CB&A Realtors named Houston’s top large workplace in 2025 for agent-first approach
At CB&A Realtors, named this year’s top large workplace in Houston for the third year in a row, broker/owner Chance Brown says the company’s success boils down to one reason: “we’re here for our agents.”
In practice, that means striking the right balance between two objectives: giving agents the freedom to run their businesses as they choose, while also providing them the tools and help to set them up for success.
“We’re like, ‘Here’s a box of Legos. How can we help you build something? ‘” Brown said of his approach to supporting his agents. “But at the end of the day, you have to build your thing.”
The residential real estate brokerage, which was founded in 2014 and now employs about 660 agents across its five Houston-area offices, provides agents with training, mentorship and management technology, in exchange for a commission fee. But on any given day, an agent has close to 100% control over his or her decisions, Brown said.
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That formula could explain why the brokerage continued to grow this year even as mortgage rates stayed relatively high. CB&A’s agent count rose 10% this year and the firm is on track to close 15% more transactions than last year, Brown said. The growth also comes as the real estate industry has seen agents exit in recent years, Brown said, a stabilization following a pandemic-era boom in the profession fueled by historically low mortgage rates.
Unlike other brokerages, CB&A encourages its agents to be collaborative rather than competitive – a challenge, given the occupation’s tendency to attract type-A workers, Brown said. The firm finds at least three times a month to convene agents in person, from monthly staff meetings to social events like happy hours or community service projects.
“We’re very strategic about putting agents in a room together, because we believe that iron sharpens iron,” Brown said.
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Whenever CB&A makes major changes, Brown said, he is intentional about telling agents why those changes are being made and helping agents navigate them. For example, CB&A is in the process of implementing a new transaction management software expected to save agents “a ton of time,” he said. As part of that process, the brokerage has scheduled 35 rollout sessions with agents to provide hands-on training for the new tool.
That level of communication and transparency is part of ensuring that “everybody’s on the same train, and the whole train’s going in the same direction,” Brown said.
CB&A made its own real estate purchase this year: its first office building, a space in northwest Houston that is slated to include more open areas for agents to gather and a media studio. The space also gives CB&A room to grow, which may come in handy as the brokerage plans to add a commercial real estate division to its residential operation, though Brown did not give an estimate for when that change would happen.
In a line of work where “no two (transactions) are the same,” supporting agents is especially important, Brown said. Often, support can be as simple as picking up the phone when they call for help. “We want to make sure,” he said, “that we never leave an agent waiting around for an answer.”
This article originally published at CB&A Realtors named Houston’s top large workplace in 2025 for agent-first approach.
