1031 DST Broker Rankings

Composite = 50% disclosures + 30% independence + 20% perceived investor popularity. Each component runs from 0–100. Calculations use unrounded values; displayed scores are rounded to one decimal. These are research conventions, not regulatory standards or a determination of ethics, experience, advice quality or investment suitability.

Disclosures: We sum reported entries for all conclusively identified publicly listed brokers, deduplicating CRDs within each firm, and divide by the number reviewed. Zero reported entries gives 100; one entry per broker gives 50; three gives 25. All entry types have equal numerical weight. This measures reporting frequency, not severity or culpability. It does not adjust for career length, clients served, event dates or outcomes. Review the individual reports before drawing conclusions.

Entries include allegations, settlements, regulatory matters and financial events. They are not unique incidents or proven misconduct; the same matter can appear in multiple people’s records. Dealer-wide entries are shown separately and do not reduce a practice’s score. Unmatched public names are not assigned zero disclosures.

Independence: We assess sponsorship by the practice, its principals or their controlled affiliates, including the investment products it distributes beyond DSTs. If no sponsorship evidence is found, we assume the practice does not sponsor its own or affiliated deals and award 100 independence points. Profiles distinguish this assumption from an explicit nonproprietary firm statement. Neither is an audited ownership finding. Evidence of own or affiliated deals takes precedence over the assumption. A third-party model can still involve commissions and other conflicts. Dealer-level affiliations are discussed separately unless a practice-level sponsorship connection is established.

Perceived Investor Popularity — provisional: We use this 20% component as an indirect proxy for recommendations and investor interest. Our premise is that positive reviews, client referrals and word of mouth may contribute to greater visibility and website traffic. This is a research assumption, not a verified relationship. The current numerical input measures estimated organic-search visibility only; it does not count reviews, client referrals or positive recommendations. It does not measure total visitors, active users, investor counts or client satisfaction. Ahrefs models monthly Google organic-search traffic from keyword rankings, estimated search volumes and click rates. The published snapshot is 2026-10-16; it is not a measured count for the preceding 30 days. Direct, paid, social, email and referral visits are outside this input. Traffic alone cannot establish favorable sentiment: search visibility or publicity can also drive visits. Website referral traffic identifies visits from links on other sites; it does not by itself establish personal client recommendations. A model-reported zero is not evidence of zero real visitors. Broader wealth-management sites may attract searches unrelated to DSTs. All numerical composites remain provisional while this search-only proxy is used.

Collection standard: Use the same provider, batch-analysis endpoint, metric (org_traffic), U.S. geography, monthly volume mode, both web protocols and root-domain-plus-subdomain scope for every firm. Preserve the dated response and validate each domain, firm ID, row and value before importing a complete snapshot. Provider device settings are recorded as the provider default; no desktop/mobile coverage is inferred. Published figures remain frozen until a full replacement snapshot is reviewed. Do not mix endpoints, dates, providers, measured users, sessions or pageviews. Related brands remain separate; their traffic is not added together.

Measured analytics and future total-traffic comparisons: Owner-supplied GA4 data are recorded separately with the exact metric, reporting dates, country, property/hostname scope, filters and evidence quality. Rounded screenshots are supporting evidence, not exact exports. For a future all-channel comparison, use one provider’s total-visit estimates for the same complete calendar month, geography, device coverage and domain scope across the cohort. Provider-suppressed or insufficient data stay unavailable. Traffic can serve as an indirect popularity proxy, but neither modeled visits nor measured active users verify reviews, recommendations or client satisfaction.

Missing evidence: The non-sponsorship assumption above supplies the independence component when no sponsorship evidence is found. Missing disclosure or traffic inputs, or unresolved current brokerage registration, still prevent a composite. We do not replace those missing values with zero or redistribute the weights. A score based on an incomplete public-name match is explicitly marked provisional in the profile. Alphabetical order is the default; missing scores sort last.

Scope: 73 brokerage practices; broker-dealer entities and the historical RealtyMogul platform listing are excluded. Perch and Carmona have overlapping broker rosters. Information can change after the snapshot.

Sources: FINRA BrokerCheck (opens in a new tab); Ahrefs search-traffic methodology (opens in a new tab); Google Analytics user definitions (opens in a new tab); Google Analytics traffic-source definitions (opens in a new tab); Limits of total-traffic estimates (opens in a new tab). Firm-specific sources and raw inputs are inside each member profile.