I think every time — especially since there’s been so many mergers and acquisitions lately in that space — there are a couple of ways to look at this.

One way, which is true: this doesn’t affect you as an agent. It doesn’t affect you as a team leader. And it’s true — it won’t. You need to put your head down and not get freaked out that everything’s changing, because I really don’t think much is changing here.

Despite what you’ll hear — that you’ve got to be with one of these big companies — the majority of production is at independent companies. That alone proves you don’t need a merger to survive.

Mergers are motivated by shareholders. Real had a very small footprint, albeit growing with a lot of momentum, especially on the West Coast. They were able to acquire a company that gives them a very big footprint. Why do you do that? Not to make more money or to say “look at me” — you do it because now they can potentially be acquired themselves. This is nothing new.

Anywhere, the company that Compass acquired, owns so many different national brands — Century 21, Coldwell Banker, Sotheby’s, Better Homes and Gardens, and more. They used to be called Realogy, and I remember when Realogy went around acquiring everybody in the eighties and nineties. It went on forever. This is nothing new. There are certain times when there’s a lot of dry powder — investment money in the M&A world on Wall Street — and there’s a big appetite for it.

There’s a lot of speculation that Keller Williams is in one of those acquisition contracts right now. I don’t know if any of it’s true. When Keller Williams International sold about 49% of their shares to private equity, that was likely the start of a performance period. Those of you who have taken our mergers and acquisitions course would know what that looks like — a period where they have to perform, then the deal is consummated and the whole company is sold. There’s usually a non-disclosure agreement involved, so they can’t say anything in the meantime. I’m not going to make any claims here. I just don’t know.

Does that change anything? Probably not. You will hear a lot of speculation. You’ve got to look at who’s saying it. The talk about REMAX agents getting access to Real’s progressive technology — most of us know the technology is pretty comparable everywhere. That’s going to be the big marketing push, but tech stacks are tech stacks. Parts of them always go old quickly. Being nimble is a much better position to be in.

Is this good for Real agents? Maybe it justifies their decision to move to that company. I doubt they’re going to be offering revenue sharing to REMAX agents anytime soon. As for the stock — Real stock went down about 25% after the announcement. REMAX’s went up a similar amount. Wall Street’s reaction said it clearly: REMAX found their exit plan. They had about half a billion dollars in debt that got offloaded. That’s a win for REMAX shareholders. The motivations behind these deals are done with shareholders in mind, and then it gets spun as an advantage for agents.

I do see some areas of opportunity and some unique dynamics that are going to play out. For example, if you’re in a market where there’s both an existing Real brokerage and an existing REMAX brokerage — which a lot of areas have — that could cause real problems for REMAX brokerage owners. Why would an agent come to REMAX and be the stepchild of Real when they could just go straight to Real? There’s no protection. You can cut out any extra fees the local REMAX owner is charging. Growth could get very tough for those owners.

I’ve seen this happen inside the Real network already with their private label program, where individual agents tend to just go directly to Real and cut out the local operator. When you have a revenue-share company that grows primarily by people inviting people, there are no regional controls. It just grows. REMAX is used to having those types of controls. All of a sudden, if this goes through, you’re going to have unguarded growth, which can be a problem.

That’s where the revenue-share companies — eXp, Real, and LPT — tend to struggle in a market. When they don’t succeed in an area, it’s usually because they grew there with the wrong people first. And it’s not until a highly successful, respected first adopter comes in that things really start to take off and overshadow the early missteps.

Where the opportunity really lies, in my opinion, is in recruiting — but only if you’re already doing it the right way. In our coaching programs and in our recruiting course, we stress that you should treat the agent population like you would your sphere of influence. You stay in relationship. You’re not sitting down trying to sell on every recruiting appointment. You’re demonstrating value, building trust, and waiting until they’re ready to move.

The goal of a recruiting appointment is to get another appointment — to get them to a training, to share a resource, to have a reason to stay in touch. You’re staying in relationship until they raise their hand. Once you’ve gone in hard with the binder and compared splits, that well is poisoned. You’re done. They won’t take your next call, and their closest colleagues have probably heard about it too.

If you’re in relationship and this merger creates uncertainty for someone in your sphere, you now have a natural reason to reach out and check in — not to pitch, just to stay present. Because the uncertainty is real. They might not say it on that first call. The knee-jerk response is going to be, “Oh, we’re excited — we’re getting new tech tools.” Just like when you walk into a store and say “I’m just looking” even when you’re not. That defense mechanism will be there.

If you’re not already in relationship and you just pick up the phone and call a REMAX agent now because you saw the news, you’re an ambulance chaser. You look like a poacher. That knee-jerk response is going to come in strong and you’ve probably lost any chance at that relationship long-term.

A good recruiter positions themselves so that when disruption happens, agents naturally come to them — because the trust is already there. They’ve already proven they can add value. They’ve already built that respect. That’s why recruiting is so much more about appointments than about getting agents to sign. Enough appointments, done right, will lead to agents joining. Hard-selling every meeting will run that well dry.

This is a great example of why being in relationship consistently matters. The human mind looks for quick solutions. Agents will say they’re happy and move on. Don’t be discouraged by that initial response. Trust me — this is not my first rodeo. There’s nothing truly new happening here.

You will hear a lot of big voices saying things are changing. Put your head down. This has nothing to do with the real estate industry at its core. Tech stacks will be tech stacks. Every national brand constantly updates their systems. It is amazing how many agents say they moved to a company for the enhanced tech systems, and 98% of them never use those systems. That’s a knee-jerk logical justification for an emotional decision. Every business decision is made with emotion first, then justified with logic.

Hope that helps. My take on it: a lot of noise, not a lot of change. For those of you out there trying to grow a team or brokerage, there is real opportunity here — but that opportunity is much greater if you’re already in relationship.