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Real Acquires RE/MAX for $880M — What This Power Move Means for Every Agent in 2026 · Dishin' Dirt with Gary Pickren

0:00
SPEAKER_00: This is Dish and Dirt with Gary Pickering, South Carolina's only podcast dedicated to the real estate agent craft.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: And now the host of Dish and Dirt, Gary Pickering.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: And greetings and welcome back, everyone, to another episode of Dish and Dirt.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm your often opinionated, but rarely wrong host, Gary Pickering, coming to you from the beautiful downtown Columbia, South Carolina offices of Blair Cato Pickering Castleon.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: This the last week of April and first week of May 2026.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: Don't know about you guys, but real estate is absolutely humming.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: In that vein, Blair Cato is now opening its tenth office, the fifth in the Midlands, three in the upstate, one in the PD, and one in the low country down there in Myrtle Beach.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: But we're opening our 10th office.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: We called our Blythewood office at I-77.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: You get off on Killian Road, find the Chick-fil-A, right behind the Chick-fil-A is our new office.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: And this is going to be servicing all those Blythewood agents, those Northeast agents, those Killian Road agents that don't want to drive downtown 30 minutes downtown, 30 minutes back to the office, spending an hour in your car when you can be out there marketing, selling, and adding more money to your pocket.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: And that's why Blair Cato continues to add these offices.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: We are going to be everywhere you need us to be so that you can do your job better, have more time with your family, have more time to build your business.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: This is our 10th office, but I guarantee you it is definitely not the last office.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: So if you're ready to close in Blythewood, Killian Road area, let us know.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: Let your closer know.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: We can get you scheduled out there.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: When you send in your new closings to New Orders at BlairKato.com, go ahead and designate that you'd like to close in the new Blythewood office.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: You're absolutely going to love it.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: Two massive stories this week.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: And both massive stories in the business are about who controls the future of real estate.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: The first story I actually learned Monday morning when I was with my good friend John, who this greatly affects as a Remax owner.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: And I was also talking to Talmage, another Remax owner, about this big deal that went through.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: So of course I'm talking about the real brokerage deal where they're acquire where they are acquiring REMAX in a deal that is valued at$880 million, including debt.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: And they're going to form a new company.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: The company is going to be called Real Remax Group.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: Now, the REMAX shareholders can elect one of two things.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: They can either take$13.80 per share in cash for their Remax shares, or they can transfer those shares into real shares at every 5.15 shares of the new company.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: So every one share gives them 5.15 shares of the new company.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: That's subject to a probation.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: The real shareholders are expected to own about 59% of the combined company, with Remax owners owning about 41% of the company when it's all shakes out.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: It will be on Nasdaq and it will be under REAX.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: So let's break it down and look at what happened.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: Brokerage is buying Remax holdings, not just as a brand purchase, but as a platform deal.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: Real's going to get Remax's global franchise network.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: And it is massive, guys.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: 145,000 REMAX agents in nearly 8,500 offices worldwide.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: You can't go anywhere in this world.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: And I've been a lot of places through Europe, South America, and so forth, Bahamas, Caribbean, and everywhere you go, you see that beautiful REMAX balloon.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: They're everywhere.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: 800, 8,500 offices.
3:18
SPEAKER_00: What this is going to give is real presence in 120 countries and territories.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: And there ain't many more than that.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: They're also going to get moto mortgage.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: But most importantly, what real's going to get out of this is a legacy brand with international recognition that moves them into the conversation of the top three, if not four, real estate brokerages in terms of agents and units in the world.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: And with that comes a lot of power under that bully pulpit.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: They can start pushing for changes that they want, just like Robert Refkins, just like Leo Perea, just like Gary Keller.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: The combined company will have more than 180,000 agents globally, and that's going to be more than 100,000 here in the United States and Canada alone.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: Remax and Moto Mortgage, according to Inman News, will continue to operate under its current brand name, and Real will also continue to remain as a brand.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: It will all be held by a new holding company that is a real Remax group.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: The consumer's going to still see the real signs.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: They're going to continue to see the Remax signs.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: They'll continue to see that Remax balloon.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: I have it on good authority that the Remax balloon is actually included in the transaction.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: Just kidding, I don't know that, but I assume they're buying the Remax balloon as well.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: It's not going to go away tomorrow.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: But what they're going to find, if you're an agent at Remax, an agent at real, behind the curtains, the economics, the technology stack, the reporting, the data, the recruiting tools, the agent platform, and all the back office efficiencies will probably start looking very different very soon.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: Let's break down the debt, the price, and the stock exchange in this transaction.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: The key points here enterprise value, about$880 million.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: Pre-share value,$13.80.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: Remax shareholders have the option of cash or stock election.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: Real shareholders will get one share of the new real Remax group for every single real share they own.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: The expected ownership breakdown, as I said, will be about 59% with real shareholders, about 41% with the Remax shareholders.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: Real did secure about$550 million in a financing commitment that they arranged through Morgan Stanley Senior Funding and the Apollo Global Funding Group to refinance this whole REMAX debt.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, from what we're hearing, there was a massive REMAX debt.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: They're also going to get some cash considerations and cover the transaction costs with that money.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: The expected closing should happen in the second half of 2026, subject to several approvals.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: This is not about real writing an$880 million check.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: Actually, what it is of that$880 million, it's a mix of equity, limited cash considerations, a lot of debt refinancing, and a new public company structure.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: That's what this is all about.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: So why did Real want REMAX?
6:01
SPEAKER_00: Well, a lot of people have been predicting for many months now, including me, that Remax was not going to last much longer.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: Because of the debt that they were carrying and how the value was going down, a lot of people believed Remax would be sold in 2026.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: Lindsay Colton, one of those.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: Jeff Wheeler was one of those.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: They both talked about it on this podcast.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: Most people, however, thought Keller Williams was going to be the company that bought them.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: So it was quite a surprise on Monday when I woke up to find out that Remax was bought by Real.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: So why did Reel want this?
6:28
SPEAKER_00: Well, Reel has the technology platform, but Remax has that global footprint.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: What Remax is, Real is trying to do here with Remax is it's trying to accelerate scaling.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: So instead of trying to recruit its way from 33,000 agents globally to global dominance into a top three or top four in size and units in the entire world, and doing that one agent at a time, one small brokerage at a time, one team at a time, it goes out and it buys a network of 145,000 agents in a globally recognized brand.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: It becomes a player day one in this business.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: They now have a bully pulpit.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: They now can try to effectuate the change they want and do the things that they want as a massive brand, one of the top four probably in size now.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: This consolidation is what it's going to look like, guys, in 2026 moving forward.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: You're not just buying the revenue.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: What these companies now are looking to buy is the data, the distribution of that data, agents, the mortgage opportunities, the referrals, as well as the consumer mind share.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: Remax needed to do this deal because Remax has the brand.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: It has the agents.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: But legacy brands, as we know, are under tremendous financial pressure.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: Thus, the Compass Anywhere brand merger.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: Anywhere brand was up to its eyeballs in debt.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: Compass had the technology.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: They merge, try to alleviate some of the debt, add the technology, and you have a massive company that starts making money again.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: Remax is in the same situation.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: It has been squeezed by fewer transactions, commission litigation, the margin pressures, the technology demands, the recruiting wars, the same thing that is squeezing everybody.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: And that's what's contributed to deals like Compass and Anywhere and Real and Remax.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: And even on the local schedule or a local scale, some of the smaller independent companies going with the EXPs and the Keller Williams of the world.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: What Remax is going to get here is a technology for partner, fresh capital structure, relieve of debt, and a way to tell agents and their franchisees that we're not stuck in the past.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: We're actually moving forward.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: So the big question for a lot of you, is this an arms race?
8:26
SPEAKER_00: The answer is hell yes, this is an arms race.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: It's absolutely an arms race.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: You've got Compass in Anywhere trying to create, or did not only trying, but in fact did create the largest real estate company in the entire world.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: You have Rocket and Redfin joining together under a massive agreement, and now Compass in Anywhere trying to partner with them.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: Real and Remax deal that we're talking about.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: You've got Zillow trying to strengthen its agent and portal ecosystem.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: In fact, they're telling us they have 800 brokerages now wanting to go and use Zillow's portal exclusively.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: Realtor.com fighting to try to stay relevant.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: You've got EXP, Keller Williams, Home Services, all of these other groups out there trying to decide whether they want to build, buy, merge, defend what they have.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: What portal system will they do?
9:08
SPEAKER_00: And at the T3 conference, everyone's talking about an industry that is now being shaped with consolidation, platform scaling, capital strategies, and control over listings and data.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: That is where the industry is focused right now, now that its focus is no longer on Sister Burnett.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: Now it's a new arms race.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: And it's not just who has the most agents, it's who has the most agents, who has the best technology, who has the most listings, who can drive the most consumer traffic.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: How about the relationships they may have with a mortgage company?
9:39
SPEAKER_00: How about that data?
9:40
SPEAKER_00: Where is that all going to go?
9:40
SPEAKER_00: So the question is this good for agents or is this bad for agents?
9:43
SPEAKER_00: Well, on one hand, it's good for agents.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: Better technology means every company has to improve because if one company comes out with better technology for the agents, the other companies have to improve their technology to keep up with the Joneses.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: And so we're going to see a massive technology push, I would say, here in the next couple of years, because as Compass and Anywhere merge together, and now you have EXP getting bigger, and you have Keller Williams getting bigger, and now you have Remax and Real coming together.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: You got four massive companies that are going to try to compete with each other to keep their agents or get new agents, and technology is going to be a big part of that.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: So is support.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: They're going to have to provide that support to the agent to get that agent to stay or to come over.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: AI tools.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: AI tools are going to change this entire industry, whether we like it or not.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: They already are changing this industry.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: If you don't believe me, go listen to addition data with Candace.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: She'll tell you all about it.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: You're starting to see integrated tech transaction systems, more consumer lead opportunities, and stronger platforms.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: The bad news, however, is you're going to see less local independence.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be more corporate control here.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: They're not buying these companies to let you run them the way you want.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: They're going to want it run the way they want it run.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: So there's going to be a lot more pressure to use the company's platforms or use the company's portals.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: You're going to see fewer truly independent brokerage choices.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: Recruiting is going to get even more aggressive.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: If you're tired of getting these DMs and text messages, just you wait.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: You're going to get DMs and text messages all the time.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: And agents may become distribution channels for these larger ecosystems.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: The agent of the future may still be independent contractor in name, but the platform behind that agent may be owned by one, two, five, six, seven giant companies.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be owned by one of those big companies.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: There's no doubt about it.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: And there's one more question, therefore, that this brings all in into play, particularly in light of the REMAX deal.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: And that is, is this the beginning, therefore, of the end of the franchise model in real estate?
11:33
SPEAKER_00: The franchise model in real estate worked because it offered brand recognition.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: You wanted to start your brokerage, but you wanted national or international recognition.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: You could go to Remax, a Keller Williams, a Colwell banker, a C21, and you could have local ownership with an entrepreneur.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: That was scalable growth, but you didn't have all that corporate overhead and corporate interaction.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: You got their training and their systems and their recruiting support and their name and their logo, and you had that shared identity across the markets.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: And that led to a lot of referrals.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: If you were a Keller Williams agent in Columbia, you get a lot of referrals from other Keller Williams agents across the country when their clients moved here to Columbia or moved to Greenville or moved to Hilton Head or wherever.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: And for decades, that was the perfect model.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: You got the national credibility, but you have that local control.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: The problem is the real estate world changed.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: And two things broke that model.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: The first is technology.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: Agents now expect platform-level technology, not just a logo in training.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I don't think they even care about the logo in training now.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: They're looking at what technology, what platform you have, and how is it going to help move their business forward.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: They want CRM, they want AI, they want transaction management, they want marketing automation, and those are expensive.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: Those are very expensive for independence.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: And that's where these big massive companies can use and leverage their size to bring these in so that the individual agents can get those.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: Franchises historically didn't build their own technology.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: They licensed it or patched it together.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: The second thing that broke this franchise model is consumer behavior.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: Consumers don't search for homes by brand anymore.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: They don't go into it going, I want to use a Remax agent, I only want to use a Coldwell Banker agent, I only want to use a Keller Williams agent.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: They want to search Zillow, Redfin, Google, and now chat and Claude and all the other ones.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: And so the consumer behavior of not going to your brand website has really changed things.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, if you look at Zillow as a website, its traffic is more than the second through tenth all combined.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: Zillow beats two through ten combined by itself.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: So that tells you where the consumer is going.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: The consumer doesn't care if it's a Remax or a COW banker agent selling the property.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: They just care if it's on Zillow.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: That's all they care about.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: The third thing you can actually look on, if you want to go a little bit deeper than the two that I think really changed it, is the margin pressures, commission compressions.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: Over the years, commissions have gone down.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: When I first got into business in 1995, it was a 60-40 split with newish agents, newish being one to three or five years.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: You were at 60-40.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: And if you did really well, you got to go to 70, 70, 30 or 8020.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: Now agents are coming out of real estate school, passing the exam, and going to a$12,000 max.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: That's all they pay the whole year, or a transaction fee only of$295.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: Commissions have been compressed.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: New agents don't bring the amount of money to the brokerages that they used to bring.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: Ron Rowe used to tell me at Russell Jeffco, we make our money on the 6040s, the new agents.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: That's where you make the money.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: You don't make them on a 90-10 or an 80-20 split.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: That's not it.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: Second margin pressure came from the lawsuits.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: Can't write these big ass checks without having pressure.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: And then you add the fewer transactions because the real estate market outside of South Carolina has kind of sucked in a lot of places.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: And so the question for the franchisees started being why am I paying a royalty check and a desk fee and a split?
14:42
SPEAKER_00: Then on top of that, you had the recruiting wars, models like Real, EXP, Compass.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: They're offering stock, revenue share, better technology, lower overhead.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: And so the franchise model used to be the best recruiting pitch.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: Now it's having to complete, compete with platforms that look a lot more like tech companies that are sharing ownership.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: What this deal signals is not just a consolidation for me, it signals to me an evolution.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: It's telling us that franchise brands better get with a tech partner or owner.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: Tech companies need distribution through the agents in the offices.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: And so the lines are going to continue to be blurred between franchise and brokerage.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: Real didn't buy Remax so it could run a franchise, guys.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: What they did is they bought it to plug a global agent network into their already existing technology platform.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: It's all about tech.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: So does the franchise model disappear?
15:30
SPEAKER_00: No, I don't think it completely disappears, but it will change.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: What will likely stay will be that brand recognition, the local ownership to some degree, the international expansion model, and the training ecosystems.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: I think we'll continue to see that with these franchises.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: What's going to change is less independence for those franchisee owners, more centralized tech, more required platform adoption, more data sharing, and more corporate control.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: And the franchises of the future are going to look less like an independent business owner and more like a regional operator inside a larger tech ecosystem.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: The real threat to these franchises are going to be these platform models.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: This is the real issue.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: Platform companies, they're going to own the tech, control the data, control the consumer experience, monetize that through verticals.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: The franchisee model, which is relies on branding plus training plus splits, that's not even a fight anymore.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: So what happens to your local Remax owners or franchisees?
16:21
SPEAKER_00: I think what you're going to see is higher expectations from the agents, competition from low-cost, high-tech tech models, lower pricing power, pressure to adopt corporate technology and potential margin compression.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: So is this good or bad overall for the entire industry?
16:35
SPEAKER_00: Better technology for agents, certainly a positive.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: More consistent consumer experience, love it.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: More innovation, love it.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: Faster adoption of AI and automation, love it.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: What's best bad though is the less local ownership, less entrepreneurial opportunities, less diversity in brokerage models, more power concentrated at the top.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: The franchise model, which has created thousands of local business owners in the past, I think the platform model is going to create fewer owners, but more participants.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: So my final take on the franchise model is I don't think it ends it, but I do think it ends the franchise models.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: We've known it.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: We're going to see more of a hybrid model with a franchisee plus a platform.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: You're going to see centralized tech, decentralized sales, a brand mattering less than the actual ecosystem, and agents choosing platforms, not just brokerages.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: If you're a franchise brand, you either become a tech platform or you get absorbed by one.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: I think that's the bottom line.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: So what happens to independents?
17:29
SPEAKER_00: Well, independents aren't dead.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: They're just becoming sharper, and they're going to have to.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: They're going to have to become sharper.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: You're going to have to have a clear local identity and a brand.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: You're going to have to have a strong culture with better training, better tech partnership, some type of niche or niche specialization.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: You're going to have to have stronger agent retention and community trust.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: You have to have a reason as an independent to be to belong beyond we're not corporate.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: We're not big like them.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: The independent brokerage, I think, can still win in this model, but it can't win by simply saying we're smaller or being a weaker, lesser version of a bigger brand.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: It has to be meaningfully different.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: Same goes for minority businesses.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: These this is one of the ugly sides of this consolidation is a lot of these minority-owned brokerages, I think, are going to get left out because capital is going to become harder to compete with.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: They're going to have recruiting costs and technology costs are going to rise, their visibility is going to drop, local ownership's going to get squeezed.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: And minority-owned brokerages may become acquisition targets, or it may simply lose agents to these larger platforms because they can't compete.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: Opportunities can remain as long as they continue to get the community trust, the local leadership, the niche market, the revel, the relationship-driven business.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: If they continue to do that, that's where it's going to continue to be okay for the minority owners.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: But the danger here is that consolidation creates fewer owners and more workers, and that's when you're going to start seeing ownership shrink, particularly for minority businesses, because they're typically the ones who are going to get squeezed first.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: All of this in a lot of ways is good, better technology, better customer experience, more technology, but they start looking at less competition, less local ownership, less diversity, and more pressure on the MLS.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: And that brings us to part two, because the real fight here isn't just a consolidation.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: It's really the fight over control.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: Control of listings, control of traffic, control of the consumer, control of the agent.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: And that's where we tie into this because if the platform is what matters, then the most important asset is no longer going to be the agent.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: You're just a number.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: What's going to matter is the number of listings you have.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly why Compass, Zillow, Redfin, and everyone else are fighting now over who controls the data.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: It was very much on display at the T3 summit.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to start with this.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: This is going to shock some of you because I've been very vocal critic of Robert Refkin and a lot of the things that he says.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: But I'm going to tell you right now, I agree with something that he actually said at T3.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: And I think he's right on the track with this.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: Where I've disagreed with him is where he's trying to say that seller choice, including hiding data off MLS, including days on market and price drops.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: I disagree with him on that.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: And I also disagree with him on the private exclusive listings that somehow it helps the seller.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: It absolutely harms the seller.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: And there's a study out there that they're trying to say that, hey, this study here says that they sold it for more money.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: That study's already been debunked 15 million times.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: So don't come to me with that stupid study.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: But what I am going to say I agree with him on is he says he supports mandatory submission to the MLS, as do I.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: I think every listing should go on the MLS so everybody can see it.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: What he does not support is mandatory marketing to third-party sites.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: And what he's really talking about here is how the MLS has take that data and push it out to these other sites through the IDX feed.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: And I have to say, I get where he's coming from because these are his listings and he puts them on the MLS.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: Why does that mean that every one of his competitors gets to put them on their website?
20:43
SPEAKER_00: It's a good question.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: And why does Zillow get to put it on their website and then charge him back to get that lead?
20:49
SPEAKER_00: It makes a lot of sense on what he's saying there.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: I don't believe in tearing down the entire market to make your point.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: The idea is how do we make this system work using the MLS?
21:00
SPEAKER_00: And it may be a fight that he needs to have over how the IDX is dispersed, because that is really the question.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: In fact, that's a question that was brought to me 12 years ago when we started talking and started first started seeing Zillow.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: Are we going to just give Zillow our information and let them sell it back to us?
21:15
SPEAKER_00: And Refkin's already made news on this.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: Real estate news has already reported that he told the T3 attendees that he supports the mutual cooperation.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: He just opposes the mandatory syndication to third party sites.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: And to me, I think that is the whole point of his fight now.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: I think he's got two things he's trying to do.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: One is he's trying to get both sides of the listing because he needs his revenue to go up because anywhere was losing money, so he needs to go up so that he can make the stock go up and make it more attractive to hedge funds.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: Certainly what he's trying to do.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: And I don't like how he's gaslighting us on that.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: But the second part of this is he's fighting this fight with the MLS over the syndication of the information over the box of the IDX.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: And he might have a point here because he has to put the information in the MLS, and then the MLS turns around and gives it to everybody else.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: It's not going to be as simple as he's saying.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: What he's not simply saying, I hate the MLS.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: What he's saying is, why should my company be forced to give listing inventory to portals that monetize that inventory and then tries to sell that information back to my own agents?
22:13
SPEAKER_00: I get that.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: But the problem we have is how that information is being sent and who it's being given to.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: Zillow has already won the consumer, and now what Compass is now asking is why are we feeding this machine?
22:24
SPEAKER_00: If Compass can restrict how listings are distributed to Zillow, and if Compass Redfin or another portal can create a competing consumer destination, then Refkin has a real strategic play here.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is like VRBO and Airbn fighting against each other.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: Inventory drives consumer traffic, consumer traffic drives seller value, seller value drives agent recruiting.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: Agent recruiting drives more inventory.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: It's a circle, it's a flywheel.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: It's exactly how it works.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: Same thing with Airbnb and VRBO competing for that same data, trying to limit the other from having that data.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: The consumer still wants Zillow.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: He's wrong when he says that the consumers don't want to be on Zillow.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: They 100% want to be on Zillow.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: But if you make the consumer hunt across multiple apps, you may be helping your company like Compass, but hurting the consumer experience, which is where the regulators are going to jump in.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: And that's really the problem here.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: I think the true problem is this IDX problem.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: This is where this issue gets very messy.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: Because what you have to understand is that Zillow is not just a portal.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: Zillow is actually a brokerage.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: And if Zillow is a brokerage participant in the MLS, then under the IDX style logic, it may argue it has a right to access listing information just like other brokerages.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: If the rule becomes no MLS data to third-party sites, then what happens when the third-party site is also a brokerage?
23:43
SPEAKER_00: You can't just cut Zillow off.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: You also have to cut every other brokerage off from the IDX website.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's what his play is.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: He wants his consumer to decide, we'll put it on the MLS immediately, but then the consumer, the seller, decides what other platforms it goes to, whether it can go to a Redfin, whether it goes to Zillow, whether it gets to go to Keller Williams or EXP.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: And for me, I can understand that.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: How the IDX feed seems a little strange to an outsider of real estate that I have to put my listings on the MLS and then you get to take that and use it for your marketing.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: It's very nuanced.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm not totally against questioning the IDX fee.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: I've seen brokerages make a complete mess of this thing.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: The rule says if you're going to take my listing from the IDX and put it on your website, you have to give me credit and my brokerage credit.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: But I've seen enough websites out there that make it very confusing as to who actually owns that listing.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I was looking up an agent for a brokerage and I saw her page and it looked like she had$10 million listings.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: In fact, she had zero listings at all.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: But the way she put these listings on the page, it made it look like it was hers, even though she gave credit to those other companies because the rules on giving credit aren't very strong.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: You have to put the name, but we don't give a font size and so forth.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: And so I can understand as a listing agent why I would not be happy to find that my competing brokerage or my competing agent has my listing on their page.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: Now, on the other hand, you could say, what do I care?
25:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to get that listing sold sold, and if my competitor sells it, so be it.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: This is a discussion that needs to be had and not just a temper tantrum.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: And right now for me, it's like Robert Refkins throwing a temper tantrum over this.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: This real estate news report about the T3 comments did come shortly after MRED announced that it would open access nationally with Compass agents being the first to join.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: Refkins said he wants MLSs to accept all listing types, including private exclusives, which by the way doesn't make it a private exclusive anymore.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: And he argued that MLSs should be more flexible.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: This is Compass trying to build that alternative lane, maybe not an alternative MLS yet, but definitely an alternative pressure point.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: This obviously didn't go over very well in the marketplace.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Realtor.com's Damian Ls says that fighting over who gets to hoard the listings and focus on the consumer affordability and housing supply.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: He's criticizing the market fragmentation and is saying that these portals are increasingly closing their ecosystems into a one-stop shot that takes MLS value and routes the value chain through that single company.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: And that's bad.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: When you look at Zillow, Jeremy Waxman, he's in the same position.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: He says Zillow's position is consumers won't transparency, consumers won't access, and agents remain valuable because consumers need help interpreting the noise.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: He expects consolidation to continue as smaller firms struggle to keep up with the AI and technology investment.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: But his position is AI is the biggest technology shift this industry will see.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: And the more data and the noise makes more trusted agents more valuable.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: Gary Kellery says that he's been more agent-centric and more skeptical of portals controlling the relationship.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: For Keller Williams, it's built on the agent as a brand, not the portal as a brand.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: So Keller's likely counter to all this is that agents must own the database, the relationship, the local expertise, and the value proposition.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: And the final analysis: who wins?
26:55
SPEAKER_00: Well, who wins is the larger platforms, the tech-enabled brokerages, the capital companies that have capital, the agents who adapt, the consumer of tech improves transparency and services, where the potential losers are the independents, the undercapitalized brokerages, the minority-owned brokerages, the consumer if this fragmentation becomes normal, and agents if they become dependent on a closed ecosystem.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: In closing, what we got here, guys, is a real estate industry that is entering a new era.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: For years, the industry was fragmented.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: Local brokers, local MLSs, local agents, national portals, legacy brands, but now everything is converging.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: Brokerages want portals, portals want brokerage relationships, mortgage companies want the agents, tech companies want the listings, public companies want to sell, private equity firms won't end because they want the cash flow, and agents are all stuck in the middle.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: And the question is not whether consolidation's coming, it's here.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: The real question now is will consolidation make the industry better?
27:51
SPEAKER_00: Will it make it faster?
27:52
SPEAKER_00: Is it going to make it more transparent?
27:54
SPEAKER_00: Is it going to make it more consumer friendly?
27:56
SPEAKER_00: Or will it create a handful of giant companies that are fighting over all these listings while the consumer and the independent agent gets completely squeezed out?
28:07
SPEAKER_00: Either way, agents, you've got to understand this.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: The future belongs to the people who control the relationship, who controls the data, who controls the attention, who controls the trust.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: And as Lindsay Colton, who came on this podcast, said, and many other guests that we've had, you better own your brand because that's the only thing you own in the future.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to own this data, you're not going to control these relationships without your brand.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: What are you going to have?
28:31
SPEAKER_00: All right.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: That's your show for today.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: I hope you like it.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: Come back.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: See us again next week.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: Share us.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: Let all the other agents know all about this podcast and continue to help this podcast grow.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: Y'all have a wonderful weekend.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: Come back and see us.