Is Brown Harris Stevens Worth It? An Honest Review

Overall rating | Customer experience | Agent quality | Brand visibility and reach | Service value | Locations | Methodology

Brown Harris Stevens was founded in 1873, which makes it one of the oldest and most prestigious real estate brokerages in the U.S. The company has over 4,000 agents who operate in major cities in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Florida. The agents at Brown Harris Stevens have the second highest average sales price in the U.S, as well as one of the highest sales volumes per agent.

Let's dive into the company’s services and see if they’re a good fit for you.

Bottom line: Do we recommend Brown Harris Stevens?

Brown Harris Stevens is worth considering if you’re buying or selling a luxury home in one of their markets.

The agents at Brown Harris Stevens are some of the best in the industry. On average they have over 20 years of experience each. And they close around four multimillion-dollar transactions per year.

Brown Harris Stevens’ services include MLS Listing, professional pricing, HD photography, and advanced marketing. The brokerage also has analysts and economists on staff who produce quarterly reports and market analyses. This information can help you determine the right time to buy or sell.

The company does have some negative reviews about its agents. Some reviewers described the agents as rude, unresponsive or bad at communicating. That’s why it’s a good idea to evaluate agents and not just a brand. Never let a big name like Brown Harris Stevens replace a thorough interview.

Brown Harris Stevens: Our in-depth breakdown

Reputation and customer experience

Brown Harris Stevens has fewer public reviews and lower ratings than most brokerages of the same size. On Google alone, which has 42 reviews, Brown Harris Stevens has only a 3.7 rating. Most brokerages have at least a 4 on average on Google.

The negative reviews are mostly from past clients who had a poor experience with an agent. These reviewers described the agents as "rude" or "dismissive." Other reviews mentioned problems with viewing homes or connecting with their agent.

Customers often use third-party review sites to voice complaints rather than praise. We recommend taking complaints with a grain of salt. We'll help you look at the whole picture before picking a broker.

Brown Harris Stevens has an A+ rating on the Better Business Bureau (BBB). It has zero formal BBB complaints, but it also has zero BBB reviews.

Agent quality

Brown Harris Stevens agents have more than double the industry median of eight years. According to the company’s website, its agents have an average of over 20 years of experience buying and selling homes. To verify this, we checked out the experience of the 38 Brown Harris Stevens agents on Realtor.com. The average was 18.9 years.

In 2021, agents at Brown Harris Stevens had the second highest average sale price in the U.S. — around $1.526 million per home. They also had one of the highest average sales volumes per agent, roughly $8.1 million. Most agents complete around 4.2 transactions per year. That’s far less than the industry average of 12. But the company’s agents are focusing on luxury homes with high sales prices.

The agents at Brown Harris Stevens are top notch, but they might not be the best fit for you, especially if you have an average home. We recommend evaluating agents individually, no matter which brokerage they represent. Interview agents, ask for sales numbers and references, and decide for yourself if they’re a good fit.

Brand reach and visibility

Brown Harris Stevens has excellent brand reach and online visibility. According to our research, the company gets over 47,700 site visits and over 8,400 Google searches every month. Those numbers are impressive for a real estate company with only 3,000 active listings.

Brown Harris Stevens also has a robust network of local agents. The company has over 4,000 agents with a dense coverage of the eight markets where it does business. This coverage can be a major advantage for buyers and sellers because agents can potentially connect you with listings and buyers faster.

Service value

Brown Harris Stevens’ services seem to have great value. It offers a lot of special services all for an average full commission.

The company is a full-service brokerage, so you can expect all the essential services, including:

• MLS listing and syndication across all major real estate sites
• Listing on Brown Harris Stevens’ self-branded listing page
• Industry-leading guidance on how to price your home
• Marketing plan with social media promotion
• Professional HD photography
• Agent-led home showings
• Help with negotiations and closing

Brown Harris Stevens is also fairly unique in that it has an on-staff chief economist and team of research professionals who analyze current and future market trends. And the company has an analytics team that tracks larger price movements in Brown Harris Stevens’ markets. These expert services can help you price your home competitively and decide when to sell.

Brown Harris Stevens agents will likely charge you full commission no matter what local competitive rates are. To give you an idea of those rates, here are the averages for the states Brown Harris Stevens operates in.

» MORE: Average Commission Rates Across the U.S. 2022

Additional info about Brown Harris Stevens

General contact info (corporate office)

Brown Harris Stevens local offices and contact information

You can view all of its offices on the Brown Harris Stevens website. We've also listed the locations that get the most searches on Google, indicating they're probably popular or in a highly populated area.

Next step: start interviewing agents!

To ensure you find the best agent for you, we recommend interviewing at least two to three (ideally from different brokerages). We also recommend that you look past big brands and companies and evaluate agents on an individual basis. For guidance on how to interview and choose agents wisely, you can read our guide.

When you’re ready to start finding agents, Clever can give you a headstart: our free agent-matching service will put you into contact with great agents in your area (and you might save some money in the process, too).

Rating methodology

We evaluate brokerages based on four core criteria we think will help readers make informed decisions. We broke those criteria down into discrete metrics so we could make the score as objective as possible. Here’s a quick breakdown of that criteria and methodology: