Stories
Every brokerage has a growth story.
These are a few of the leaders who trusted us to become part of theirs.
Cover Story
Joe Maxwell
Broker/Owner
Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Pacific Commons
Recruiting had been something we did between transactions. The moment we treated it as something we build — with the same seriousness we give production — everything changed.”
The Challenge
Joe had led Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Pacific Commons to a respected position in his market. The name carried weight. Agents knew who he was. But awareness and momentum, he found, are not the same thing. “I had conversations that went nowhere. Relationships that stalled. The pipeline felt full until you looked closely — and then you realized most of it was just noise.”
The Turning Point
A manager transition exposed the problem in a way that couldn’t be ignored. When the person managing most of their recruiting relationships left, nearly three years of cultivated conversations left with her. There was no system. No continuity. No institutional memory. “That’s when I understood that I hadn’t built a recruiting operation. I’d built a dependency.”
The Result
Today, Pacific Commons runs a recruiting infrastructure that compounds over time. New managers inherit context. Conversations have history. The organization’s gravitational pull is no longer tied to any single person’s relationships. Agents approaching a transition encounter Pacific Commons early — not because of a cold call, but because the brokerage is already part of their professional landscape.
Momentum leaves clues.
The brokerages below operate in different markets, under different brands, and with different growth strategies. The common thread isn’t geography. It’s gravity.
More Stories
The brokerages that consistently attract strong agents aren’t necessarily the loudest. They’re the most organized about being present in the right relationships at the right moment.”
As a leader within the Engel & Völkers Americas network, Stephanie works with brokerages at different stages of their growth story. What she consistently finds is that high performance isn’t a function of brand or market — it’s a function of infrastructure. The brokerages that recruit well don’t work harder than the others. They work from a more durable foundation.
What changes, in her experience, is the shift from recruiting as an activity to recruiting as an ongoing organizational discipline. Once that shift takes hold, the results don’t just improve — they compound.
Stephanie Harrington
Engel & Völkers Americas
Engel & Völkers Americas
I realized the question wasn’t whether my team was having recruiting conversations. It was whether those conversations would survive if anyone on my team left tomorrow.”
Roger leads MaxWell Canyon Creek Realty in a market where the competition for strong agents is intensifying. For years, his recruiting success was real but fragile — built largely on the personal relationships of a small number of managers. When key people moved, the pipeline moved with them.
The decision to build differently was less about growth and more about resilience. “I wanted a recruiting operation that was bigger than any one person. Including me.” What emerged was an organization where context is shared, progress is visible, and the relationship doesn’t start over every time someone transitions.
Roger Arsenault
Broker/Owner
MaxWell Canyon Creek Realty
The software wasn’t the biggest change.
The way we thought about recruiting was.
Next Chapter
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