Follow one profitable real estate brokerage through a full year, month by month, and watch what happens to its cash. Scroll to play it out.
Your brokerage has 70 agents and expects about $13.5 million in gross commissions this year. After agent splits, you keep about 18%, and your budget shows a $155,000 profit. That's a margin of about 1%, which is normal for a brokerage, so there is very little room for a bad month.
Errors and omissions insurance, MLS and association dues, and your software renewals all hit in January, about $60,000. It's also your slowest month for closings. Cash drops $110,000.
You open a second office with a $120,000 build-out and spend $40,000 on sign-on incentives to recruit agents before spring. The build-out barely shows up on this year's profit and loss, but the cash is gone today.
Rates jump and three big closings slip into May. Your first quarterly tax estimate is due. Your cash is now $310,000 below where you started the year, and your line of credit is covering rent and payroll.
This is the month High Point helps you plan for ahead of time.
Closings surge and your share of commissions climbs to $300,000 a month. Cash recovers $165,000 in two months, and it feels like the hard part is over.
Volume is still strong, but your best producers have reached their annual cap and now keep 100% of their commissions. Your share drops by $60,000 a month while your office looks just as busy.
A third quarterly tax payment goes out, and the new office adds rent every month. Cash climbs back close to where you started, then slips again in September.
Closings slow for the holidays and you pay year-end bonuses. Your profit and loss shows the $155,000 profit you planned. Your bank shows $100,000 less than January 1. The build-out and the tax payments never showed up as expenses, but they came out of your cash.
Every moment in this story is something a fractional CFO plans for. Here's where Guillermo and the High Point team step in.
We build a 12-month cash forecast around your real closing seasons, annual bills, and tax dates, so you know how low cash will go and when.
Before you open an office or recruit a team, we model the payback and help you decide what to fund with cash and what to finance.
We track splits and caps agent by agent, so you can see the summer drop in your company dollar coming and price your plans to match.
We line up tax estimates and owner distributions with your actual cash, so a profitable year doesn't leave you scrambling.
Want to see your own version of this curve? Bring your numbers to a 30-minute call with Guillermo. We'll talk through your seasons, your agent splits, and where your cash gets tight.
Every brokerage has its own version of this curve. Seasons, caps, annual bills, taxes, and growth spending all pull cash in different directions, which is why your bank balance can look healthy in June and tight in December. Knowing your zero means seeing those swings ahead of time, so you can plan recruiting, expansion, and your line of credit before the low point arrives.
This story is an illustration. The numbers are a typical example, not a real client's brokerage.