get. Ask anyway. If nobody will give you a number, ask how many brokers joined and left in the last twelve months, or ask to be introduced to a broker who's been there more than five years and talk to them without a manager in the room.
On ownership: independent firms get acquired and franchises change hands. Ask what the structure is today and what's happened historically.
The question that tells you the most
Ask every brokerage this one last, after all seventeen: who are you genuinely not a good fit for?
Every model has a shape. High-support, higher-cost models are hard to justify for someone doing two deals a year. Low-cost, low-support models are rough on a newly licensed broker who needs somebody to answer the phone. A recruiter who tells you their brokerage suits absolutely everyone is telling you they haven't thought about it, or that they're paid per recruit.
A note on timing
A license transfer in Washington runs through the Department of Licensing. Your new firm adds your license on their end, you accept the invitation, and the change takes effect. If you're a Northwest MLS member, your new firm submits a separate transfer request.
One thing causes most of the delay, and it's avoidable. Fingerprint background checks expire after six years, and results can take up to two weeks to come back. If yours are close to expiring, get them redone before you separate from your current firm. Do it afterwards and you can sit inactive, unable to work, while you wait.
The one answer we'll publish
Asking a brokerage to sit its own exam is fair, so here's question 1 in public.
Skyline Properties offers four compensation plans. Annualised, before any add-ons, where n is transactions closed in a year:
| Plan | Annual cost | Cheapest when you close |
|---|---|---|
| $79/month, 80/20 split, no transaction fee (licensed 2+ years only) | $948 + 20% of gross commission | Essentially zero deals |
| $149/month + $495 per transaction | $1,788 + $495n | 1 to 2 deals a year |
| $199/month + $269 per transaction | $2,388 + $269n | 3 to 10 deals a year |
| $299/month + $159 per transaction | $3,588 + $159n | 11 deals a year and up |
The crossovers land at roughly 2.7, 5.4 and 10.9 transactions. So the $149 plan is never the cheapest above two deals a year, and the $299 plan doesn't win until eleven. We'd rather tell you which one fits your volume than default you to the largest.
The 80/20 plan needs an assumption to compare properly, because it scales with commission rather than transaction count. At one deal it only beats the $149 plan if your gross commission is under roughly $6,675. At six deals, under roughly $3,175 each. On a typical Puget Sound sale those thresholds don't get close, so realistically it's a plan for holding a license rather than producing on.
That's the one we'll put in writing on a public page. The other sixteen we'd rather answer in a conversation, where you can push back on the answer instead of reading a paragraph that can't be cross-examined. Ask us all seventeen, and hold us to the same standard as everyone else on your list.
Who we're not a good fit for
Two groups, honestly.
Brokers who want the lowest possible fixed cost to park a license will find cheaper options in Washington. Skyline Properties is built around staffed offices in Seattle, Bellevue, Bothell, Kent and Puyallup, with managing brokers you can actually reach and weekly training that's free to attend. That costs something. If you don't intend to use any of it, don't pay for it.
Brokers who want a national franchise brand doing the trust-building for them are describing the opposite of what we are. We've been independent and locally owned since 1988, with no franchise and no parent company, which means the broker is the brand and the brokerage exists to support that rather than the other way round. More about how the firm works.
Take the list with you
Ask all seventeen at every brokerage you talk to, including the one you're at now. The comparison only works if the questions are identical.
If you'd like to see what your own numbers look like under different structures, or you just want to put the awkward ones to a working managing broker, start a conversation. No pitch, and no obligation to move. You can also browse the brokers already here and reach out to any of them directly, which is usually more informative than talking to anyone whose job is recruiting.
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