Burnt Out Leading Your Real Estate Team? You Might Be Building the Wrong Kind of Team

Key facts

• Author: Amy Youngren, agent, team leader at Real and founder of UNTD; blog post dated April 22, 2026.
• Amy says she has led North Group for nine years.
• Her central claim: a lot of burnt out team leaders are building the wrong team model, not failing at their model.
• She names two dominant models: the sales culture and the community culture.
• She says both models work, can be profitable and can scale to any level, but they cannot be blended.
• She says she is naturally a sales culture leader but built a team for community-minded agents.
• About three and a half years before the post, she got clear on serving mid-level to experienced agents who want to grow their own brand and business inside a supportive platform.
• She says that after building for those agents, recruiting, retention and decision-making got easier.

Why are so many real estate team leaders burnt out?

Amy Youngren says team leaders often tell her they feel burnt out, aren't happy running their team, or find it unprofitable. Most assume it's a personal failing in discipline, leadership or systems. After nine years building North Group, she believes many are instead building the wrong kind of team.

What are the two team models Amy Youngren describes?

Amy Youngren describes two dominant real estate team models: the sales culture and the community culture. She says both work, both can be profitable and both can scale to any level. They attract completely different agents and demand different strengths from the leader, so they cannot be blended.

Can you blend a sales culture and a community culture team?

Amy Youngren says no. She and her business partner each tried to build a hybrid of the two on different teams, and it clashed every time. When she attracted community culture agents and managed them like a sales culture team, recruiting, retention and her own energy all suffered.

Which team culture did Amy Youngren build, and why?

Amy Youngren says she is naturally a sales culture leader: productivity driven, hustle culture. Even so, about three and a half years before the post she chose to serve mid-level to experienced agents who want to grow their own brand and business inside a supportive platform, and she built the team for them.

What changed when Amy Youngren built for a specific type of agent?

Amy Youngren says building for the agents she had chosen made recruiting, retention and decision-making easier. Knowing exactly who she wanted to serve, down to details like not leading agents who don't adopt technology, meant she stopped chasing everyone and started attracting the right agents.

What question does Amy Youngren ask team leaders to consider?

Amy Youngren asks team leaders whether they actually know which model they're building: not the one they fell into, but the one they chose, for agents they chose. The post links to a full conversation on YouTube.

Frequently asked questions

Who wrote this post?

Amy Youngren wrote it. She is an agent, team leader at Real and founder of UNTD, and says she has led North Group for nine years. The post is dated April 22, 2026.

Does Amy Youngren say one team model is better than the other?

No. She says sales culture and community culture both work, can both be profitable and can both scale to any level. Her point is that a leader should choose one deliberately and not blend them.

What type of agents does Amy Youngren's team serve?

She says she built for mid-level to experienced agents who want to grow their own brand and business inside a platform that supports them.

Is Amy Youngren a sales culture or community culture leader?

She says she is naturally a sales culture leader and would join a sales culture team if she were joining one, but she built a team for a different type of agent.

Is there a video version of this post?

Yes. The post links to a full conversation on YouTube.