FirstTeam’s Michele Harrington talks innovative recruitment strategies for brokerages

In this week’s episode of the Power House podcast, host Diego Sanchez sits down with FirstTeam Real Estate CEO Michele Harrington for a provocative conversation about female empowerment, leadership in the real estate industry and recruitment strategies.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. The duo start the conversation by exploring Harrington’s path into the CEO’s role at FirstTeam.

Michele Harrington: After entering real estate sales right out of the Marine Corps, I built my own brokerage. Six years ago, my whole company came over to FirstTeam. Over time, I became chief operating officer. And then, Cameron Merage thought I could really lead the company into the next generation. 

Sanchez: When you look at the industry, only 26% of leadership positions in real estate are held by women, even though over 60% of real estate agents are women. Why is that? 

Harrington: For women, we want the flexibility of having a great career, a family and other things in our lives. When you look at the leadership track, it’s a little bit more structured. We do a disservice to our industry when women don’t step up and lead. I chose to step up and lead because I love our industry and I felt like I had something to offer it. 

Sanchez: You’re also pretty out front right now with recruiting. FirstTeam is on track to surpass $1 billion in recruited teams this year. How are you doing that in this crazy housing market? 

Harrington: We have a unique way of recruiting. We’ve always been a new-agent company. Our licensing school brings in brand-new agents, whom we train and develop to help them become superstars. If you take the top 10 agents in Orange County right now, eight of them started at FirstTeam. 

Most brand-new agents fail. In doing research, when we put brand-new agents on a team, they succeed. These teams are hugely growth-minded teams and they want to recruit. So, we figured out a way to get seasoned agents that have or want to grow these teams, and their production is growing by 20%, 30% or 40% a year. 

We bring over these teams and then we recruit for the team. So, that’s why they’re attracted to us, and that’s why they grow with us. 

Sanchez: Are you thinking at all about expanding FirstTeam beyond California? 

Harrington: We think it’s best to keep our fortress really strong and still grow. So, organic growth by spreading into adjacent territory is ideal, as opposed to skipping over and going to a big city somewhere else in the country. 

Sanchez: We’re seeing some green shoots in the housing market. How is 2025 looking for your business?

Harrington: I think 2025 is going to be a good year, and this year really turned around for us. We sold the corporate office, which cut out a lot of overhead. We ended an expensive partnership and we also recruited a lot. Now that we have this upward trajectory going into 2025 — and I expect the market to improve as well — I think 2025 is going to be a good year for us.