There’s a conversation that’s going to come up more and more this year, especially among agents who’ve built some decent momentum towards the tail end of last year.
How do I grow a team?
For many self-employed agents and independents, 2026 will feel like the right time to expand. You’ve laid the groundwork. You’ve got solid income, maybe even passed your revenue goal, and you’re now at a point where you’re spinning too many plates on your own. The next obvious step seems to be bringing someone in. A viewing assistant. A negotiator. Maybe even a junior to take the pressure off.
But before you start hiring, there’s a more important question to ask.
Is your agency actually built to grow, or is it just busy?
Because they’re not the same thing.
What looks like a successful business from the outside is often completely dependent on one person behind the scenes. They’re the one booking the appointments, handling the negotiations, managing the marketing, chasing the pipeline and replying to every enquiry. And while that can work in the short term, it’s rarely sustainable, and almost never scalable.
The truth is, when you try to grow a business like that, it usually breaks.
Hiring someone doesn’t magically create space. It creates complexity. Now, instead of just doing the work, you’re also managing someone else. You’re teaching them how things are done. You’re answering questions you never realised needed answering. And because there are no systems, no processes and no structure, everything still depends on you.
So you end up with more cost, more stress, and very little extra time.
If you want to grow a team in 2026, now is the time to make sure your business can actually handle it. That means tightening up the way things are done. Having a clear way of launching listings. A consistent approach to viewings. A simple but effective system for following up valuations. It doesn’t need to be flashy. But it does need to be clear, and easily repeatable.
It also means looking honestly at your own role. Right now, you might be the engine of your agency. But if you want to grow, you need to become more like the architect. That doesn’t mean disappearing. But it does mean stepping back just enough to design something that works without needing you to power every part of it.
Because true growth isn’t just about hiring more people. It’s about creating a structure that someone else can step into and succeed.
And if that structure doesn’t exist yet, no amount of hiring will fix it.
That’s the real risk heading into 2026. Not that you won’t grow. But that you’ll grow too soon, with the wrong foundations, and find yourself stuck in an even messier version of where you started.
So if you’re planning to expand this year, start by simplifying.
Because a business that breaks the moment you try to grow it isn’t really a business at all.
It’s just a job, with more people to manage.
Chris Webb is the founder of The Estate Agent Consultancy.
