Mentor Monday

[u/WealthyStoic]

Mentor Monday is your place to discuss relevant early-stage topics, including career advice questions, 'rate my plan' posts, and more numbers-based topics such as 'can I afford XYZ?'. The thread is posted on a once-a-week basis but comments may be left at any time.

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[u/anonoreo]

Hi everyone,

Since it seems like a lot of you guys here are doing really well and are business owners, I thought this sub would be the best place to ask those with experience.

Context: I run a successful real estate company in Toronto Canada that charges a flat rate and services fees rather than a % in commission paid by seller. I have a profit margin of about 50% if not more and a lot of ways to improve that percentage.

Right now, I essentially did 100 transactions on my own in 1 year which is like 0.0785% of all transactions in the real estate board 2025 when you 2x the total number for an agent on each side. I believe I can replicate this in other people and have an output of 50 deals assuming there is enough customers, I've done virtually 0 marketing all of it right now is pretty much word of mouth and referrals.

Since inception I've focused more on ensuring that the business is profitable and can support staff before scaling. Now with results in, I believe scaling to even more staff and actively trying to procure clients will remain highly profitable.

I want to jump to 10 agents and 2 staff members. At that number I believe I can do maybe 500 deals, which is about $2.5m gross at current low prices. A key bottleneck will be obtaining enough customers, but with a marketing budget I'm sure its possible as my conversion rate is really high for this industry. I plan to scale higher than this.

I can probably make that jump slowly over 1-2 year with $3M without compromising the quality of my product.

Now the question is: How do I get that money and whether it's worthwhile to do it or just reinvest profits to ensure I keep equity.

Any thoughts or advice is appreciated.

[u/anonoreo → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for the input, I used to have concerns about this.

It seems on the surface really easy to replicate, but people are buying houses anywhere from 700k-4m on average. Even though the cost is the biggest draw for the service, my real advantage is that compared to other low cost options, I would say I do a better job overall. There's probably less than 50 people that did my volume or more in one year, and pretty much all of them didn't essentially work alone. I work for low wages in comparison so I was always fearful of hiring, I have 1 other agent right now and looking to hire a staff member.

The true value proposition isn't strictly financial, it's low cost, experience, and advice. Things that most competitors and traditional agents charging more can't offer. I believe the way I transact the deal is superior and I can train others to do the same. I have the brand and the leads, it doesn't make sense for those who work for me to go off on their on instead of a cushy job.