Member FAQ

There are two different membership payment plans available: An annual payment plan and a monthly payment plan. Both plans are automatically paid by credit card on the anniversary date of your enrollment. Your investment on the Annual Payment Plan is $2,297 per year or $225 per month if you would rather pay on a monthly basis.

To view all of the benefits that you receive with your Top 5 membership click here: Member Benefits

To find out now if you are qualified to be a member of Top 5 click here: Do I Qualify?

The Top 5 in Real Estate is a network of select real estate professionals from throughout the United States and Canada who have met the Top 5 in Real Estate's stringent series of various career qualifications and who are committed to the future development of their professional skills and services to the consumers and the community they serve.

To qualify for membership in the Top 5 in Real Estate Network, agents must meet certain criteria, based upon the TOP 5 CREED, which is as follows:

• Community Commitment
• Results
• Education
• Experience
• Digitally-enabled

If you do not feel that you meet the TOP 5 CREED criteria, please let us know and we will inform you of the steps that are required in order for you to become eligible. We encourage all earnest real estate professionals to complete the application regardless of their assumed level of potential acceptance.

To learn more about the TOP 5 CREED, click here.

In order to engender the utmost respect from consumers, Top 5 in Real Estate Members must extend their essence beyond self-promotional accomplishments and demonstrate a commitment to bettering the community and its residents. Moreover, we believe that a commitment to the community is indispensable to marketing and selling the benefits of the community. Candidates for the Top 5 in Real Estate, therefore, need to be not only consumer-centric but community-centric. RISMedia will provide community-related information to Top 5 Members in order to strengthen this effort.

Productivity is an important requirement for membership because it signifies to consumers that Top 5 Members are among the upper echelon in real estate: the top 10% of real estate agents, nationally and/or locally, in either volume or unit productivity. We believe that production should be a leading indicator of why consumers should select a Top 5 Member for their real estate needs, but not the only one.

We believe there is a nexus between professional excellence and education, specifically when it comes to an individual's propensity for providing vital real estate information that will empower consumers. We also believe that consumers have an immediate respect for a real estate professional's educational accomplishments. Educational requirements for all members increase the status for exclusivity and Top 5 as a brand, increasing overall value proposition for each member and, therefore, the Top 5 Network as a whole.

All agents must have at least three years experience or have closed at least 70 transaction sides to qualify for Top 5. While length of professional service or closed transactions alone are no guarantee of professional excellence, we believe that, in general, the more experience an agent has, the more experiential knowledge they acquire. To consumers in the selection process, this knowledge becomes an important part of both their real and perceived value of a real estate professional.

Information technology skills are a must in order to fully serve clients at all stages of the real estate experience. We also want to ensure that members become as financially prudent as possible through information technology efficiencies.

In 2008, RISMedia, one of the leading media companies in the real estate industry, was asked by numerous industry leaders, including many top agents, to develop a method or program that would create greater respect from consumers. Another reason Top 5 was created was to raise consumer expectations by encouraging consumers to become more selective when choosing their real estate agents. At Top 5 we believe that elevating consumer expectations is a byproduct of elevating real estate professionalism.

As an information-based media company, RISMedia provides Top 5 Members with a steady flow of informational and educational consumer material. Online, Top 5 Members place a link on their website to their personalized Top 5 Media Center, providing visitors with daily consumer real estate news, a weekly consumer real estate video update and an extensive Real Estate Q&A library. In addition, members can take advantage of three exclusive Top 5 consumer-facing publications:

• What Every Home Seller Should Demand...of Their Real Estate Agent - for listings, FSBOs, builders and homeowners in general
• There's Only One Reason Why Your Home Didn't Sell - for expired listings
• The Four R's of Short Sales - a publication that, for the first time, creates transparency between homeowners, buyers, lenders and allied real estate professionals by explaining the perspective of each stakeholder to the transaction

The Top 5 in Real Estate Network is not associated with any other real estate company or industry association, course, award, credential or designation, yet honors each for their own totally distinctive value and prestige. Top 5 does accept a variety of other industry brand and brokerage course achievements, certifications and designations as a way of satisfying the Professional Education requirement for Top 5. Other differences include:

1. A brand name (Top 5 in Real Estate), which is immediately suggestive of superior real estate success.
2. No additional courses are required to become a member (although additional education and informational resources are provided) because membership is based upon overall career success.

All phases of the consumer real estate continuum-from buying and selling to renovating or investing-will be addressed in the Top 5 content, including: buying, selling, home improvement, financing, relocating, FSBO, selecting an agent, short sales, conducting seminars, and ongoing, consumer-relevant information.

RISMedia, the leader in real estate information provides ongoing support, functionality and administration of the Top 5 in Real Estate as a whole, but also views the network's members as strategic partners.

You should join Top 5 because it is the number one way to better express your real estate-related achievements and professionalism to consumers. Research reveals that top producers have little problem impressing consumers once they meet them; Top 5 alerts and informs the consumer about your status before you meet them. Top 5 is also an exceptional method for increasing your value to consumers by providing them with relevant real estate information. Your well-deserved Top 5 in Real Estate brand and status will help you gain more customers and clients. What's more, its informational resources will help you maintain those clients by serving their ongoing real estate informational needs.

While RISMedia uniquely appreciates and supports the role of real estate companies, national, state and local boards and associations, our vast resources and rich media experience in the real estate industry distinctly positions us to deliver the most relevant, highest quality real estate-related content that is vital to satisfying consumer needs in this information age.

For several reasons:

1. The unique qualifications and high caliber of the Top 5 members.
2. The enormous advantage of having the backing of RISMedia, the leader in developing print, online and in-person information systems and events for the real estate industry.
3. The networking opportunities as members celebrate their richly deserved status with fellow elite achievers.

As a Top 5 member, your business will grow for several reasons:

1. Better branding
2. Better information
3. Better networking
4. Better ideas and strategies
5. Better website content

Top 5 will provide you with more opportunities to extol the considerable virtues, resources and consumer benefits that your company provides. Top 5 is designed to complement your company's brand, programs and systems. Simply put, Top 5 will get you up to bat more often so you can put your company's equipment to more frequent and better use.

RISMedia will provide you with a more time-efficient and cost-effective way to disseminate information to clients and consumers.

The Top 5 in Real Estate Network is not NAR, a state or local association, or a company-based association program. Top 5 is monumentally different than any other professional network or educational designation/certification program because it uniquely integrates an exclusive (by selection criteria) network of leading professionals who will be distinctly powered with the information, content and credibility of RISMedia, the leader in real estate information systems. Top 5 is comprised of outstanding real estate professionals who may or may not be involved in several other organizations and/or programs that serve a very noble, yet different, need.

RISMedia will promote Top 5 aggressively and strategically via a multi-media approach that includes both online and offline vehicles, such as: RISMedia's Real Estate magazine; RISMedia.com; business-to-business and business-to-consumer media instruments. In addition, network members throughout the United States and Canada will be promulgating this pre-eminent real estate credential.

Home sellers benefit in two principal ways:

1. The Top 5 in Real Estate moniker will enable home sellers to quickly and easily identify a highly qualified, results-oriented, consumer-focused real estate professional.
2. Home sellers will become better informed and educated regarding what they should expect and demand through the informational content provided to them by their Top 5 Member. Home sellers working with a Top 5 Member will be better prepared to make important decisions surrounding the sale of their home.

Buyers will benefit in much the same way that home sellers will. Buyers will recognize that Top 5 Members represent superior results and educational attainment; buyers will benefit from the wealth of decision-making information provided by their Top 5 Member through the vast library of RISMedia content made available on member websites. How will consumers not currently active in the market benefit from the Top 5 Network? All consumers will benefit by having access, through Top 5 Members, to a veritable library of consumer-centric real estate information. This information will focus on their non-transactional needs, thereby increasing the likelihood that they will select a Top 5 Member when a transactional need arises. Before the creation of Top 5, agents had been "farming" but planting the wrong seeds. While all leading agents strive to create customers for life, until now, they have never been equipped with the consumer-rich resources that RISMedia uniquely provides.

Absolutely! It is our sacred responsibility to manage and limit membership, so that the marketplace opportunities for members are not diluted, but instead has exclusive value.  Membership will be  limited to the top ten percent of total agent count in specific geographic areas or towns.

We have developed a comprehensive promotional plan that will be provided to all Top 5 Members (included in membership). These multifaceted and strategic marketing and promotional systems include the use of both offline and online resources, such as: direct mail; video; e-mail and press releases. Additionally, Top 5 Members will be provided with promotional materials and information in order to host their own consumer seminars and other community-based events.

Yes, informational releases will be produced and distributed on a bi-weekly basis.

The initial intent is to convene the Top 5 at major international, national and regional real estate events until the membership has sufficient numbers. Once we achieve critical mass, we will look to hosting standalone conventions for the Top 5 Network.

No. Top 5 is not designed to compete nor conflict in any way with the essence or role of any real estate company, brand, franchise or broker.

No. That is not the objective of the Top 5 in Real Estate Network.

No. In fact, many of the industry's leading real estate brokers and owners have recommended their top agents to Top 5, which is a demonstration of their support for this network.

No. A Top 5 membership is similar to other professional designations, such as a CPA or an MBA. For example, there can be five CPA's in a town and each can use their certification and license anywhere within their given state.

Yes, although the essence of the Top 5 in Real Estate Network goes beyond the dimensions of conventional training. Top 5 will provide what we believe to be the finest training and coaching opportunities available in the market today - a peer-to-peer mastermind exchange, along with high-value tutelage from industry-respected mentors. As opposed to training programs currently available that propose their own respective methods for success, Top 5 Members will benefit from a wide range of success strategies from their peers in the network, along with the wisdom of various trainers involved in the program.

No. Top 5 is not an educationally based organization; it does, however, as part of its membership criteria, require that candidates have and continue to participate in industry education programs.

Yes. A Top 5 in Real Estate Member Directory is available online via this website. Simply click the About Top 5 link above and then Member Directory.

Yes, we have a membership credit referral program that rewards you for referring other qualified agents to Top 5. Please contact a Top 5 Membership Consultant for more information.(Click here for contact information.)

We believe that currently the most effective way for our members to communicate with each other is in a private, members-only environment, and that Facebook is sufficiently  effective for that purpose. Top 5 may, at some point, change to another platform and we  will give our members notice of any such changes.

We have made applying membership in Top 5 convenient and easy and can be done right here on this web site. Just click on "Becoming a Member" and then click on "Enrollment Form." Alternatively, simply call a Top 5 Membership Consultant. (Click here for contact information.) Please direct e-mail inquiries to join@top5inrealestate.com.