Chasing a referral fee through to a closing you cannot see
A signed referral agreement is a receivable that nothing in the stack of the brokerage knows about. The referred party closes in another market, inside a transaction platform you have no login for, and the fee reaches you either as a payee named on the disbursement authorization at that closing or as an invoice the other brokerage settles after it closes. Relocation networks add an invoice cadence of their own on top. With no read access to the far side, the honest trigger is a status change on the property itself, joined back to the referral record, with a follow up scheduled when the referred party goes quiet.
A brokerage runs on dates that were calculated by a person reading a contract, and on leads that arrive in a different shape from every portal.
The listing data is already structured. It lives in the MLS, and since RETS was retired the modern way to reach it is the RESO Web API, which returns OData against the RESO Data Dictionary. Almost nothing else in the transaction is structured. The purchase agreement arrives as a signed PDF that was structured data inside the forms platform ten minutes earlier and got flattened on the way out.
- Follow Up Boss
- SkySlope
- QuickBooks Online
When this is the wrong thing to build
Pick something else if you send referrals rarely enough that every open agreement fits on one page. This earns its keep once the outstanding agreements outlive the memory of whoever signed them, and once several sit in markets where you will never see the closing.
The constraint that shapes it
Negotiating, advising on price or terms, and soliciting are licensed activities performed under a supervising broker. More on how this sector works.
A list of things that are missing, worked until it is empty. Read what this shape is, or start from one of these.
- Asking for the replenishment before the retainer runs to zero
- Chasing medical records until the set is complete
- Getting a deposition on the calendar of every party
- Chasing the warranty credit the distributor has not issued
- Clearing the HERS verification that holds a permit final
- Working an aging replacement proposal before it goes stale
- How do I track outbound real estate referral fees to closing?
- Does title or the brokerage pay the referral fee at closing?
- How do I find out whether my referred client actually bought?
- What happens if the referring broker is left off the CDA?
- How long does a real estate referral agreement stay enforceable?
Back to real estate, or see how this is priced and scoped.