Every question,
answered in public.

The whole schedule: $200 a month all-in with E&O insurance included. $149 per closing ($25 broker compliance review plus $124 risk management). Your split is 80/20 until Circle’s share reaches $16,000 in your anniversary year, then $250 per transaction. One-time enrollment is $500 for new agents, $300 for experienced agents (5 or more closings in the last 12 months). Full detail on Why Circle.

A cap is the most a brokerage will take from your commissions in a year. Every deal, Circle keeps 20% of your commission until those pieces total $16,000 in your anniversary year. After that you keep 100% of every commission, minus a flat $250 per closing. Team members have a lower $8,000 cap.

Why it matters: a percentage split with no cap scales against you. The more you produce, the more you pay. A cap turns the brokerage into a fixed cost. See it on your own numbers.

You keep everything except a flat $250 per closing and the standard $149 transaction fee. There’s no royalty that keeps running and no reset mid-year; the cap resets on your anniversary date.

No, no, and no. Circle is independent, so there’s no franchise to feed. Desk fees (monthly rent for office access) don’t exist here; the office, print, and coffee are covered by the $200. If you’re comparing us to a franchise office, ask them two questions: what’s the royalty percentage, and does it continue after you cap? Ours are zero and not applicable.

Really included. Errors and omissions coverage is built into the $200 monthly (about $50 of its value). No separate policy, no annual lump sum at renewal, no per-closing E&O surcharge. There’s no catch; we just think insurance shouldn’t be a surprise line item.

The split is real, but the model moves the cost somewhere else: per-transaction compliance fees, E&O charges, monthly dues, and paid add-ons for anything beyond a license to hang. One published franchise example works out to roughly $700 per deal in fees plus $200 a month. For an active agent that can exceed a capped split, with far less support behind it. Price the whole stack, not the headline. The calculator has a “100% shop” preset.

Yes. Nothing in the fee structure punishes part-time agents: no desk fee, and the $200 covers your E&O and tools whether you close two deals or twenty. Agents with fewer than 5 closings in the last 12 months are on 70/30 until they cap. The 8:30am sessions repeat three times a week, so a day job doesn’t lock you out of the training.

Three DRE-approved courses (135 hours), an application with fingerprinting, and the state exam: 150 questions, 3 hours, 70% to pass. Most people finish in three to six months and spend roughly $600 to $1,000 all-in. The step-by-step version with costs is on the new agents page.

It’s a memorization exam, not a genius test. People who grind practice exams for a few weeks pass; people who skim the courses usually don’t. If you miss it, you can retake it. The exam is the easy part of this career; the first year of prospecting is the real test, which is why the brokerage you pick matters more than your exam score.

No salary. You earn a commission per closing, typically a percentage of the sale price, split between the buyer’s and seller’s sides. Your brokerage takes its share (that’s the split), then fees. That’s why cap, split, and fee structure decide so much of your income, and why we publish ours.

Honestly: anywhere from nothing to six figures. The variables are your effort, your market, and how much real support you get. The industry’s dirty secret is that most new agents fail out inside two years, usually at brokerages that recruited them and then ignored them. Circle’s answer is structural: a mentor on your first three deals, live coaching, and a 30-60-90 plan someone actually reviews. A realistic first-year example is here.

Interview brokerages, and interview them hard. Ask for the fee schedule in writing, ask who personally trains you and when, ask where your first conversations come from, and ask what happens in your first 30 days. If an office answers all four without flinching, take them seriously. Ours are: the schedule, Scott, three mornings a week, the two paths, and the 30-60-90.

Yes. A California salesperson license only operates under a licensed broker, so every new agent “hangs” their license with a brokerage. The sponsor takes legal responsibility for your transactions, which is what the split and fees pay for. Choosing that sponsor is the biggest business decision of your first year.

It depends which of the two paths you pick, and we’d rather explain that honestly than promise leads to everyone. Most Circle agents run as independents: your business stays 100% yours, and Circle hands you leverage (staff, coaching, sphere build-out help) instead of leads. Agents who want the leads handed to them interview for Axiom Partners, Circle’s team powered by Zillow Preferred, where buyer and seller leads are provided inside a full team engine. How the two paths work.

Circle’s team, powered by Zillow Preferred, for full-time agents who want a proven lead source. Zillow Preferred buyer and seller leads are provided, and the engine around you includes a dedicated team leader, inside sales agents, marketing, a listing coordinator, and coaching. Scott co-lists and co-sells alongside you, and Zillow Home Loans and Simply Escrow are built in. The cap is $8,000. It’s a team model, so team splits apply; we walk through the exact numbers at the interview, and you’re held to Zillow’s performance standards with the support to hit them.

Nobody here will promise you a number, because lead flow on a Zillow Preferred team is earned: volume follows performance, and the standards are set by Zillow, not by us. What we’ll do at the interview is show you how the team engine works, what the performance standards are, and what current team agents' pipelines look like. If a brokerage promises you a fixed lead count to recruit you, ask them to put it in writing and watch what happens.

Then Path 1 was built for you, and you never split your book with a team. Your case is the cap math (run it), the 12 support staff, sphere build-out help, and E&O plus tools in one $200 line. Most Circle agents run exactly this way; Axiom is there if you ever want to add a lead-fed pipeline.

They’re standard practice now: buyers sign a written representation agreement before touring, and every lead at Circle is worked under one. The buyer-consult conversation (what the agreement says, how you’re paid, why it protects the client) is a core script-practice topic. If that conversation still feels awkward, it’s one of the first things the coaching fixes.

Script practice with Scott and Ingrid on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 8:30am (office and Zoom). Weekly accountability coaching against your 30-60-90. Weekly 1:1 pipeline reviews for lead-program agents. Monthly guest speakers and masterminds, plus the Agent Leadership Council for the top 20%. The whole calendar.

New agents keep 50% on their first three transactions while a dedicated mentor is physically with them for listing appointments, offers, and escrow, backed by a dedicated instructor. Of the half you don’t keep, 25% pays your mentor and 25% goes to Circle, and Circle’s share counts toward your $16,000 cap, so half of that split is your cap filling up while you learn. After deal three you move to 70/30 until you cap. Compare: eXp’s published mentor program takes an extra 20% on top of the split for remote guidance, and Real’s recommended mentor fee is 25% to 50%, negotiated between agents.

Circle’s broker and founder: 24+ years in real estate, top 1% producer, and a four-time company builder. He still sells, still runs script practice himself, and posts his systems publicly at @scottkato. Long-form interviews are on the stories page.

Yes, and you should. Ask for a guest seat at any 8:30am session and judge the coaching by the coaching. Request a guest seat.

Mechanically it’s small: a DRE license transfer, MLS and lockbox updates, and new signage. It typically completes in days. The part that needs care is your book of business, which is governed by your current independent contractor agreement.

It depends on your current ICA: listings usually belong to the brokerage, and pendings often close under the old roof while new business starts under the new one. Bring your ICA to the sit-down and we’ll map exactly what moves before you decide anything. Nothing here is legal advice; the document controls.

Not from us. Sit-downs are confidential, nobody calls your broker, and no announcement goes out until you say so. Recruiting conversations are normal in this business; discretion is part of doing them right.

Both. Team members run 80/20 with an $8,000 cap, which usually beats what team agents pay inside franchise structures. Team leads: bring your roster math to the sit-down and we’ll model the whole team’s take-home. The producer page covers the staffing you stop paying for.

160 agents, over $520 million in sales volume and 680+ homes closed in the last 12 months, and the #1 independent brokerage in greater Long Beach. Launched January 3, 2022. RealTrends ranked Circle a 2025 Top 100 brokerage in California. All of it runs from one 8,400 square foot floor at 3250 Airflite Way.

Where those numbers come from: trailing-12-month production from Southern California MLS data as reported at circlere.com (July 2026), and the RealTrends 2025 rankings. We source our own stats the same way we source competitors' numbers.

The office is in Long Beach and most agents work the greater Long Beach area: Lakewood, Signal Hill, Seal Beach, Los Alamitos, Cypress, Cerritos, Carson, Whittier, and surrounding cities. Nobody fences you to one town; agents work wherever their business takes them across Southern California.

Most Circle agents are with PWR, the Pacific West Association of Realtors, and collectively Circle agents span about eight associations across the region, so you likely won’t have to switch boards to join. Association and MLS dues are paid by the agent at every brokerage; bring your current dues to the sit-down and we’ll put them in your comparison math.

No. The 8:30am sessions run on Zoom too, and plenty of agents work mostly from the field. The office is a tool, not a requirement. It just happens to be a tool with panoramic runway views and an ice cream freezer, so attendance is not usually the problem.

Honestly: agents who need a national franchise name on the sign and its relocation referral network. Fully virtual agents optimizing for the absolute lowest fee line, since a cloud brokerage can beat us there and the calculator will tell you when it does. Anyone shopping for stock or revenue share instead of cash economics. And agents who hear “weekly accountability” as pressure rather than help. If that’s you, we’d rather say it here than waste your sit-down.