What a Transaction Coordinator Does for a Brokerage
A transaction coordinator for a brokerage manages the administrative side of your agents’ files from executed contract to closing. Deadlines get tracked, every document gets checked for completeness as it comes in, title and the lender stay on schedule, and your back office stays current. The file reaches your desk complete, and you make the call.
That’s what Freedom Real Estate Services does for brokerages. We’re administrative support only: the broker supervises the agents, approves the file and signs off on the commission disbursement. We make that review faster by handing you a complete file.
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▼Why Brokers Bring In a TC
Agents are a brokerage’s business. Agents stay where their deals close cleanly and they get paid on time. A file that comes back three times for missing initials holds up the agent’s commission and wears on everyone. A file that arrives complete gets approved and paid.
Your office manager has better things to do than chase signatures. File review goes quickly when the file is complete. It drags when every file needs another round with the agent.
Consistency. Some agents send complete packages. Others send a photo of a contract taken in their car. When the same process runs on every file, every file looks the same when it reaches you, or when someone opens it two years from now.
What We Handle on Every File
These are the items in our transaction coordination service, $395 per side, per file:
- Kickoff: introduction email to the other agent, the escrow officer, the lender and any other necessary parties; the executed contract sent to the other agent, title and the lender; title’s receipt of the contract tracked; key dates emailed to the agent
- Deadlines and documents: earnest money and option fee delivery tracked; survey, T-47, seller’s disclosure, resale certificate and subdivision information tracked; every contingency date tracked with reminders 48 hours ahead; every document tracked and organized
- Communication: weekly updates to title, the lender and the other agent after the option period; a key-dates report every Monday and a status report every Thursday to the agent
- Closing: closing scheduled with title; reminders about utilities, mail forwarding and smart-home access; help completing the CDA request; a complete copy of every transaction document after closing
- Broker compliance: every document checked for signatures, initials, dates and blanks against your brokerage’s requirements, and the back office kept current
The agent is copied on everything, including every email with title. Forms are filled out only at the agent’s specific written direction; we don’t draft contracts or advise on terms.
Listing coordination is $125 per listing: the listing agreement checked against your broker’s requirements (if you provide them), the photographer, stager, sign and lockbox install scheduled, and the listing sent to the agent for review and approval before it goes live.
What Stays With the Broker
- Supervision of your agents
- File review and approval before the agent is paid
- The commission disbursement authorization: we help the agent complete the CDA request; you approve it
- Money: earnest money, option fees and commissions stay between the parties, title and your brokerage. We never handle money.
- Records: keeping transaction records is the broker’s and the agent’s job. The agent gets a complete copy of every document after closing for the agent’s and the brokerage’s records.
If your brokerage doesn’t have a written checklist yet, start with our real estate compliance checklist and the free Broker Compliance File Checklist. In Texas, use the Texas Broker Compliance Checklist.
The Compliance Gaps We See Most
These show up in almost every brokerage where agents manage their own files:
- Amendments signed by one side and not the other
- Missing initials on page two and beyond
- Signatures with no date
- Disclosures referenced in the contract but missing from the file
- Old form versions mixed with current ones
None of them is complicated. They get missed because a busy file has dozens of documents and nobody checks each one when it arrives. That’s the part we do.
How TREC Is Looking at TCs
Texas’s real estate commission has had transaction coordinators on its broker committee’s agenda all year, including a possible TC disclosure and a recommendation to add TC and assistant use to the broker’s policies and procedures manual. We cover what was discussed in TREC’s October BRAC meeting. The questions TREC is asking, who’s working on the file and whether the broker knows, are ones our process already answers: one dedicated TC owns each file, the agent is copied on everything, and the broker keeps final say.
In-House Admin or Outside TC?
Plenty of brokerages weigh hiring their own transaction coordinator or admin against using an outside TC company. Both can work. The differences:
| Outside TC company | In-house hire | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Per file, usually paid at closing | Salary, payroll taxes and benefits every month |
| Slow months | Fewer files, lower cost | Same payroll |
| Coverage | A backup is already on every file | When they’re out, files wait |
| Hiring and training | Done before your first file | Yours, and again when they leave |
| Management | We manage our team | You manage them |
| Office work | File work only | Can also cover the front desk, phones and office tasks |
An in-house person makes sense when you have steady volume and office work beyond the files. An outside TC makes sense when volume moves around, when you don’t want another employee to manage, or when you want coverage that doesn’t depend on one person. Many brokerages do both: an office admin for the office, and a TC for the files.
Pricing for Brokerages
- Transaction coordination: $395 per side, per file, usually paid at closing through title
- Listing coordination: $125 per listing
- No retainers, minimums or long-term contracts. You pay for the files you send us.
- If the deal doesn’t close, the transaction coordination fee is waived.
- Steady volume? Ask about volume pricing.
See the full pricing page for add-on services.
How Getting Started Works
- A call with us. We learn your brokerage’s size, volume, current process and requirements.
- Your requirements. Send us your checklist and any brokerage-specific forms or steps. If you don’t have a written checklist, use ours as a starting point.
- Agent onboarding. Each agent signs a little paperwork and emails us their next executed contract. Onboarding is same day or next day.
- The first files. Your agents’ files come in and get worked against your requirements from day one.
Call (713) 364-4382 or send us a message to talk about your brokerage.
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