I started my real estate career in 2016.
Like most new agents, I came into the business excited, ambitious and convinced that if I worked hard enough, I could build something meaningful.
What I did not fully understand at the time was how lonely real estate could be.
I was a solo agent from the beginning. I never joined a team. Every client was mine to find. Every showing was mine to book. Every offer was mine to write. Every problem was mine to work through.
There was no team lead sitting beside me.
There was no built-in source of business.
There was no one else responsible for whether I succeeded or failed.
I had to figure it out.
And in many ways, I am grateful that I did.
Being a solo agent forced me to learn how to build a business from the ground up. I had to learn how to generate my own clients, create my own systems, develop my own marketing, build my own reputation and become someone people trusted with one of the biggest financial decisions of their lives.
But it also showed me how difficult this industry can be for someone trying to build something independently.
The Part of Real Estate Nobody Really Warns You About
When you first become a REALTOR®, everyone talks about opportunity.
Very few people talk about uncertainty.
You can complete all the licensing education in the world and still have a moment where you are sitting in your car outside a client's house wondering whether you are handling something correctly.
You can understand a contract and still encounter a clause you have never seen before.
You can know the theory behind a transaction and still have absolutely no idea what to do when something unusual happens at 9:00 at night.
And when you are new, almost everything feels unusual.
The first listing.
The first offer.
The first inspection problem.
The first difficult negotiation.
The first condition deadline.
The first possession problem.
The first time a client asks you a question and you realize you do not immediately know the answer.
Those moments are uncomfortable.
You want to appear confident in front of your clients, but inside you are thinking, "I need to make sure I get this right."
That is when your brokerage really matters.
Unfortunately, I started realizing that the relationship between an agent and their brokerage did not always feel the way I thought it should.
I Started Asking What I Was Actually Paying For
As I built my business, I became increasingly frustrated with the traditional brokerage model.
Real estate agents carry an enormous amount of responsibility.
We find the clients.
We build the relationships.
We pay for marketing.
We drive to appointments.
We negotiate the transactions.
We answer our phones at night.
We work weekends.
We take the reputational risk.
We create the business.
And then a significant amount of the income from that business can disappear into brokerage splits, monthly fees, franchise fees, transaction fees and other expenses.
I kept asking myself a simple question.
What am I getting in return?
I was willing to pay for value.
What frustrated me was paying significant amounts of money and still feeling like much of the responsibility remained entirely mine.
I did not want layers of management.
I did not want to feel like I needed an appointment to speak with the person responsible for the brokerage.
I did not want to pay more simply because my business had become more successful.
And I definitely did not want someone else deciding what my personal brand was supposed to look like.
I Wanted to Build My Own Brand
Marketing was always important to me.
I believed that if I was going to build a business, clients needed to recognize me, not just the company whose logo appeared beside my name.
I wanted freedom.
Freedom to experiment.
Freedom to create.
Freedom to decide how my marketing looked.
Freedom to build something that actually represented me.
Yet many traditional real estate environments were built around conformity.
Here is the template.
Here are the colours.
Here is how the advertisement should look.
Here is where everything goes.
For some agents, that structure works perfectly.
It never worked for me.
I understood why brokerage brands needed standards. I understood the importance of compliant advertising. But I did not believe compliance and creativity had to be opposites.
I wanted to build my own identity while still being part of a professional brokerage.
That should not have been a radical idea.
I Never Wanted to Join a Team
As my business grew, people would occasionally ask why I did not join a real estate team.
For me, the answer was simple.
I wanted independence.
Teams can be a great fit for some REALTORS®, but they were never what I wanted for myself. I did not want another layer between me and my clients. I did not want to give up more of my commission. I did not want someone else's brand becoming more important than the business I was trying to build.
I wanted to know whether a solo agent could build something substantial without becoming part of a large team.
So I kept going.
Year after year.
Client after client.
Transaction after transaction.
I made mistakes.
I learned.
I changed things.
I got better.
Eventually, something interesting started happening.
Other agents began noticing.
"Can I Join Your Team?"
As my business became more established, REALTORS® started approaching me.
Some were new.
Some were trying to find their place in the industry.
Some had watched how I marketed.
Some saw the business I had built.
And they started asking the same question.
"Can I join your team?"
The first few times, I would explain that there was no team to join.
I was a solo agent.
There was no Preet Chawla Real Estate Team.
No group of agents working underneath me.
No team splits.
No recruiting structure.
Just me.
But the question kept coming.
People were not really asking to join a team.
They were asking for help.
They wanted guidance.
They wanted someone accessible.
They wanted to know how I had built my business.
They wanted the freedom to create their own identities while having someone available when they needed advice.
They wanted support without giving away control of their businesses.
I understood exactly what they were looking for because I had spent years looking for many of the same things myself.
Eventually, my answer changed.
I started saying:
"I don't have a team.
But maybe I should open a brokerage."
That idea became Brilliant Realty.
Brilliant Realty Was Built From the Perspective of an Agent
I did not start Brilliant Realty because I dreamed of owning a real estate brokerage.
I started it because I had spent years being the kind of agent the brokerage would eventually serve.
A solo agent.
An independent agent.
An agent who cared about keeping more of what he earned.
An agent who wanted to build his own brand.
An agent who wanted answers when something went wrong.
An agent who did not want to feel like a number inside a large organization.
That perspective shaped almost every decision.
When I thought about brokerage fees, I remembered what it felt like watching increasingly large amounts of money leave my business.
When I thought about Broker support, I remembered what it felt like having an urgent question and needing an answer now.
When I thought about marketing, I remembered how important creative freedom had been to building my own identity.
When I thought about training, I remembered that the most useful lessons were rarely theoretical. They were the things that happened in actual transactions.
And when I thought about new agents, I remembered exactly what it felt like to be one.
New REALTORS® Do Not Need More People Telling Them How Hard Real Estate Is
New agents already know this business is hard.
What they need is someone who helps make it possible.
They need a place where asking a question is normal.
They need a Broker who remembers their name.
They need practical training that connects to what they are actually experiencing with clients.
They need help before a mistake becomes a problem.
They need room to develop their own style and their own business.
And, especially in the beginning, they need a brokerage model that does not consume an unreasonable amount of their income before they have even had a chance to become established.
There is a strange problem in real estate.
The agents who often need the most support are also the agents earning the least money.
Yet some brokerage models can be extremely expensive during those exact years.
That never made sense to me.
Support and Independence Should Be Able to Exist Together
For a long time, REALTORS® seemed to be presented with two extremes.
Join an environment with significant support, but surrender a large portion of your income and independence.
Or choose a low-cost brokerage and accept that you are largely on your own.
I never understood why those had to be the choices.
Why couldn't an agent keep more of what they earned and still have direct access to their Broker?
Why couldn't a brokerage provide professional graphic design resources while allowing agents to build their own brands?
Why couldn't experienced agents operate independently while knowing someone would answer when a complicated situation appeared?
Why couldn't new agents receive guidance without feeling like they needed to join a team?
Why couldn't a brokerage be affordable and still care deeply about its associates?
Those questions became the blueprint for Brilliant Realty.
I Built the Brokerage I Wish I Had as a Solo Agent
That is probably the simplest explanation of Brilliant Realty.
I built the brokerage I wish existed when I was building my career.
Not a brokerage designed around collecting as many licences as possible.
Not a brokerage where the Broker becomes increasingly difficult to reach as the company grows.
Not a brokerage that believes every REALTOR® should look and operate exactly the same.
And not a brokerage where an associate has to sacrifice a huge portion of their business simply to have someone available when they need help.
I wanted something more personal.
More responsive.
More independent.
More practical.
A brokerage that understands that the associate is building something of their own.
Our job is to help them build it.
The Goal Was Never to Create Followers
This is important to me.
When those first REALTORS® asked to join my team, I could have built one.
I could have created a structure where agents worked under my name.
That was not what I wanted.
I did not want people building my business.
I wanted to help them build theirs.
That philosophy still sits at the centre of Brilliant Realty.
I do not want an associate to spend ten years here and only become known as somebody who works for Brilliant Realty.
I want them to become known by their clients, their communities and their markets for the businesses they built themselves.
The brokerage should make that easier.
It should provide the foundation.
The REALTOR® should get the recognition.
From One Solo Agent to a Brokerage
Sometimes I think back to 2016.
One agent.
No team.
No brokerage ambitions.
Just someone trying to figure out how to build a real estate business and take care of his clients.
I could not have predicted where that path would lead.
But looking back, Brilliant Realty makes sense.
Every frustration taught me something.
Every difficult transaction showed me what support should look like.
Every brokerage fee made me think harder about value.
Every restriction made me value independence.
Every late-night question reminded me how important accessibility was.
And every agent who eventually asked, "Can I join your team?" made me realize there might be an opportunity to build something bigger than a team.
A brokerage where independent agents could succeed together without giving up the independence that made them entrepreneurs in the first place.
That became Brilliant Realty.
And if you are a REALTOR® in Calgary, Edmonton or anywhere in Alberta who has ever felt like you are paying too much, getting too little support, losing control of your brand, or trying to build a business completely by yourself, I understand that feeling.
I lived it.
It is one of the reasons this brokerage exists.
I did not build Brilliant Realty because I wanted agents to work for me.
I built it because I wanted to create the brokerage I once needed myself.
A place where you can build your own business.
Keep your own identity.
Have someone in your corner.
And never feel like you have to do it completely alone.
That's Brilliant.
-Preet Chawla
