What happens to your website when you leave your brokerage?

Better to find out which kind you have now than the week you give notice.

Who owns your real estate website? Own vs rent, piece by piece

Agents end up on one of three kinds of website. From the outside they look the same. The day you leave, they really don't.

1. A brokerage-provided site. Your page lives on the brokerage's system, usually at an address like brokerage.com/agents/your-name or your-name.brokerage.com. It's "free", or it's paid for inside your monthly fees or your split.
2. A rental platform. You pay a setup fee, then a monthly fee, for a site on a vendor's software. Your own domain may point at it, but the design, the code and the software are theirs. You're licensed to use them while you pay.
3. A site you own. The files, the hosting account and the domain are in your name. Whoever built it handed it over. Stop working with them and the site keeps running.

Here's where each piece usually lands. "Usually" is doing real work there: contracts differ, and yours is the one that counts.

Most rental platforms we reviewed in September 2026 license the site to you instead of handing it over. The ones that give something back give you your content and contacts, not a working site with its design. None of it's hidden. It's right there in their terms. Most agents just don't read them until the week they want out.

What happens to your website (and email, and leads) when you leave your brokerage

Odds are you'll switch at least once. The median Realtor has been with their current firm six years and in the business thirteen, according to NAR's 2026 Member Profile. That's a lot of careers with a move somewhere in the middle.

If the site was never yours, here's what goes missing:

• The web address. Every business card, yard sign rider, email signature and Instagram bio that points to a brokerage page now points to a dead end. Or worse, to the brokerage's agent search.
• Your Google history. Reviews, links from local blogs and years of search history belong to the address they point at. If that's the brokerage's address, it all stays behind.
• Your email. Past clients who reply to your old @brokerage.com address reach nobody. Agents on forums bring this one up over and over: years of clients, and no way for them to find you.
• Your leads and contacts, sometimes. Contacts sitting in a brokerage or team CRM may need to be moved before you go. One national franchise's own help center warns that agents who leave a team without transferring their contacts lose access to them.
• Your content. Bios, neighborhood pages, testimonials and blog posts written into a brokerage template usually don't get exported for you. No copies, and you're rewriting them.
• Your listings. Not the website, but it catches people. The listing agreement is between the seller and the brokerage, not you, so active listings stay with the old broker unless they release them.

Nobody's being evil here. A brokerage site is a perk of the job, and perks end when the job does. The trouble starts when it's the only thing you've got. The rule's simple: you take what's in your name. Nothing else comes with you.

Can you take your website with you? Check in ten minutes

Do this now, while you're happy where you are. It's a lot less fun the week you're packing up your desk.

1. Look at your web address. If your brokerage's name is in it (brokerage.com/your-name or your-name.brokerage.com), the address isn't yours. If it's your own name or brand, keep going.
2. Look up who owns the domain. Log in wherever you pay for it. Don't know where that is? Then you probably don't pay for it, which means someone else controls it. Check that the registrant (the owner) is you, with an email address you control.
3. Find your hosting. Ask your provider, in writing: "Whose account is the site hosted on, and can you transfer it to an account in my name?" If the answer is "our servers only", you're renting.
4. Read the cancellation section of your agreement. You're looking for four things: the minimum term, auto-renewal, what happens to the site when you cancel, and what export you get (and for how long).
5. Check your email. Does your business email end in your own domain or your brokerage's? If it's theirs, start moving clients and vendors to an address on your own domain now.
6. Export your contacts. Pull a full export from every CRM you use. Today. Keep a copy somewhere that's yours.
7. Check your IDX account. Who holds the account for the listings feed on your site: you, the vendor or the brokerage? That decides how fast you're back up after a move.
8. Check your Google Business Profile. Make sure you're an owner, not just a manager someone else added. Agents can have their own profile under Google's rules for individual practitioners.
9. Save your content. Copy your bio, testimonials, neighborhood pages and blog posts into a document. Download your photos. It takes an hour. Call it insurance.

If steps one through three all point back to you, you own your site. If any of them point somewhere else, now you know exactly which piece to fix.

What to get in writing before you sign with a website provider

This is the list we'd hand a friend before they sign with anyone, us included. If a provider won't put these in the agreement, that's your answer.

• The domain is registered in your name, with your email as the owner contact. Not the provider's name. Not "on your behalf".
• All files are delivered to you at launch: the design, the code, the images and the written copy. Not an export later. The working site.
• Hosting is in an account in your name. You pay the host directly. The provider can have access to set it up, and you can pull that access any time.
• IDX runs through your own account with the IDX provider, approved by your broker. Change web people and your feed stays put.
• No auto-renewal and no minimum term on the site itself. If there's a monthly fee, you know exactly what it pays for and what happens to the site if you stop.
• What handover includes, spelled out: logins, a list of every account and who owns it, and how to edit the basics.
• Who fixes it after launch, and what that costs. Is there a free fix window? How long? What's the rate after that? A monthly retainer, or do you just pay when you ask for something?
• What you own if you leave the provider. One sentence in the contract, in plain English. "The client owns the site, its files and its domain from launch" is the one you're looking for.
• Who owns the photos. If the provider supplies stock or shoots photos, check the license lets you keep using them after you part ways.

Custom website vs template is a different question

Ownership has nothing to do with whether the design is custom. A template site you own, on hosting in your name, moves with you. A custom design you rent doesn't. Custom is about standing out in your market. Ownership is about keeping what you paid for. You want both. Just ask about them separately.

How to move to a site you own without losing your Google rankings

It all hangs on one question: do you control the old address?

If you already own your domain

Good news: you keep almost everything. The rest is plumbing.

1. Keep the same domain. Biggest thing on this list. Your reviews, links and search history are tied to it.
2. List every page on the old site, especially the ones that get traffic: your home page, your bio, neighborhood pages, blog posts.
3. Set up 301 redirects. Where a page's address changes, add a 301 (permanent) redirect from the old address to the new one. Google's own guidance is to keep redirects as long as possible, generally at least a year.
4. Launch, then submit your sitemap in Google Search Console so Google finds the new pages fast.
5. Expect a wobble. Google says to expect temporary ranking fluctuation during a move. For a site an agent's size, it usually settles within weeks.
6. Update the brokerage details the day you move: new brokerage name, logo placement, license number and any disclosures your state requires.

Changing domains too (say, from an old team name to your own name)? Google's Change of Address tool in Search Console is built for exactly that, and the 301 redirects matter even more. Keep the old domain registered so they keep working.

If your old site was on the brokerage's address

Straight answer: you can't redirect what you don't control. You can ask the brokerage to point your old page at your new site, and some will for a while. Either way, you're mostly starting over.

What you can do:

• Register a domain in your own name (your name is usually the best one) and build there.
• Update everything that points at you: your Google Business Profile website link, social bios, email signature, review sites, the Realtor association directory, any vendor or lender pages that list you.
• Keep your name, phone number and details identical everywhere. Google and AI assistants both lean on consistent details to be sure it's the same person.
• Tell your past clients where you are, with your new address and your new email, in one clear message.

Then make sure it never happens again. The next address you build on is yours.

Should you buy a domain in your own name?

Usually, yes. A realtor domain name with your name on it (or a short brand you plan to keep) is the one piece of your web presence no brokerage move can touch. It's cheap to register. It's what people type after they hear your name. And it's what every link, review and search result builds on over the years.

Register it yourself, in your name, with your email. Anyone who offers to "handle the domain for you" should be happy to do it inside your account. If they're not, that tells you something.

Brokerage, MLS and license rules still apply to your own site

Owning your site doesn't mean going rogue. You're still a licensee working under a broker, and the rules follow you onto your own domain:

• Your brokerage name has to be on it. NAR's Code of Ethics (Standard of Practice 12-5) requires Realtor websites to show the firm's name and the states you're licensed in, in a readily apparent way. State rules go further. Texas, for one, sets a minimum size for the broker's name in ads and requires a link on your homepage to TREC's Information About Brokerage Services notice.
• Your listings feed needs your broker's OK. Under NAR's IDX policy, agents display MLS listings through IDX only with their broker's consent, and each listing has to credit the firm that listed it. When you move, your new broker signs off and the MLS approves the feed again (MLSs get up to five business days to act). Plan a few days for that.
• Your brokerage may have its own policy. Plenty ask to review agent sites or set rules on logo use. Ask before you launch, not after.
• Fair Housing language and your license number belong on the site too, the way your state requires.

On a site you own, switching brokerages is an update, not a rebuild. The brokerage name, logo, license line and state notices change, and the listings feed gets re-approved. Your domain, design, pages and Google history stay put.

Brokerage website vs personal website: when the brokerage page is enough

Not everyone needs their own site this year. Brand new, part-time, or still figuring out if real estate is for you? The brokerage page is a fine place to start. Use it. Fill it out completely.

Just do two things anyway: register a domain in your own name and point it at the brokerage page, and keep your contacts somewhere you can export them. Then when you're ready to leave, or ready to build, the address people know is already yours.

And be realistic about what a site does. In NAR's 2025 Technology Survey, 12% of Realtors named their own website as the source of their best leads, against 39% for social media. For most agents, a website isn't a lead machine. It's where people check you out after a referral, a sign or a Google search. That's exactly why it should be yours. It's your proof, and proof shouldn't vanish every time you change offices.