How to Build a Real Estate Acquisitions Team: The Seats, in Order

Most investors hire in the wrong order. They add a closer before anyone answers the phone fast, or they buy more inquiries than one person can call. Payroll goes up, deal count does not, and the owner ends up doing three jobs again by Friday.

Key points

• How to build a real estate team, for an investor, means adding seats in the order your pipeline breaks: setter, acquisitions, dispositions, transaction coordinator, then marketing.
• Hire each seat on a trigger you can measure, not a feeling. Speed to lead slipping, appointments piling up and contracts sitting unassigned are the three loudest ones.
• Split setting from closing. One person doing both usually does neither well.
• Pay for outcomes the seat controls. Setters on held appointments, acquisitions on closed deals, dispo on spread and speed.
• A team doing 10 to 20 deals a month usually runs 6 to 8 people, and most of them live on the phone.

What an acquisitions team is, and why the order matters

An acquisitions team is the group that turns seller inquiries into signed contracts and signed contracts into closed deals. The order matters because each seat feeds the next. Hire out of order and you pay someone to wait.

The common failure runs both ways. Some operators hire producers before the pipeline exists. In our review of 116 substantive Hesel sales calls in April 2026, about 45% said some version of "we have the team but not the leads." Others buy inquiries nobody can work.

One operator who runs about 20 contracts a month put the second failure plainly: "if your sales and disposition isn't in line with the leads that are coming in, all you're doing is buying opportunities that you can't fulfill."

The seats, in order, with triggers and pay

The five seats below cover the full path from inquiry to closing, listed in the order most operators should hire them. Use the trigger column, not the deal count alone, because a team in a high-fee market hits each trigger at a lower volume.

The stages follow the operating levels Hesel uses with clients: owner-run up to about 2 deals a month, a lead manager and an acquisitions manager between 5 and 10, then a transaction coordinator and operations support from 10 to 30. Treat them as typical, not fixed.

Seat 1: the setter or ISA

The setter is the first hire because speed to lead is the first thing an owner loses when he gets busy. The setter calls every new inquiry within minutes, qualifies motivation, timeline, condition and price, and books a real appointment or transfers the call live.

Keep the job narrow. Hesel's ISA standard treats the setter as a helper, not a replacement: not the closer, and not the person who manages the whole pipeline. Pipeline follow-up is its own role once volume justifies it.

The same Google-heavy operator described his routing: "If the acquisitions are busy, the lead manager is going to get on the phone with them... but the goal is to immediately transfer that call to a closer." That is the job. Reach the seller first, then hand off at peak motivation.

Capacity: when one setter is full

One setter is full when new inquiries per day times average call attempts per inquiry passes about 80% of the quality dials that setter can make in a shift. Past that line, speed slips first and contact rate follows a week later.

Across clients using Hesel's ISA team in 2026, the median client routed 21 seller inquiries a month to the ISA (middle half: 12 to 33). At that volume, a shared or outsourced ISA covers the seat before a full-time hire makes sense.

Pay setters on held appointments, not booked ones. Pay per booking and you will get a calendar full of sellers who never meant to sell. A bonus per signed contract keeps the setter caring about quality.

Seat 2: the acquisitions manager

The acquisitions manager runs the appointment, makes the offer and follows it to a signed contract. Hire one when the owner is running more appointments than he can follow up on, because unworked offers are the most expensive leak in the business.

Split setting from closing even when it is tempting to combine them. Our client success managers see the same problem with inexperienced reps who do both: they try to solve every objection at once and end up disqualifying sellers before they understand what is going on. The setter gathers data. The closer decides.

How to pay acquisitions without digging a hole

Pay acquisitions on closed deals, with a base or a small draw that has an end date. Open-ended draws feel generous and turn into debt nobody can collect.

A wholesaler in the business since 2006 described paying an acquisitions rep a $1,500 a week draw that "only was supposed to be temporary" and was "probably reaching, like, $50,000," against a commission of 10% on the first $10,000 of a fee and 25% after. His words: reps "can see the writing on the wall and they leave."

Three rules prevent that story. Cap the draw window at 60 to 90 days. Tie commission to closed fees, not contracts. Make sure the inquiry flow can actually pay a good rep, or you will keep hiring and losing them. For context on base pay, Esteban has noted that US closers often start at a $2,500 to $3,500 monthly base plus commissions.

Seat 3: the dispositions manager

The dispositions manager sells or assigns your contracts to buyers, fast and at the right spread. Hire one when contracts sit unassigned longer than your target or the owner is spending hours a week calling buyers instead of running the business.

Dispo is where thin spreads show up. If acquisitions signs contracts with no room, dispo burns out the buyers list and deals fall apart. Judge the seat on days from contract to assignment, average spread and the share of deals going to repeat buyers. A dispo rep who only moves the easy deals is not doing the job.

The co-founder of InvestorBase, a dispositions software company, gave dispo reps concrete targets in a May 2026 Office Hours session. Reach about 100 unique buyers per deal with a two-day campaign of double calls, voicemails and texts. He said a one-day single dial got about a 10% response, and the two-day cadence averages about 35%.

When offers come in, he runs highest and best and targets a 75% resubmission rate, meaning six of eight bidders raise their offer. Those are his own numbers, and they make good lines on a dispo scorecard. Disclosure: Esteban Andrade's YouTube descriptions include an InvestorBase affiliate link.

Seat 4: the transaction coordinator

The transaction coordinator owns every signed contract from title order to closing day. Hire one when open files outnumber what anyone can chase weekly and your fallout reasons start with "nobody followed up."

The TC's job is to clear the path in week one: open title, chase payoffs and liens, confirm every signer, and keep the seller updated at least twice a week. Silence is what makes sellers cancel. Judge the seat on contract-to-close rate and days to close, and track every fallout reason in writing.

Seat 5: the marketing owner

The marketing owner is the person, inside or outside the company, who is accountable for cost per contract by channel. Until spend is large, that is usually an agency plus the owner's weekly review. An in-house media buyer makes sense once the owner can no longer review spend by source every week.

Whoever owns it needs the CRM data from seats 1 to 4. A media buyer who never sees which ads produced contracts will keep optimizing for cheap inquiries. Our guide to the eight real estate investor KPIs covers the numbers each seat should report.

What 10 to 20 deals a month looks like

A team closing 10 to 20 deals a month usually runs six to eight people, and the math below shows why. It uses the funnel rules of thumb Esteban has stated publicly: appointments at about 40% to 60% of inquiries, 60% to 70% showing, and contracts at about 20% to 25% of shown appointments.

For 15 contracts a month at the middle of those ranges, you need about 67 shown appointments, about 103 booked, and about 205 inquiries. That is roughly 9 new inquiries every working day and 15 to 16 shown appointments a week. The numbers are an illustration, not a forecast.

• Owner or CEO: numbers, hiring, capital and the weekly KPI meeting.
• Two setters or lead managers: about 9 new inquiries a day plus follow-up is more than one setter can call fast, and evenings and weekends need cover.
• Two acquisitions managers: one can run 15 shown appointments a week, but not while working every open offer too.
• One dispositions manager: 10 to 15 closings a month means a buyer call every working day.
• One transaction coordinator: 15 contracts open at once is a full-time chase.
• Marketing: an agency or one media buyer, plus a VA for CRM hygiene if needed.

Scorecards for every seat

Every seat needs a one-page card with four parts: the role, the requirements, the responsibilities and the results. Hesel calls it a 4R card. If you cannot write the results line, you are not ready to hire the seat.

• Setter: first call under 5 minutes on every inquiry, every inquiry has a next step, appointments held per week.
• Acquisitions: appointment-to-contract rate, spreads above your minimum, fallout below your limit.
• Dispositions: days from contract to assignment, average spread, repeat-buyer share.
• Transaction coordinator: contract-to-close rate, days to close, seller reviews collected.

Review the cards weekly in a short KPI meeting and daily in a 15-minute huddle: new inquiries, speed to first call, appointments set, offers out, contracts signed.

The managers own the other half of the card. Tiffany and Josh High, who co-own the coaching company Results Driven, described their side of it in a May 2026 Office Hours session: "It is our job to make them fill out a scorecard every day and manage them by the KPIs. It's our job to watch their film and do call audits every single week."

How to hire each seat without wasting months

Hire with a work sample before an interview, and cut a bad hire fast. Resumes do not tell you who can talk to a seller in a hard week.

1. Screening form plus a short video answer. Filters out people who will not follow instructions.
2. Skills test. A mock seller call for setters and acquisitions, a buyer pitch for dispo, a file checklist for the TC.
3. Interview on behavior. Ask what they did last time a deal or a quota went sideways.
4. Onboarding with recorded calls. Scripts, a CRM walkthrough, real call recordings and a written first-30-days plan.
5. A ladder. Setter to acquisitions to team lead to partner in a new market. Good people stay when they can see the next seat.

On one client call, an owner described two lead managers: one quit in three days and another did nothing. Esteban's advice was behavioral work samples, personality tests and cutting bad hires fast. Read our post on hiring A-players for the longer version.

Contractors, employees and commission-only pay

How you classify each seat is a legal question, not a preference. The IRS says the key is to "look at the entire relationship and consider the extent of the right to direct and control the worker." If you set the hours, the script and the CRM, that points toward employee.

Operators who switched say control decided it. In the same Office Hours session on acquisition teams, Tiffany High said her sales team ran on 1099s for years before she moved them to W-2: "I want to manage their hours. I want to manage their performance. I want to manage them based on numbers. And you can't legally do that if they're 1099."

Josh High added that commission-only pay does not force a 1099: "you can also absolutely pay someone 100% commission who's also a W2." That is their view as operators, not legal advice.

Commission-only employees can still be owed minimum wage for hours worked unless an exemption applies. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, and many states set a higher floor. Run your comp plan past an employment attorney or CPA before you sign anyone.

Mistakes that cost operators the most

• Hiring producers before the pipeline. A closer with no appointments is a monthly bill.
• Buying inquiries before the setter seat exists. Speed dies first, and you blame the ads.
• One person setting and closing. Qualifying turns into disqualifying.
• Open-ended draws. They become debt and resentment.
• No post-call notes. If it is not in the CRM, it did not happen. One client looked at his handoffs and said, "There are no notes on any of these."
• Double entry. Make reps log the same call twice and they stop logging it, and the work falls back on the owner. As one operator put it, "making them do something twice is never smart with salespeople."

How Hesel supports the team you build

Hesel fills the seats that are hardest to staff early and supports the ones you hire. Our ISA standard is a first call within 2 minutes, 5 at most, under your company name from a local number. The ISA qualifies motivation, timeline, condition and price, and either transfers live or books the appointment. If your team reaches the seller first, the ISA stops.

Client acquisition reps get a weekly sales training seat. One client described it on camera: "every Wednesday help us with the training call... we learn every Wednesday a lot of how to overcome objections." For the closing side, see our sales training program.

When you are ready to hire full-time seats, our team placement service can help you find and screen candidates for these seats. Disclosure: Esteban Andrade also co-founded Remote Latinos, a hiring platform, and the closer pay figure above comes from a video recorded with that company.

For a look at a small team closing well, read how one young remote team secured a deal at 60% below market value. That was one of our best results, not a typical one. Outcomes depend on market, budget, offer and follow-up speed.

Build the next seat on purpose

Your team is ready or your pipeline is ready. Rarely both. The next hire should fix whichever one is breaking first, and the numbers will tell you which one it is.

Book a strategy call and bring your last 90 days: inquiries, speed to first call, appointments, offers and contracts. We will show you which seat is the bottleneck, whether marketing or hiring comes first, and what the ISA side would cost you versus a full-time setter.

Book a free strategy call to map your next hire. If you only need follow-up coverage today, start with our ISA and appointment setting service.

Frequently asked questions

What is the first hire for a real estate investor?

The first hire for a real estate investor running marketing is usually a setter or ISA who calls every new inquiry within minutes and books qualified appointments. Speed to lead is the first thing an owner loses when busy, and every later seat depends on appointments the setter creates.

When should I hire an acquisitions manager?

You should hire an acquisitions manager when you run more seller appointments than you can follow up on, or offers start going out late. For most operators that happens between 5 and 10 deals a month. Make sure the inquiry flow can pay a good rep before you hire.

How do you pay an acquisitions manager in wholesaling?

You pay an acquisitions manager in wholesaling with a base or short draw plus a share of the fee on closed deals. Cap any draw at 60 to 90 days and tie commission to closings, not signed contracts, so pay follows money that actually hits the account.

What does a dispositions manager do?

A dispositions manager sells or assigns your signed contracts to buyers at the best spread and in the fewest days. The role builds and works the buyers list, prices deals, runs showings and tracks days from contract to assignment, average spread and repeat-buyer share.

Do I need a transaction coordinator for wholesaling?

You need a transaction coordinator for wholesaling once open contracts outnumber what anyone can chase weekly, usually around 10 deals a month. The TC opens title, chases payoffs and signers, updates sellers twice a week and owns contract-to-close rate.

Should setters be paid per appointment?

Setters should be paid per held appointment, not per booked appointment. Paying per booking fills calendars with sellers who never meant to sell. A base or hourly rate, a bonus per held appointment and a bonus per signed contract keeps setters focused on quality.

How big a team do you need for 10 deals a month?

A team for 10 deals a month usually needs five to six people: the owner, one or two setters, one or two acquisitions managers, a dispositions manager and part-time transaction support. At 15 to 20 deals, expect six to eight people.

Should acquisition reps be contractors or employees?

Whether acquisition reps should be contractors or employees depends on how much you control the work. The IRS looks at behavioral, financial and relationship factors. If you set hours, scripts and tools, the rep likely looks like an employee. Confirm with an employment attorney or CPA.

Sources

• IRS: Independent contractor (self-employed) or employee?
• US Department of Labor: Minimum wage
• Esteban Andrade on YouTube: Google PPC scaling system with a client operator (August 2026)
• Esteban Andrade on YouTube: hiring costs discussion (May 2026)
• Hesel Media Agency TV: client results and reviews compilation (July 2026)
• Esteban Andrade on YouTube: Office Hours with Tiffany and Josh High on building an acquisition team (May 2026)
• Esteban Andrade on YouTube: Office Hours with InvestorBase's co-founder on dispo KPIs (May 2026)