Every agent eventually gets pointed toward a real estate coach, podcast, or YouTube channel promising the edge they are missing. Five sources are worth that recommendation right now: Brian Buffini, Tom Ferry, Tim and Julie Harris, Brandon Mulrenin, and the podcast Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered, each for one specific skill they do better than anyone else covering the industry.
That skill, not fame and not how often their name comes up in a Facebook group, is the reason to follow each one.
Why It Is Worth Being Selective About Who You Follow
Roughly 1.4 million people hold an active NAR membership as of June 2026, all competing for the same buyers and sellers in a market that keeps changing its rules. That number pushes agents toward coaching and training content for an edge, and the supply of people willing to sell that edge has grown just as fast as the demand for it.
Most of that content sounds the same. A host with a big following repeats the same three tips about time blocking and lead follow-up that every other host repeats, packaged behind a different face. The five sources on this list do not have that problem, because each one built a specific, narrow skill that the others did not, and each one is worth your time for that skill specifically rather than for a complete philosophy of how to run your business.
Know the one thing each source is good at, and you can go get that thing when you need it instead of subscribing to a whole worldview because one episode was good.
Brian Buffini: Reading Where the Market Is Headed Before It Turns
Brian Buffini's superpower is interpreting the real estate industry and market well enough to say plainly what is about to happen and what an agent should do about it. He built that skill over decades, and I watched it up close for eleven years working inside his company.
Buffini's philosophy is "Work by Referral," the idea that focusing on relationships instead of transactions is what makes a real estate business durable. He wrote the book with the same title, and the concept still anchors every program Buffini & Company runs. It is also the same idea behind staying in consistent contact with your sphere of influence, which shows up across nearly every coaching philosophy on this list in one form or another. On a personal level, he is a faith-driven, high-integrity operator, and that character shows up in how directly he talks about where the market is going, without softening it to keep an audience comfortable.
The clearest place to see the superpower in action is "bold predictions," a theme Buffini returns to a few times a year on his podcast, The Brian Buffini Show, where he lays out where the industry and the broader market are headed and why. The same market reads carry through many of his other episodes across the year too, not only the ones badged as bold predictions.
If you need: where the market is headed and what to do about it, not just what to feel about it.
Quick links: YouTube · Podcast · Book: Work by Referral
Tom Ferry: Assembling the Best Experts in Real Estate Into One Feed
Tom Ferry's superpower is building a network of top producers, team leaders, brokers, and outside experts in marketing and AI, then delivering what they know to his audience in a form they can use. He is arguably the most recognized name in real estate coaching today, with a massive YouTube following and a packed events calendar, and he built that position after starting out working alongside his father, Mike Ferry, one of the original real estate coaches.
His work ethic is the part that does not show up in a highlight reel. Around 2011 or 2012, I visited a small brokerage in Arizona, about 25 agents, and they told me I had just missed Tom Ferry. He had been through the week before and, in their words, gotten the whole office fired up. Not long after that, I watched him headline the main stage at a RE/MAX annual convention. Somewhere between those two events is a person who goes office to office across a country full of them and still shows up ready for the biggest stage in the industry.
What makes the superpower work is curation. The experts he brings on are world-class in what they know, and Tom filters that expertise through his own experience and delivers it with a motivational charge that keeps an audience engaged past the information itself.
If you need: access to expert-level thinking across marketing, AI, and production, without having to go find each expert yourself.
Quick links: YouTube · Podcast · Book: Mindset, Model and Marketing!
Tim and Julie Harris: Scripts for Today's Opportunity
Tim and Julie Harris's superpower is practitioner-based scripts, dialogues, and tactics for seizing whatever opportunity is showing up in the market right now. I do not know them personally, but their podcast, Real Estate Coaching Radio, makes their depth of real-world experience obvious within a few episodes.
Their approach is upbeat and opportunity-first. Instead of describing a tough market in the abstract, they identify the specific opening it creates and hand you the exact language to go after it: the script, the dialogue, the objection handler. That is a different service than motivation. It is closer to a playbook you can use on your next call.
That combination, finding where the opportunity is and supplying the words to close it, is what makes them feel like the coaches for your day-to-day, the ones who make you measurably more productive rather than just more inspired.
If you need: the actual words to say on your next call, not a framework to think about later.
Quick links: YouTube · Podcast · Book: Harris Rules
Brandon Mulrenin: Selling and Scripting Expired Listings
Brandon Mulrenin's superpower is selling and scripting for expired listings, full stop. He runs one of the biggest YouTube channels in the space, and his standout content is the live prospecting video: he records himself cold-calling actual expired listings, using the exact scripts and strategies he teaches, with no edits hiding what a real call sounds like.
Watching those videos, the thing that stands out immediately is that he is a master salesperson who has clearly had this exact conversation hundreds of times. Confidence like that does not come from a script alone. It comes from running the script enough times to know every direction the conversation can go.
Mulrenin covers other topics too, but expired listings are the reason to watch him. If the question on your mind is how to go after expired leads, his channel is the direct answer.
If you need: a live, unedited demonstration of exactly how an expired listing cold call is supposed to sound.
Quick links: YouTube · Podcast · Book: Reverse Selling
Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered: The Conversations Industry Executives Do Not Have on Stage
Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered sits outside the four coaches above. James Dwiggins and Keith Robinson, co-CEOs of NextHome, host it as an industry conversation podcast, and its superpower is bringing on influential people in real estate and letting them say things they would not say from a conference stage.
I started listening around the time the NAR settlement practice changes took effect in August 2024, early enough to watch the show grow into one of the more candid conversations in the industry. Executives who normally have to protect their company's position in public get looser and more direct here, and the show is built to let that happen rather than sand it down.
That candor is the value. You get perspectives and experiences from people running the industry that you will not hear anywhere else, delivered without the filter those same people would apply at an industry event.
If you need: the version of an industry conversation that does not get said from a stage.
Quick links: YouTube · Podcast
.png)
The Broader Takeaway: Follow the Specialist, Not the Personality
None of these five sources is a complete system for running a real estate business, and treating any one of them that way misses what makes each one valuable. Buffini will not hand you a cold-calling script. Mulrenin will not give you a market forecast. Each one solved one problem better than anyone else covering the industry, and that narrow focus is exactly what makes their advice worth having.
The instinct to pick one guru and adopt their entire philosophy is understandable. It is also the wrong instinct. Follow the specialist for the specific thing they are best at, using the "if you need" line under each section above to match the name to the gap. TPA's own Coaching Club works the same way: pick it up for the specific gap it fills, not as a replacement for the rest of this list. Do not outsource your whole business philosophy to a single personality because they were the first one you found.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Who is the best real estate coach to follow as a new agent? There is no single best coach for every new agent, because the value depends on what you are missing. Tim and Julie Harris's podcast, Real Estate Coaching Radio, is the strongest fit for a new agent who needs specific scripts and day-to-day tactics rather than big-picture strategy. Brian Buffini's Work by Referral system, the same one I saw firsthand for 11 years working inside his company from 1999 to 2010, is the better fit if you want a durable, relationship-first philosophy to build your entire business around from the start.
Q: What does "Work by Referral" mean? Work by Referral is Brian Buffini's core philosophy and the title of his book, co-written with Joe Niego. It holds that building genuine relationships and taking care of other people's needs, rather than chasing transactions directly, is what produces a sustainable, prosperous real estate business over time. Buffini & Company still teaches the system today, more than 25 years after Buffini first built it.
Q: Is Tom Ferry coaching worth it for an established agent? Tom Ferry's specific value for an established agent is the network he has built after starting out in the 2000s working alongside his father, coach Mike Ferry. He brings in top producers, team leaders, brokers, and outside experts in marketing and AI, then filters what they know through his own experience at events like his annual Success Summit. An established agent who already has the fundamentals down gets the most value from that curated exposure to outside expertise.
Q: Where can I listen to Tim and Julie Harris? Their podcast, Real Estate Coaching Radio, is available at timandjulieharris.com and on Apple Podcasts and the other major platforms. New episodes run frequently, and the most useful ones are built around specific scripts, dialogues, and tactics tied to a current market condition rather than general motivation. Start with a recent episode covering whatever is happening in your market right now, since that is where their practitioner-based advice is sharpest.
Q: What is Brandon Mulrenin known for? Brandon Mulrenin is known for expired listing strategy, and specifically for recording live prospecting videos where he cold-calls real expired listings on camera using the exact scripts he teaches. His YouTube channel, Brandon Mulrenin, is the direct resource if expired listings are the gap in your business, and it is worth watching the live call videos he has posted going back to the 2010s before anything else on the channel.
Q: Is Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered a coaching podcast? No. Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered is hosted by James Dwiggins and Keith Robinson, co-CEOs of the brokerage network NextHome, as an industry conversation podcast rather than a coaching program. Its value is candid perspective from real estate executives and leaders on topics they would not typically discuss publicly at an industry event, including the fallout from the 2024 NAR settlement.
Q: Do I need a real estate coach to succeed? No single coach is required to succeed in real estate. The 5 sources on this list solved 5 different problems, which is the more useful way to think about it: not whether to have a coach, but which specific gap in your business, a script, a market read, a network, or an opinion, you are trying to close right now.
Q: How do I choose between these five sources instead of following all of them? Start with the one gap costing you the most business this month, then match it to the name whose specific superpower closes that gap. Following all 5 with no filter produces the same information overload this list is meant to solve. Pick based on the problem, not on who has the biggest following.
Chris A. Scott is a Real Estate Digital Marketer & AI Strategist at The Paperless Agent where we make AI and real estate technology useful, practical, and profitable.
Sources referenced in this post
- Work by Referral, Brian Buffini and Joe Niego
- The 5 Fundamentals of Working by Referral, Buffini & Company
- Tom Ferry, official site
- Tim and Julie Harris Real Estate Coaching
- Brandon Mulrenin, YouTube
- Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered, hosts
- NAR membership count, June 2026
- NAR practice change implementation, August 17, 2024