I've been doing this 28 years. 1998 is when I first got my license. And the thing nobody tells a brand-new agent is that the exam that lets you in has almost nothing to do with the job that's waiting for you on the other side of it.
Key takeaways
- California's real estate exam is genuinely difficult, but the price of admission to sit for it is low: 18 years old, a GED, and the ability to study.
- The commission split is the easiest number to compare between brokerages and often the wrong one to decide on.
- Ask a brokerage about its litigation history, franchise sales, and whether you can build a personal brand alongside its brand, especially with AI changing how agents market themselves.
- Contracts and scripts can be learned for free online. The judgment to run them under pressure cannot.
- The most important choice a new agent makes usually isn't the brokerage. It's the agent inside it who agrees to train them.
The exam is hard. The job is harder, and nobody grades it a second time
I'm not going to give you the whole historical thing to make you feel warm and fuzzy about how it used to be. But back then, in the late 1990s, there was an old guard, and it wasn't easy to get into real estate the way people think it is now. You had to become a realtor, pay the fees and the dues, and before any of that, you had to pass the test.
Here in California, that test is tricky. Not tricky from a memorization standpoint. Tricky in how the answers are set up. It's built that way on purpose, I think, because the price of admission to sit for it is so low. You can be 18 years old with a GED and that's it. Then you can become a real estate agent making millions of dollars a year, if you're good, the moment you pass.
So the real question comes right after the license shows up: what brokerage am I going to join, and who's going to give me the best deal? That comes down to what you're worth, how you talk to people, and how well you can convey that worth to a broker when you're brand new, wet behind the ears. You might land with a team. You might work under another agent. Some brokers will take a risk and put a new agent out on the front lines alone. But there's a liability piece to that too. You're an independent contractor, yes, but you sit under the brokerage, and when something goes wrong, unless you're a broker yourself, that relationship is what protects you or doesn't.
What to actually ask when you're interviewing brokerages
When you start interviewing brokerages, understand you're allowed to ask for what you want. Here's where to start, and I wrote up the fuller version of this list in how to choose a real estate brokerage in 2026.
The commission split. It's going to look different company to company. Some take half. Find out what half actually looks like and why it's half. Are leads generated for you as part of that agreement? A split number by itself tells you almost nothing, which is exactly why I'd rather agents run the full comparison in stop chasing the highest split than anchor on one digit.
Branding. Find out what their agreement is on branding. Can you go outside the lines and build your own personal brand alongside the brokerage's? That matters more now than it used to, because with artificial intelligence and the innovations coming, your personal brand is going to carry more weight than it ever has.
The brokerage's own history. Look into their record. Some brokerages are part of lawsuits right now, or were part of past lawsuits that could get resurrected, or settled ones worth knowing about. If it's a franchise, find out whether they're selling, or becoming part of another company, or getting acquired by one you'd rather have nothing to do with. Maybe they just have a bad track record. Do the homework.
The question that matters more than any of those
Probably the most important part of all of this is what kind of support they actually give you, and what they'll do to make you better in the field. You can go online right now and pull scripts. Real estate coaches give plenty of that away for free. You can memorize all of it. You can learn contracts. That's all learnable.
What isn't learnable from a printout is the mechanism. The little nuance things. The time-on-the-job things. And that's the part of this I didn't fully understand until I watched myself fail at it in a completely different job.
I had the certificate. I still knew nothing
I was a cop for a long time, with the LAPD. I took all the classes, got all the certificates. I had the scores to get into the instructor school, and I completed it. I was a good enough shot, knew the manipulations, and had the marks I needed. So I taught here and there, mostly in-service, meaning officers who already knew how to shoot. That was at a divisional level.
Then, at one point, I got bumped up to the police academy because they didn't have enough instructors. I had the credential. When I got there and was put on the line, on the range, with actual recruits, that's when I realized I knew nothing about being a firearms instructor. Zero. I'd gone through the class, but the class hadn't made me a good instructor.
What made a good firearms instructor was watching the people who'd done it for 20 or 30 years, day in and day out. They had encyclopedias full of tactics and drills, and the ability to take someone terrified of the explosion at the end of a pistol or shotgun and teach them to embrace it, get patient on the trigger, and work through the manipulations in a high-stress environment. I showed up thinking I was fantastic in the firearms world. I found out I was nothing. I ate a lot of humble pie those first few months, and I'm still nowhere near the level of the instructors who were up there at the Los Angeles police academy. Brilliant tacticians. Incredible people.
Fifty ways to handle it, one way that actually works
I bring that story into real life, because when you're a brand-new agent looking for the proper brokerage, maybe more important than the brokerage is the agent you align yourself with. If they're going to extract all your muchness, pull every deal you can generate from your friends and family, and leave you by the side of the road after, that's not who to align with. But if they have an actual plan to build you, teach you the ropes, and cover the parts you can't learn from a script, that's different.
You can learn contracts. You can memorize scripts. But actually learning the inner-working negotiation process with other agents, and knowing how an expert handles the problems your sellers and buyers are going to face, that's different. There are 50 ways to handle almost anything in this business, but really there's only one way that works well, and it's usually hidden behind newness. Someone who's knowledgeable, who's done this before, has a story for every scenario. I've been at this 28 years since 1998. I haven't experienced everything, but I've experienced enough to understand how it all interconnects. That's the mindset I'd want a new agent looking for when they pick who they're going to learn from, more than which logo is on the building. I wrote more on why the broker being reachable at all matters in culture is not a perk.
Why I picked Sync
Myself, I chose Sync Brokerage. It's more of a boutique firm, several offices, not nationally traded, and I get a lot of comfort there. I'd been with a national franchise. I'd been with Compass. I'd been with eXp. I'd been with RE/MAX. Sync is what I like. I don't know if they take every new agent, I've never really asked that question, but if you look like you might be able to learn, and you have a good heart and good ethics, I think that solves the biggest part of it. There are way too many people in this business who just want to take what they can and run. I put the fuller side-by-side of that decision in why I switched after 28 years.
The short version
Passing the exam proves you can study. It doesn't teach you the job. What teaches you the job is the agent willing to hand you their encyclopedia of tactics, the same way the instructors at the academy handed me theirs after I found out my certificate meant nothing on the range. Pick that person as carefully as you pick the brokerage. Usually more carefully.
Frequently asked questions
What should a new real estate agent ask when interviewing brokerages?
Ask about the commission split and what is actually behind it, whether leads are generated as part of that split, whether you can build your own personal brand alongside the brokerage's, and the brokerage's history with lawsuits, franchise sales, or acquisitions. Then ask the most important question: what will they actually do to make you better.
Does the commission split matter most when picking a brokerage?
It matters, but it's the easiest number to compare and often the wrong one to decide on. The real question is what's behind the number, and whether real support, technology, or leads come with it.
Why does mentorship matter more than the brokerage's brand?
Scripts and contracts can be pulled online for free and memorized by anyone. What separates a new agent is knowing how an expert handles the negotiation or the problem in the moment, and that's taught by an experienced agent, not printed on a website.
What is Connor MacIvor's LAPD firearms instructor story about?
Connor earned every certificate needed to attend LAPD's firearms instructor school, then discovered on the range with real recruits that the class hadn't made him a good instructor at all. The veteran instructors' years of hands-on experience had. He applies the same lesson to picking a brokerage.
Why did Connor MacIvor choose Sync Brokerage?
After Coldwell Banker, RE/MAX, eXp Realty, Compass, and Realty ONE Group, Connor went all in with Sync Brokerage in February 2026, drawn to its boutique, non-nationally-traded setup.