WageTime is payroll for real estate brokerages: agent commissions disburse as 1099 beside the W-2 staff who keep the deals closing, and every license renewal surfaces 90 days out instead of at the closing table.
Offices of real estate agents and brokers run about 162,346 US establishments (BLS QCEW, Q4 2024), and the payroll inside one is upside down from every other business. The revenue producers are self-employed by statute, while the transaction coordinators, inside sales agents, marketing staff, and the broker sit on a small W-2 run that mixes hourly overtime, base-plus-bonus, and owner comp. Then the commissions themselves are calculated somewhere else entirely, and every license behind every deal has an expiration date.
Under IRC §3508, a licensed agent who sells property is a statutory nonemployee: paid on output, working under a written contract that says they aren’t an employee, and self-employed for federal tax purposes. No withholding, no W-2, a 1099-NEC at year-end. That is the opposite of how generic payroll assumes a “salesperson” gets paid, and it means your real payroll is everyone except the agents.
Transaction coordinators, listing and closing coordinators, marketing staff, and front-desk admins do routine work that rarely meets an overtime exemption, so they are hourly and non-exempt. Add inside sales agents on base plus bonus and a broker-owner on S-corp wages, and one small run carries three or four kinds of pay while the agents ride alongside on 1099.
Inside sales agents typically earn a low base plus a flat bonus per appointment set, or a slice of the commission when that lead closes. Both are nondiscretionary once you promise them, so for a non-exempt ISA they fold into the regular rate and re-price every overtime hour in the period. And a base that low has to clear minimum wage for every hour dialed, in every jurisdiction.
The split, the cap, the franchise royalty, the E&O and referral holdbacks, and the closing disbursement authorization are worked out in your transaction or back-office system, deal by deal. Then someone re-keys the net number into a check. The math and the money live in two places, and reconciling them is a monthly ritual.
An agent whose license quietly expired can’t legally practice or be paid on new work, and your designated broker is the one accountable for supervising active licensees. Continuing-education cycles differ by state (45 hours every four years in California, 22.5 every two in New York), so the renewal calendar is never the same twice, and nobody owns it until it’s late.
How do you pay a brokerage where the salespeople aren’t employees? WageTime runs both rosters in one place: licensed agents disbursed as 1099 statutory nonemployees under IRC §3508, and the coordinators, ISAs, and broker as W-2 staff beside them.
Replaces the closing-day scramble to cut an agent’s commission check on one system while payroll for the staff runs on another.
Where does the commission math happen? In your back office, where it belongs: the split, cap, royalty, and DA stay there, and WageTime disburses the approved net figure once, as a 1099 commission pay code, with no second calculation.
Replaces the spreadsheet that copies each agent’s net payout out of the back office and into a checkbook by hand.
Are inside sales agents exempt from overtime? Usually not, so WageTime keeps two things honest at once: the low base clears the minimum-wage floor on every hour dialed, and the promised bonus re-prices the overtime in the same run.
Replaces the month-end guess at whether a low base plus bonus cleared minimum wage, and the overtime true-up nobody remembers to run.
Who is actually on the clock at a brokerage? The coordinators, marketing staff, and front-desk admins who are hourly and non-exempt, and whose hot-market weeks turn into overtime fast: WageTime tracks, attests, and prices those hours automatically.
| Person | Reg / OT hrs | Period pay |
|---|---|---|
| Tom Whitfield non-exemptTransaction coordinator | 84 + 0 OT | $2,184.00 |
| Nia Brooks non-exemptListing & marketing coord | 80 + 7 OT | $2,443.50 |
| Reg Cole non-exemptClosing coordinator | 80 + 0 OT | $2,080.00 |
| Ivy Nguyen non-exemptFront-desk admin | 72 + 0 OT | $1,512.00 |
Replaces the paper timesheets that surface as an overtime back-pay question long after a busy spring closed.
How do you keep an agent’s license, a broker’s renewal, and a CE deadline from slipping? Every credential lives on the employee record on its own state’s cycle, and when an agent moves markets, WageTime moves withholding to the new addresses on the effective date.
| Person | Status | Next deadline |
|---|---|---|
| Dana Reyes sales agentSalesperson license · CA | Active | CE due Oct 31 |
| Priya Anand sales agentSalesperson license · CA | 60-day alert | Renewal due |
| Marcus Webb sales agentSalesperson license · NV | Active | CE complete |
| Elena Marlowe broker-in-chargeBroker license · CA | Active | Renewal filed |
Replaces the license spreadsheet nobody reopens until an agent’s renewal is already past due.
Full-service payroll is $10 a month per person paid that month, plus $50 a month per company, with unlimited runs. No long-term contracts, no per-run charges.
Off-cycle runs and bonuses cost nothing extra. No long-term contracts; cancel anytime.
Example: 50 people paid × $10 + $50 company = $550 for the month
HR & hiring, onboarding, PTO, time tracking, benefits, and workers’ comp are optional add-ons, priced separately when you’re ready.
See a demoMost licensed agents who sell property are statutory nonemployees under IRC §3508: when pay is tied to sales, not hours, and a written contract says they aren’t employees, they’re self-employed for federal tax, with no withholding and a 1099-NEC at year-end. How your brokerage structures it is your call with your CPA. WageTime pays agents as 1099 and staff as W-2 in one run.
Both, in one place, but paid differently. Your W-2 staff, transaction coordinators, inside sales agents, marketing, and the broker, run with withholding and year-end W-2s, while your §3508 agents are disbursed as 1099 with a year-end 1099-NEC. WageTime settles the two rosters together, so a closing-day commission and the biweekly staff run don’t live on two systems.
Usually not. An ISA setting appointments and working leads does non-exempt work, so the base-plus-bonus plan runs as hourly pay. WageTime applies the federal, state, and local minimum-wage floor to every hour, and folds a nondiscretionary appointment or closing bonus into the weighted-average regular rate so overtime re-prices automatically. Whether a given role is exempt is your determination with counsel.
Your split, cap, franchise royalty, and disbursement authorization stay in the transaction or back-office system that already calculates them. In WageTime you enter that net commission once as a 1099 commission pay code, so there’s no second calculation. Tell us your system on the demo and we’ll confirm the exact flow; WageTime claims no direct integration with your back office.
Yes. Each agent’s, broker’s, and staffer’s license and certification lives on the employee record with recurring 30/60/90-day expiration alerts, and CE renewal tasks are tracked per person because the state cycles differ. WageTime tracks the dates; whether an agent may practice on a lapsed license is the broker’s and the state’s determination, not a payroll outcome.
$50 a month for the company plus $10 for each person actually paid that month, counting both W-2 staff and any agent disbursed that month. Runs are unlimited, so a closing-day commission disbursement, the biweekly staff run, and the ISA bonus all cost exactly what the formula says. No long-term contracts; cancel anytime.
The agent splits, the ISA on base plus bonus, the coordinator who covers two offices, and the license renewal you keep meaning to check. Twenty minutes with a payroll specialist on a live demo company: you’ll see a mixed W-2 and 1099 run, net commissions disbursed as 1099, and every license tracked with expiration alerts.
Book a 20-minute demo