Start here, before the checklists
Get found by agents in your own town.
A new TC's instinct is to build a website and post on social media for a wide audience. The move that actually gets a local agent to trust you with their file is smaller and slower: an office address and a Google Business Profile tied to the town you work in.
Google's own guidance for ranking local results is built around three things it calls E-E-A-T: relevance, distance, and prominence. A TC with a real local address, a claimed Google Business Profile, and a handful of local reviews reads as all three. A TC with a nationwide-sounding website and no address reads as none of them, no matter how good the work is.
- Claim a free Google Business Profile with a real address in your service area, even if it's a home office
- List the specific towns or zip codes you serve, not just "the metro area"
- Ask your first few clients for a short Google review naming the town they closed in
- Use the same address and service-area wording everywhere: your site, your email signature, your flyers
Everything below helps you run the business once an agent finds you. This comes first because it happens before any of that.
How a search sees two TCs
"Transaction coordinator, Dayton OH" (claimed profile)
Address in Dayton, service area listed, 6 reviews mentioning local closings. Shows on the map, shows first.
"Nationwide TC services" (no address, no profile)
No map presence, no local reviews, nothing tying the business to a place. A Dayton agent searching locally never sees it.
Same skill, same rates. The only difference is which one the map shows to the agent looking for help this week.
Four free spreadsheets for the earliest stage of a TC business
No signup, no email gate. Each is a real Excel file (.xlsx) you can edit, print, or move into Google Sheets. Built for the stretch before a full-featured system like Freehold makes sense: your first weeks and your first one or two clients.
Tool 1
First month plan: zero clients
You haven't signed anyone yet. This is the day-by-day plan for finding your first agent.
- 4 weeks, one tab each, one task per day
- Week 1: a findable local presence and your pitch
- Week 2-3: outreach, follow-up, first proof points
- Week 4: turn one yes into a repeatable rhythm
Tool 2
First month plan: 1 or 2 clients
You have your first file or two. The job now is follow-up, not more outreach.
- A cadence for touching every open file on a schedule
- Scripts for asking directly for the next file
- A weekly capacity check: are you ready for a third client
- Built around the fact one dropped ball costs more than ten wins
Tool 3
Simple task list
One flat list. No categories to set up, no system to learn before you can use it.
- Task, related file, priority, due date, status, notes
- Status counts update themselves as you work
- A sample row shows the format, then it's blank
- Good for a single TC's whole week on one screen
Tool 4
Friday & Monday check-in list
The weekend is where most TC businesses lose an agent's trust. This closes that gap.
- Friday: open houses this weekend, and does the agent know how to reach you
- Friday: anything closing Monday that needs a document today
- Monday: what came in over the weekend, before you start new work
- A reset for your own away message and call forwarding
Two agreements for TC teams
One for the coordinators who take files from your team, one for the agents your team works for. Every blank sits in a Key Terms table on the first page, so you fill in the numbers and leave the wording alone. Download the Word file to change anything, or the fillable PDF to type straight into it.
These are starting templates, not legal advice. Licensing, contractor, and non-solicitation rules differ by state, so have a local real estate attorney look them over before anyone signs.
Agreement
Subcontractor TC agreement
For a team that passes files to independent coordinators. Fair to both sides, so a good coordinator signs it without a second thought.
- Per-file pay, a cancelled-file rate, and a set payment window
- An option to pay the coordinator whether or not the agent has paid you yet
- Protects the team's agents, with a list for agents the coordinator brings and is happy to share
- Client-data and wire-fraud rules, and a clean hand-off when either side moves on
Agreement
Agent services agreement
For the agents your team works for. Written so an agent can pass it to their broker without it reading like a trap.
- Tick-box list of the services you provide, with fees per side
- A clear line between what the team does and what stays with the licensed agent
- Files belong to the agent and their broker, and come back complete at the end
- Fee changes need 30 days' notice and never touch an open file
Guide
State Rules for Paying Unlicensed Transaction Coordinators
A list of states that have rules or guidance on how an unlicensed assistant or coordinator can be paid. General information, not legal advice.
When a spreadsheet stops being enough
The spreadsheets and templates on this page work well for one coordinator with a handful of files. Growing usually looks different: bringing on a subcontractor coordinator, taking on more agents, running a team instead of just your own inbox. That's what Freehold is built for: assign any number of teammates to a file with no two-person cap, set a per-file fee so a subcontractor can request payment when their work is done, and let deadlines compute themselves from the contract instead of living in a spreadsheet.