Is Samson Properties a Good Choice for Real Estate?

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

Headquartered in Chantilly, Virginia, Samson Properties is one of the fastest growing real estate brokerages in the eastern United States. Its 32 offices and 5,000+ agents are located across Maryland and northern Virginia, and it’s licensed in Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, DC, and West Virginia.

Bottom line: Do we recommend Samson Properties?

Yes, Samson Properties might be worth considering, but only after you’ve interviewed your local agent and decided for yourself.

The company has a full fleet of experienced agents covering a relatively dense area of Maryland and Virginia: approximately one agent for every square mile. Its agents are backed by an overwhelming amount of positive reviews, with a 4.7 rating on Google.

Unfortunately, Samson Properties doesn’t list its services on its website, so we don’t know what buyers and sellers can expect. That’s why it’s important to interview your local Samson agent first to ensure you find the right realtor for you. The most important thing is that your agent and their services are the right fit for you, no matter what the brand is.

Samson Properties: Our in-depth breakdown

Reputation and customer experience

The company has a stellar reputation on third-party review sites. With 518 reviews on Google, it boasts a 4.7 rating — very good for a company that completes over 20,000 transactions per year.

We decided to lift the hood on these reviews and see what emotional themes we could find. After running them through an AI program that identifies emotional language, here’s what we found:

Samson Properties has two complaints and a 1-star review on its Better Business Bureau profile. Since the only review is negative, it brought the company’s total rating to an F. While we don't think the negative reviews are false, it may not be representative of the general customer experience.

Agent quality

The real estate agents at Samson Properties appear to be very experienced, and the brokerage ranks 19th in the U.S. for sales volume, with $9.6 billion in sales in 2021.

Based on 52 agents we have data on, the average Samson agent has 12.8 years of experience (higher than the industry median) and roughly four transactions per agent. As a whole, there are over 5,000 agents on staff and 20,240 transactions completed in one year.

Regardless of how experienced Samson agents are, we still recommend evaluating them on an individual basis. Interview your local Samson agent first before you decide to work with the brokerage. Ask your agent for sales numbers, references from past clients, their commission rate, and the services they provide.

Brand reach and visibility

Samson Properties has a strong brand name that attracts new agents to its workforce. That said, according to our analytics tool, traffic to its main website and listing pages is only slightly above average:

• 1,500 active listings
• 5,800 visitors per month
• 6,500 Google searches per month

While these numbers aren’t terrible, they’re also lower than what we’ve seen on other brokerage websites.

Samson Properties' main strength is its local network, which is more likely to connect you with buyers and listings quickly. Its 32 offices are concentrated in the DC–Maryland–Virginia area — roughly 4,940 square miles. With 5,000+ agents on staff, that means the brokerage has about one agent per square mile.

Service value

Samson Properties doesn’t provide a fully fledged list of services that it offers to buyers and sellers. Since the brokerage relies on recruiting agents from all over the states where it’s licensed, the services provided will likely vary by agent. Both sellers and buyers, then, should ask their local Samson agent up front the services that they provide.

» LEARN: What is a full-service realtor?

A listing agent should provide a professional home valuation (ideally with a CMA), an MLS listing and syndication, high-quality photography and staging, and assistance managing open houses, negotiations, and paperwork.

Likewise, a buyer's agent should be able to help you find homes on the MLS that you’re actually interested in, as well as give you tours, connect you with the seller, and stay with you until you close on a home.

Keep in mind if you hire an agent from Samson Properties to help you sell, you might pay full commission, no matter what local competitive rates are. To give you an idea of local rates, here are the state averages for the DC–Maryland-Virginia markets:

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

Additional info about Samson Properties

General contact info (corporate office)

Next steps: Start interviewing agents!

Interview multiple agents (ideally two to three) to ensure you get the best fit and value. Remember: always hire the agent, not the brand. When you’re ready to start searching, check out our guide on how to choose the right real estate agent. Clever’s free agent-matching service makes agent shopping fast and easy, and it can save you money.

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: