Your Bestie Just Hired Another Realtor: Now What?!

It’s practically a real estate rite of passage to wake up one day and find out someone close to you has hired another agent.

Let’s be honest…

That shit hurts.

You don’t want to take it personally.

You want to just be happy for them.

But if you are anything like 99% of real estate agents the reality of this challenging situation is when your friends or family members hire another agent you feel rejected.

It can be really confusing, like being blind-sided.

It definitely feels like betrayal.

It feels personal…because you have been taught it should.

Think about it, every real estate training you have ever been to drove home the idea that:

• Your sphere is your goldmine.

• If you “stay top of mind,” people will choose you.

• If someone works with someone else, it’s because you didn’t try hard enough.

So when your best friend, your cousin, your former college roommate, or that person who always said, “When I buy, you’ll be my girl!” suddenly closes a deal with someone else…

…it doesn’t just feel like a missed opportunity.

It feels like a gut punch.

It feels like they’re saying something about you as a professional and how much they (don’t) trust you.

So you turn to the Facebook groups and message boards in search of comfort where you’re met with empathetic advice like you’re supposed to suck it up, smile through it, and follow up with a closing gift anyway, right?

But let’s zoom out for a second and look at this in a totally different way to see if that actually brings you relief.

What if this isn’t about you failing?

What if this is about the entire real estate industry feeding you a script that turns relationships into transactions and friends into prospects?

What if you’re not the problem, but the framework for monetizing your network and the mindset around it is?

In this week’s edition of The Elevated Agent, we are going to unpack this painful issue including:

• What it really means when your friends hire another agent over you.

• The real reason they chose to hire someone else

• How to salvage the relationship while you’re tempted to sabotage it

• A healthier way to build a referral network that doesn’t turn your most important relationships transactional 

Make sure you save and share this one to come back to every time you’re tempted to burn a bridge when someone in your circle hires another agent. 

Why It Hurts So Much When Friends Hire Another Agent

You’re probably wondering if you’re being too sensitive about all this and secretly worried that it says something bad about you as a person if you aren’t 100% over-the-moon for your friend. 

Let me reassure you that you’re not overreacting.

When someone close to you hires a competing agent for a deeply meaningful job like buying or selling the family home, it feels like an assault on your identity more than just your pipeline. 

But why?

The reason real estate agents are hurt on a deeper level is because they are trained to take it personally. Not just trained, brainwashed.

One of the most toxic yet commonly recurring themes that has driven the real estate industry for decades is the idea that “your network is your net worth” and you should be touching your sphere 30 times per year to guarantee they hire you. It gets drilled into you constantly that you should be frequently asking everyone you ever made eye-contact with if they know someone who wants to buy or sell a house.

But what that is actually teaching you to do is to see people as potential profits and before you know it, all of your relationships erode into something purely transactional without you even realizing it. 

Over time, you unconsciously start believing more and more that your friends and family owe it to you to “be loyal” and choose you as their agent. So when they hire someone else it really feels like betrayal! Not only does it feel like betrayal but it feels like your friend just made a huge statement about how competent you are as a real estate agent or even person. 

What It Doesn’t Mean About You As An Agent

When someone you “trusted to hire you” goes with another agent instead, you’re likely to internalize it and make it about you.

It’s not.

When someone from your inner circle hires another real estate agent it doesn’t mean:

• You are a bad real estate agent

• They don’t respect you

• They don’t trust you

• They don’t value your opinion

• You’re unworthy

Please read that again and let it really sink in.

At the same time, there is a reason why someone close to you would hire another agent over you and its important you understand the truth.

The Real Reason Why Your Friend Didn’t Hire You As Their Realtor

I know you’re not going to be able to feel better, gain closure and salvage the relationship unless you understand what actually happened so crack open a can of cold-hard truth.

Most of the time, when someone close to you that you would have expected to hire you as their agent goes with a competitor instead, it's one of these three reasons:

1.Social Obligations

You and I both know that real estate agents are a dime a dozen. They’re everywhere!

I can almost guarantee you that every single person in your sphere knows at least one other real estate agent beside you.

For the same reasons you expected them to hire you, you have to realize how many other real estate agents they probably know that they may have felt some level of obligation to without you realizing. 

2. They Feel Awkward

Everyone knows one of the fastest guaranteed ways to destroy a meaningful relationship is to introduce business into it. For you, it’s business. For them, it’s their entire financial future and quality of life at stake.

They want to be able to keep it totally real with their agent.

They want to feel comfortable getting firm with their agent.

They often want to be able to keep their finances private from their social circle.

There are a million reasons it can be painfully awkward and risky to hire someone you love and respect personally to professionally represent you in a real estate transaction. 

The fact that they feel awkward about it actually reflects on how much they likely respect you and value their relationship with you. To blow up the relationship because you assumed this person believed the opposite would be tragic!

3.   You Treat People Like Transactions

Last week a new friend asked what I do and when I explained that I am the go-to girl for all things marketing for innovative real estate companies she replied: 

“Uuuughhhh why are real estate agents like that?!” 

“What do you mean?” I asked with a knowing smile. 

She proceeded to tell me that she feels like she has “lost” 3 friends in the last 2 years because they got their real estate license and have turned every single interaction they have into a sales pitch. 

She said the constant pressure to be a homeowner from them just because they know she can afford it made it impossible to enjoy being around them anymore. She said they made her feel like she was nothing more than a transaction. 

I know the propaganda about how you have to constantly remind everyone you know you’re a Realtor is overwhelming, but it’s doing you a major disservice. Rather than helping you cultivate closings it is alienating people. It’s changing the way people feel when they see your name appear on their phone in a really sad, negative way.

It’s literally eroding your relationships with every “touch”. 

Escaping The “Always Be Closing” Cult

This is going to sound harsh, but I believe it is the ice bath you need to shock your brain back to reality about this whole thing…

Nobody owes you a real estate transaction. Ever.

Under any circumstance.

Ever.

You are never and will never be entitled to a real estate transaction.

Everrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

I hope that when you got your real estate license, you also gained a deep understanding that if you make a single mistake you could cost someone so much money it permanently degrades their quality of life and their entire financial future.

Once you got into a brokerage they desensitized you to that in dramatic fashion so you wouldn’t be so afraid to sell. 

The problem is with time you believe more and more that you are entitled to your friends’ and family’s transactions. You’re not.

Once you realize that you have been programmed to believe that on some level you may not have even been aware of you can fix those broken beliefs. Because once you realize your friend really didn’t owe that contract to you, you can go back to being friends.

How to Handle It With Grace To Salvage the Relationship

First, take a breath.

Don’t text them.

Don’t unfollow them.

Don’t go into emotional lockdown.

You’re allowed to feel hurt. You're allowed to be disappointed. But what you don’t want to do is let one transaction permanently sever a meaningful connection. Especially, if it’s someone you truly care about.

Here’s how to move through it with grace (and self-respect):

• Don’t make it about you. It may feel like personal rejection, but chances are, their decision had more to do with convenience, obligation, or discomfort than with your skills.

• Don’t reach out to “educate” them. They already made their choice. They don’t need a lesson in loyalty. They need you to still be their friend — not a walking sales funnel.

• If you can say congratulations, say it. A simple “I’m beyond happy for you! wishing you a smooth closing!” can go a long way. It reminds them that your friendship was never conditional.

• Give yourself space. It’s okay to take a step back and feel what you feel. Just don’t let it fester into resentment. That doesn’t serve you or your business.

Remember: your relationships matter more than your commissions. And when you play the long game, showing up with emotional maturity often opens the door for future referrals, and deeper trust.

A Better Way to Build a Referral-Based Real Estate Business Without Burning Bridges

When you properly align yourself with a profitable real estate niche in your market and offer something nobody else can, you don’t need to pressure friends and family into working with you.

Instead of begging for business, you become the obvious choice for the right people.

Here’s what that looks like:

• You define a clear, emotionally resonant niche not just “sellers,” but something deeper and more identity-driven, like “C-Suite Single Moms in NYC.”

• You create valuable, personality-rich content that speaks directly to that audience, in a voice they instantly connect with.

• You show up consistently and vulnerably, building trust over time instead of cramming transactions into every interaction.

  
  

When you stop chasing generic leads and start magnetizing aligned clients, your business becomes both more profitable and more peaceful.

Your friends can go back to just being your friends. And your pipeline? It will be stronger than ever.

Your Permission Slip To Do Things Differently

I am on your side and this is your reminder: You are allowed to build a business that honors your boundaries. You are allowed to stop cold-pitching people you love. You are allowed to adopt a niche marketing strategy that makes marketing feel like serving rather than sleazy selling.

You don’t need to follow outdated sales scripts from 1998. You don’t need to guilt people into hiring you. You don’t need to be “top of mind” at the cost of being true to yourself.

The old way is broken. The new way? Rooted in integrity, creativity, and connection.

You’re not just a real estate agent. You’re a whole, multi-dimensional human being with a story worth telling. When you lead with that, your energy, your values, your vision, the right people will find you.

And you won’t have to lose yourself, or your friendships,  in the process.