Corporate and government relocation is a growing segment of the real estate industry. Corporate mergers, reorganizations and job promotions fuel the need for companies to move employees from one location to another. With dual careers, school-age children and multigenerational households, moving can impact more than just the transferee. The increasing complexity of moving employees has helped fuel the growth of third-party relocation companies, which, in handling the logistical and financial aspects of moving an employee, are an integral part of the employer’s human resource team.
Approximately 1.5 million employer-assisted relocations take place each year, according to the Employee Relocation Council. Working with relocation clients can add upwards of 20 percent to agents’ sales volumes annually, according to Realtor magazine, and relocation referrals can increase your business more regularly than farming. Because of this, brokerages that see a heavy volume of relocation business typically have a dedicated relocation department and a team of relocation agents, who they train in the specific tenets of the business.
The purpose of relocation training, which includes certification programs, is to provide agents with the tools and information necessary for them to be extremely well-versed in the relocation process, set expectations and be aware of requirements that must be followed as part of the rigid process.
Utilizing a target recruiting and training strategy is common among larger brokerages, although the prerequisites for becoming relocation agents may differ from company to company. For example, according to Mary O’Neill, the relocation manager with Baird & Warner, agents looking to join the relocation team at Baird & Warner need to have been in the business full time for a minimum of three years, receive approval from a manager, and above all, demonstrate impeccable customer service skills, effective communication and flexibility.
Once agents are approved to become relocation agents, they begin their training. Baird & Warner hosts a large training seminar annually at the beginning of each new year, which all relo agents need to attend to remain in the department. If agents join mid-year, O’Neill does a smaller, one-on-one training session with them. The training focuses on how the relo sale process is slightly different from traditional sales, and addresses such challenges as why it’s important to be upfront with relocation details. Also important is how guidelines and procedures differ with each corporate relocation company that works with Baird & Warner. Many relocation management companies have their own required relocation training and certification classes that agents may take. Typical training includes relocation procedures, policies and administration, required relocation documents and how to interact with transferees. This area of real estate requires even more records, documents and signatures than a typical real estate transaction. Corporate clients insist that their transferees will work with relocation-trained agents who understand the ins and outs of the relocation process.
O’Neill emphasizes that no policy is ever the same, and agents need to make sure everything they do is in line with the corporate company – and not mix up policies.
“We get referrals directly from relocation management companies and find out about how the policies will work and how we can meet their service level agreement,” O’Neill says. “Every company rates us after every transaction, which helps us stay in preferred broker networks.”
Katie Traines, a broker with @properties in Winnetka, first started receiving transferee referrals from past clients while an agent at Coldwell Banker. When she became an @properties agent, she immediately joined its relocation team and started training. Her relocation business prospered.
As a high volume broker associate with Baird & Warner in Edgebrook, Rebecca Cleal was invited to join the brokerage’s relocation team, and even with many years of experience as an agent, she underwent rigorous in-house relocation training.
Training Options
Though the National Association of Realtors offers a class in relocation representation via its Realtor University, the course goes towards an agent’s ABR designation, rather than one specific to relocation. Outside of NAR, however, the Certified Relocation Professional designation, or CRP, is the accepted standard in relocation. To qualify for the CRP, an agent first must satisfy one of two eligibility requirements: they must hold membership with Worldwide ERC, a relocation services trade group with more than 12,000 members, for at least 12 months; or, they must have one year of corporate relocation-related experience, and be recommended by an existing CRP member. If one of those two requirements are met, the agent must then pass the ERC certification exam, which covers corporate relocation policies and procedures, among other topics. We should stress that the CRP is not required to work in relocation real estate. Though there are benefits to having such a distinction and being a part of the Worldwide ERC family, it’s not a requirement; in fact, with the exception of Traines, the agents noted in this story have all been successful in relocation without the designation.
Sometimes an agent’s market determines – or demands – their focus on relocation. Collette Weikum, an agent with RE/MAX Professionals Select in Naperville, found almost immediately after beginning her real estate career in 1995 that, given how drenched the Naperville marketplace was in transferees, she would have to work with relocation clients.
Matt Laricy, the managing broker of Americorp Real Estate, currently counts international transferees as 20 percent of his real estate business, but much of that clientele simply found him online. An aggressive advertiser, Laricy purchases ad space on every major real estate website, and international clients, who were on those sites and looking for Chicago-based agents for their transfers, saw his ads and began contacting him with their business.