Land Sales and Referral Fees for Real Estate Agents in North Carolina

Land Sales Real Estate Broker Eric Andrews pays a referral fee to other Real Estate Agents who refer sellers of land to him, his specialty. Eric sells land in Chatham, Wake, Orange, Durham, Randolph County and more. Eric refers a lot of buyers to other real estate agents in the area. He also sends sellers to other agents outside of his area of expertise.

Speaker 1:           What is a referral?

Eric:                        A referral is when another real estate broker either gives you a buyer or a listing. So, I’m very lucky that I have a group of real estate agents in Wake, and Orange, Alamance, and Moore County. They don’t like doing land. So they say, “Eric, you can do it. Can I have a referral?” I gladly pay them a referral.

These are really, really good agents that I have a lot of respect for that sell a bunch of houses in Durham or a bunch of houses in Sanford, but they don’t like land. So, they recommend me. I sign a referral agreement with them. I go ahead and list the land just like I normally would. I don’t charge anybody any extra. Then the commission that I would normally get based on our agreement, I give 25% to that referring agent.

So, that’s a referral on the listing side. It happens to me sometimes too. I have somebody that has a piece of land up in the mountains. They say, “Eric, you’re my land guy. I want you to sell this land up in the mountains.” So I’m like, “I really don’t know the mountains. I don’t know the issues. I’m not part of that MLS.” So then I call up one of my land guys or women and say, “Hey, do you want this land listing?” Then when it sells, I get a referral.

Probably the biggest thing that I’m known for is I give away a lot of buyers because I normally have between 10 and 50. Gosh, at one point I had 77 listings before we had this shortage of inventory, but because I have so many listings that’s my focus, whatever. So, I’m not able to handle buyers. So buyers will call, will say, “Eric, I really want to know more about this land,” and I’ll tell them about it. They’re like, “Well, that’s not for me. Can you find me something?”

Unfortunately at this point in my career, I call it a bird dog. I’m not a good bird dog right now. I think I’m a good consultant. So if you find a piece of land right now, I can tell you. If you say, “Eric, go out and find me.” I’m not good at that right now, but there are agents that are very good at that. So I can give that agent that client, and that’s referral. So when they end up buying that piece of land, then I’ll get 25% or whatever.

Every then and now, you have a buddy that says, “Hey, I want to buy a place at the beach. I’ll give him your name. You’ll get a referral.” I’m like, “Yeah.” So, that works out great too. So, it’s just really good and it helps. There’s not a single agent that doesn’t like referrals out there. It’s a good thing. It helps promote our industry and it helps us keep all connected. So, love referrals.