Realogics Sotheby’s International Realty Is Poised for Growth Via Talent Acquisition & Agent Ascension; Appoints Val Burmester to Director of Strategic Growth in WA State
Industry Consolidation and Agent Migration: 2025 marks a shift towards mergers and acquisitions in real estate, leading to the rise of “mega brokerages.” This consolidation is expected to disrupt leadership and business models, prompting many agents to seek better-aligned brands.
Market Dynamics and Agent Challenges: Real estate agents face intensified competition due to declining transaction volumes and increased agent numbers since the pandemic. This has led brokers to align with brands offering clear advantages, such as enhanced corporate culture, market exposure, and profitability.
RSIR’s Strategic Positioning: Realogics Sotheby’s International Realty (RSIR) leverages tools like the Accelerate platform, agent support, and luxury-focused services to attract top-performing agents. Despite market challenges, RSIR leads in per-agent productivity and adapts to evolving market needs.
Recruitment and Technology Advancements: Innovative tools like Courted’s predictive analytics platform help brokerages optimize talent acquisition and performance management. RSIR’s use of such technologies underscores its strategic approach to growth and agent retention.
Future Market Trends and Growth Plans: RSIR anticipates increased transaction volumes and agent migration as the market rebounds. The brokerage remains independent, scaling operations to meet growing demand while focusing on hyperlocal strategies and addressing key industry trends.
A combination of industry influences and market dynamics had most real estate agents staying put with their current brokerages over the past few years, according to Val Burmester of Beyond Brokers Consulting – a talent acquisition company that supports numerous affiliates of Sotheby’s International Realty throughout the US. That trend may be reversing course in 2025 as industry experts agree a significant increase in mergers and acquisitions will create an era of the “mega brokerage”. Such a shake up with leadership and business models will cause “breakage” when agents, who are independent contractors, do not follow the transition and instead migrate to other brands. To be sure, competition amongst real estate agents is only getting steeper as the average licensee is experiencing 31% fewer transactions compared to before the pandemic, while the number of agents who joined the Northwest Multiple Listing Service during the housing boom reduced slightly during the housing recession. As a result, brokers are increasingly looking to align with advantaged brands that optimize their bottom line.
“The market is overserved by an abundance of licensed real estate agents compared to a rather limited number of listings and transaction volumes,” said Burmester. “Our industry closed out 2024 with 30-year lows nationally. It’s a call to brokerages and real estate brands to resist commoditization as their agents are looking for specific benefits that range from corporate culture to market exposure.”
A top producer, Burmester, recently moved her license to Realogics Sotheby’s International Realty (RSIR) to access key advantages that are distinct to the franchise, but she also is retained to help the brokerage grow in the years ahead.
“Over the past 15 years we’ve worked hard to differentiate our brand to attract top performing agents who deploy tools that expand their business opportunities, both locally and throughout our global referral network,” said Dean Jones, President and CEO of RSIR. “We have invested in educational and collaborative platforms like Accelerate – a curriculum of learning to inspire and activate the next generation of agents to become tomorrow’s top producers. We offer available offices and scalable support to expand our agent roster, and Val Burmester is leading our talent acquisition effort.”
In 2024, RSIR led luxury and productivity on a per-broker basis compared to the top ten largest brands in the NWMLS, according to Trendgraphix research. Despite these benchmarks, Jones acknowledged market compression has been challenging for agents and
brokerages alike over the past three years. He called it a “housing recession” when NWMLS system-wide sales volumes decreased 40% in 2022 and 2023 compared to the prior two-year period. That is a significant recoil compared to 2020 and 2021 during a “COVID bump” in housing demand, when NWMLS data posted a remarkable 48% increase in sales volumes compared to 2019.
“Our industry is feeling the whiplash from the sugar highs of historically low mortgage interest rates during the pandemic and then whack – we’re digesting eleven consecutive rate hikes by the Fed, which pushed us into a housing recession,” added Jones. “The tide went out quickly and a lot of brokerages got exposed.”
Jones noted a similar spike in agent population following the housing boom in 2020 and 2021, when 21% more agents joined the NWMLS, but since then, the total membership has only been corrected by 12%. Overall, the average transaction sides per agent (either representing a buyer or seller) have been steadily declining in the NWMLS from a recent high in 2019 with an average of 6.176 sides to a low in 2023 of 3.954 sides. In 2024, transactions increased slightly by 7% to 4.232 sides. Even more encouraging, in 2025, there are significantly more listings, and more buyers are entering the market, notwithstanding the “higher for longer” mortgage rates.
The housing chill was omnipresent. Many would-be sellers felt locked into their current address with an irreplaceable mortgage payment, which limits resale inventory. Meanwhile, would-be buyers felt sidelined because of affordability issues and a lack of supply. That has meant fewer choices too, until now. For example, in King County year-to-date, listings have increased 42%, and pending sales and sold homes have expanded by 14% and 10%, respectively.
“The market is thawing, brokers are coming out of hibernation, and, for many, their golden handcuffs are also melting away,” said Burmester. “For the first time in years, brokers are seeing the opportunity to make a move before the next market cycle lights up and makes a change more complicated. They want to align their business with a brand that will optimize their success for the long game.”
During the housing boom between 2020 and 2022, aggressive recruiting efforts from publicly traded brands were flush with incentives to buy brokers and build market share at any cost. They offered marketing dollars, promised leads, and used stock options or share purchase matching programs to lock in the licensees. Many brokers took advantage of these offers, but they also signed agreements with onerous carve-back penalties if they left before a minimum two- or three-year term. Those contract terms are expiring now and at the same time, modest increases in share values allow agents to sell their stock portfolio profitably and move on.
During the market challenges over the past three years, Burmester found experienced brokers gained more market share while newer agents found themselves with fewer opportunities. Many who struggled with a commission-based business model kept their license active but sought other employment, hence the higher residual agent count.
“The market is becoming more bifurcated as agents migrate”, added Burmester. She believes top producers will seek luxury brands with full services and full commissions in a “flight to quality.” Others will explore a lower-cost, cloud-based brand with few services and may be offered discounts on commissions to garner more business volume in a “flight to quantity.”
“We offer the best of both worlds at RSIR,” affirmed Burmester. “Our agents consistently garner the highest retained commission rates in the market while also generating more sales, and at much higher average sales prices, compared to our peers.”
Service level and professionalism are always important when representing buyers and sellers of their most valuable assets, which is why practicing real estate requires a license. Yet with a dramatic rise in cloud-based brokerages and large volumes of part-time agents, a lack of experience and supervision concerns industry pundits. In 2023, The Consumer Federation of America (CFA) found almost half of the licensed real estate agents sold either zero or just one home in the year.
“Through lax hiring and training, many companies sponsor agents that have too little knowledge and experience to adequately serve consumers,” said Stephen Brobeck, a CFA senior fellow and the report’s author. “Home buyers and sellers benefit from considering recent sales experience and customer evaluations before hiring an agent,” he added.
This research revealed that nearly three-quarters of the agents (70%) sold five or fewer homes. Cooling market conditions weren’t the only factor in slowing agent migration. A pullback on aggressive recruiting tactics was greatly reduced because it’s expensive. The unprofitability of these companies and declining stock value caused investors to demand that fast-growing market share be earned sustainably.
“We certainly lost some great brokers to these tactics, and fortunately, some have since returned home to RSIR,” said Jones. “You can’t truly acquire market share anyway, because brokers are independent contractors, and they’ll vote with their feet once the benefits afforded to them wear off.”
Jones thinks the next disruption will come from major mergers and acquisitions. Amalgamation occurs when lower sales volumes and thinning operating margins encourage competing businesses to consolidate resources and enjoy greater efficiency. In addition, without proper succession planning, some established brokerages will simply sell out at the end of a dynasty as prior ownership retires.
“We know there’s going to be several big announcements over the next two years, and that’s going to create some migration within the agent roster,” said Kevin Walsh, Principal of Atrox Partners, PLLC, an accounting, tax, and consulting firm that specializes in real estate brokerages. “This is the era of the mega brokerage. Well-funded brands will acquire their peers, and local boutiques will increasingly find themselves in nationalized enterprises.”
Walsh said it is difficult to mesh cultures, and compensation plans at these merging companies. The change of leadership, dismantling of certain programs, and rebranding can be disruptive to some agents, so they move to avoid that pain.
“Companies like RSIR are a welcomed landing for migrating agents,” added Walsh, who advises the brokerage. “We are large enough to compete, but we are nimble enough to focus on hyperlocal pursuits. There’s no board, no venture capital pressure – to us, it’s more about Main Street than Wall Street and our agents like that culture.”
In anticipation of the trends ahead, some new technologies have surfaced including predictive analytic software.
“In residential real estate brokerage, talent acquisition is everything,” said Sean Soderstrom, Co-Founder and CEO of Courted – a novel talent acquisition platform. “Agents are the revenue streams to the core business of brokerages. With more than $480 billion in sales volume and $12 billion in commission shifting between brokerages each year, the size of the recruiting opportunity is enormous. To put it in perspective, take Compass, double it, and imagine every single dollar of that sales volume switching between brokerages in a year, every year.”
Courted and Soderstrom won Inman’s Innovator of the Year Award on August 4, 2024. As a leading software platform for real estate agent recruiting and retention, Courted customers harness the power of artificial intelligence to optimize agent selection, outreach, and performance management, leading to consistently better results and positive ROI. RSIR secured a license with Courted in January 2025.
“RSIR understands the dynamics of agent movement and deploying a data-driven, strategic strategy, and I’m confident this smart approach to growth will set RSIR apart in the future,” added Soderstrom. “It’s been exciting to watch professionals like Val Burmester use the technology so successfully – she’s a very talented matchmaker for our industry.”
Soderstrom and Burmester agree that brokers will move to RSIR to access greater vision and resources as markets pivot, and they want to align with such thought leadership and momentum. For instance, RSIR has focused on key trends such as House Bill 1110, the $90 trillion “Great Wealth Transfer,” and the urban renaissance of downtown Seattle to name a few key initiatives.
“We want to go to where we think the market is going next and get there first,” said Jones. “We are tackling the trend lines that lead to the headlines to spark conversations that lead to real estate demand. When we are the catalyst, we enjoy greater customer loyalty along the way.”
Jones recently extended lease commitments and expanded both support staff and agent rosters to scale with the anticipated rise in transaction volumes and agent migration to RSIR.
“We resisted consolidation and turned down offers for mergers and acquisitions during the downturn,” added Jones. “We awaited an industry rebound and that inflection point has now arrived. With all the disruption out there, we want to provide inbound agents with an added-value brokerage that is at the ready to grow their business.”
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ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CONSIDER WHY THE GREAT AGENT MIGRATION IS NEAR:
STICKY CONDITIONS 2023-2024
- Golden handcuffs from recruiting incentives 2000-2022 are still in effect
- Sugar high of low mortgages is over, sellers locked into current rates
- Non-profitable brokerages no longer able to “buy” market share
- Dwindling stock values lock in agents who don’t want to lose investments
- Era ended with lowest housing volumes in 30 years means less business to go around
- Insecurity about the Fed and US presidential outcome means instability in industry
- Massive disruptions over NAR policies, scandals, lawsuits, and distractions caused a “tar and feather” effect over brands and made it unclear who would survive
- Fear of Mortgage Interest (FOMI) – rising rates curb affordability
- A confused mind says “no” to change – agents stay put in search of guidance
- Broad consolidation of companies, changes of leadership, and dwindling stock values are causing insecurity at brands that were once more attractive
- Pullback in resources from brokers losing money year-to-year has caused withdrawals of investment in growth and curbed the sales funnel of recruits
- A post-COVID human condition of being in a state of shock and confusion
- Record high divorces, health complications, and a COVID baby boom has disrupted personal lives in the past few years so agents are off their game and stay put
- Current leaders are doubling down on contact to stop erosion of agent roster to make sure they stay (“I need you, don’t leave me now”)
- Promises of greater outcomes and deal-making (compression of commission splits) to keep agents happy locks them down
FLUID CONDITIONS 2025-2026
- Pent-up buyers/sellers finally making a move (death, divorce, diapers, etc.)
- New policies by Trump and the Fed encouraging consumer confidence
- Wealth effect of booming stock market driving housing demand
- Brokerages M&A triggering both attraction and detraction of agents
- Business models at brokers climatized to new realities
- Reinvestment in talent acquisition campaigns
- Rising inventory levels have agents feeling “flusher” to invest in marketing
- Use of technology and creative marketing is separating the wheat from the chaff
- A clear division between the “Flight to Quality” and the “Flight to Quantity”
- Reset retail/office market allowing new beginnings for brokerage locations and impressive buildouts in a slow “return to the office” to build culture and lure agents
- VC returning to brokerages to bet on the best, to spark new campaigns, and reverse the course of cost-cutting and emerge a better version
- Survivors rewarded to encourage brokers to follow new leaders