The big companies buying up real estate brokerages aren’t doing it to run brokerages. They’re doing it for a completely different reason.

A brokerage is the cheapest way left to find people right when they’re buying a home. The second someone buys a house, they need a mortgage to pay for it, title insurance to protect it, homeowner’s insurance to cover it, and often a home warranty for the appliances. Think of the play Rocket did with REDFIN and Compass with Anywhere. That’s a whole stack of products, all sold to the same person, all tied to the same purchase.

The agent is the front door to that moment. So whoever owns the agent owns the customer. And whoever owns the customer the day they buy their home owns the most valuable relationship in America. Buying a house is the biggest purchase most people will ever make. Every product that comes after, every dollar tied to owning that home, runs through that one moment.

That’s what’s really going on. So when you see REAL acquiring REMAX, they had to think through the cost of acquiring 100K + agents and they figured this was the cheaper route. They’re not building a bigger brokerage. They’re trying to own the agents database along with all steps the process. They’re trying to own the financial relationship that sits on top of the house for the next thirty years.