- 6/27/2025
This week on RealTrending, Tracey Velt chats with Steve Murray, industry stalwart and senior advisor to RealTrends. Tracey and Steve had the opportunity to sit down in person at HousingWire’s The Gathering.
Steve dives into the real estate’s most pressing issues, including the distraction of AI, Clear Cooperation, and the alarming number of inactive agents. He talks about why developing talent should be every broker’s priority, why it’s time to rethink the outdated brokerage model, and gives an introduction to Fiji, a new M&A tool designed to bring transparency and innovation to real estate dealmaking.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
AI is a fascinating tool that can enhance brokerage efficiency.
Brokers need to focus on recruiting and developing talent.
The real estate market may remain stagnant for years.
Realtor associations face challenges with membership dynamics.
Innovative tools are emerging for M&A and valuation.
Brokers should consider a team-based model for profitability.
Market conditions require brokers to adapt and innovate.
Related to this episode:
FIJI
https://www.fijiapp.com/
Steve Murray - President - REAL Trends Consulting | LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-murray/
RealTrends' Steve Murray explores M&A changes and brokerage team models
https://www.housingwire.com/articles/realtrends-steve-murray-mergers-acquisitions-brokerage-team-models/
The Gathering 2026
https://events.housingwire.com/the-gathering-2026
HousingWire | YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXDD_3y3LvU60vac7eki-6Q
More info about HousingWire
https://lnk.bio/housingwire
The RealTrending podcast features conversations with the brightest minds in real estate. Every Monday, brokerage leaders, top agents, team leaders, and industry experts join us to share their secrets to success, trends, and the lessons they’ve learned. Hosted by Tracey Velt and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.
Steve dives into the real estate’s most pressing issues, including the distraction of AI, Clear Cooperation, and the alarming number of inactive agents. He talks about why developing talent should be every broker’s priority, why it’s time to rethink the outdated brokerage model, and gives an introduction to Fiji, a new M&A tool designed to bring transparency and innovation to real estate dealmaking.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
AI is a fascinating tool that can enhance brokerage efficiency.
Brokers need to focus on recruiting and developing talent.
The real estate market may remain stagnant for years.
Realtor associations face challenges with membership dynamics.
Innovative tools are emerging for M&A and valuation.
Brokers should consider a team-based model for profitability.
Market conditions require brokers to adapt and innovate.
Related to this episode:
FIJI
https://www.fijiapp.com/
Steve Murray - President - REAL Trends Consulting | LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-murray/
RealTrends' Steve Murray explores M&A changes and brokerage team models
https://www.housingwire.com/articles/realtrends-steve-murray-mergers-acquisitions-brokerage-team-models/
The Gathering 2026
https://events.housingwire.com/the-gathering-2026
HousingWire | YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXDD_3y3LvU60vac7eki-6Q
More info about HousingWire
https://lnk.bio/housingwire
The RealTrending podcast features conversations with the brightest minds in real estate. Every Monday, brokerage leaders, top agents, team leaders, and industry experts join us to share their secrets to success, trends, and the lessons they’ve learned. Hosted by Tracey Velt and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.
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🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Hey Steve, welcome to the Real Trending Podcast. It's good to be with you Tracy.
00:04Yeah, we're here live from the gathering at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs and we're going to talk all things challenges and opportunities for brokerage companies right now.
00:14So tell me, what do you see as the maybe most underrated threat or challenge brokers are seeing right now or not really realizing how important it is?
00:25I think they're in real jeopardy if they get distracted by all the buzz about clear cooperation, but even more so AI.
00:35I think, and we'll talk about that during the conference I'm sure, these are all side issues.
00:42If you're going to be successful in the brokerage business, you cannot afford to be distracted right now.
00:47And so, you know, let's talk about AI a little bit because this will be, this recording will happen after the breakfast that you're going to have.
00:57So talk to me a little bit about what you see happening right now and where brokers' priorities should be.
01:03Despite all the technology, both inside our industry and outside, over the last 25 years, a couple things is that fundamentally housing consumers are flocking to use agents more than ever before.
01:22So the more information and the more technology within the industry and available, the more they use agents.
01:29So now we have this AI, which I don't pretend to understand all the implications.
01:36I've seen it in use.
01:38It's a fascinating tool.
01:40I just, other than, again, structural things, I don't think it's going to change the relationship between an agent and a buyer or seller or an agent wanting to be with a good brokerage company.
01:51I just don't see it at all.
01:52But what it might change is the efficiency of the back end of the brokerage where they're able to save costs due to AI.
02:03Absolutely.
02:04I mean, it's kind of like we were laughing earlier, you know, the change brought on by Google and Siri and Facebook and Instagram, all that.
02:16And those are huge changes with people, but they haven't seemed to have affected how consumers use agents and agents associate with a brokerage.
02:26But I think AI gives the brokers who want to use it, they'll be far more or can become far more intelligent about running their business.
02:37Yeah, absolutely.
02:38I mean, I know that they're still in the early exploration.
02:41I feel like it's like the technology, you know, remember back when not everyone had a platform and that was it.
02:48It was like technology was going to differentiate your brokerage.
02:51I feel like AI is that right now.
02:54Right.
02:54And it's moving into, you know, people are differentiating, brokerages are differentiating by it, but eventually it'll be the same table stakes and just like your platform.
03:04I think you're right.
03:05But, you know, some people will learn entirely new ways to use it, like you said, for the back office, but they'll be able to use it to find customers.
03:16They'll be able to use it to better communicate with their agents and their staff.
03:22It's unlimited the applications we could see put in place.
03:28But, of course, that depends upon a broker actually changing the way they run their business reflective of these new tools, which we haven't noticed much of that in the last 25 years, even with all the tools that have come out.
03:43So if brokers are distracted with clear cooperation, you know, what do you think they should be focused on?
03:54Look, we're in the third year of a down market, right?
03:57And there are certain economists who have preached, oh, you know, recovery is just around the corner.
04:07And they did that in the fall of 22, in the fall of 23, in the fall of 24.
04:12And here we are stuck at 4 million existing home sales.
04:17I think brokers need to get used to the fact that this is where the market's going to be.
04:22And you have to figure out how you're going to grow and be profitable at this level of business.
04:29Because this could be this way for years to come.
04:32As I'm apt to tell people, you know, we had a crash in the early 80s.
04:37It took 16 years to recover.
04:41We had another one in 06, 07.
04:43It took us 16 years to recover.
04:46Everybody keeps thinking we're going to see this miraculous recovery.
04:50But given the levels of debt at the federal, state levels and consumer levels,
04:56to think that we'll return to something like sub-5% mortgages in the foreseeable future, I think, is a pipe dream.
05:04Yeah.
05:05Yeah.
05:06I have to admit we're hanging on to our 2.5%.
05:10Very wise, Tracy.
05:12Very wise.
05:13But what do I mean when I say they need to focus?
05:15Well, you know, this business, and you've heard me say it, and thousands of people heard me say it like a broken record.
05:22This business is about recruiting and developing talent and spending less money than you have coming in.
05:28Now, it's not complicated to understand what you have to do.
05:33The difficulty is how do you do it?
05:34And I would tell you that for most brokerage leaders, this is what I've noted,
05:40where they should be spending 30 to 50% of their time in recruiting and developing talent,
05:47they're spending 10 to 20% of their time.
05:52And it's reflected in their performance.
05:54Well, and you had mentioned a statistic from, I think it was Recruiting Insights,
06:02that 70% of the agents, you'll have to give me, tell me it again,
06:08you said something like 70% hadn't done a transaction in the last 12 months.
06:1212 months, okay.
06:13Yeah, these are four big MLSs, I think it's 420,000 to 450,000 realtor members,
06:19and they wanted, they were measuring agent movement,
06:22but what they did is they first filtered out all of the agents who had not done one transaction.
06:30And they said when they did that, they were only talking about,
06:33I think it was 155,000 agents that had done one or more deals in the last 12 months.
06:40Now, we always knew it was high.
06:43I mean, I always thought it was 40 to 50% hadn't done a transaction.
06:46Their information seems to indicate it's more like two-thirds.
06:51Wow.
06:51And how do you think that will play out in the next couple of years
06:55as far as like membership and associations and, you know,
07:00agents dropping out of business altogether?
07:03Every time we get a downturn, everybody says realtor membership is going to draw a drop, right?
07:09In the last crash, we went from a million forward about 990,000.
07:14I mean, that's a third drop.
07:16It's fairly dramatic.
07:18Do I think that will happen again now?
07:19I don't think so.
07:21But I think, however, what's going to cause a problem for the realtor association
07:26is as I hear from numerous, a growing number of large privately held brokers,
07:33they are not going to just be forced to collect dues from their agents anymore.
07:38First of all, they're not happy with the realtor organization for leaving them uncovered
07:44and they get to fend for themselves.
07:46That didn't go over well.
07:49Anybody who thinks it's just going to go away is not thinking clearly.
07:52But the other thing is that with pressure on brokerage margins
07:58and that includes mortgage and title and escrow and other things in our industry
08:05and this new level of existing home sales,
08:09now they're faced with new forms of brokerage competition who aren't realtors.
08:16And so they don't care whether their agents join the realtor organization or not.
08:20They do nothing about it to care.
08:24And yet here's these large traditional incumbent firms who because of tradition,
08:31you know, the realtor says if you want to join the realtor organization,
08:34well, all your agents got to join too.
08:36I'm hearing from a growing number of big privately held companies that
08:39last year was the last year we're going to live with that.
08:44And I think that's going to create a problem.
08:48Now, do I think that everybody will do that?
08:50Of course not.
08:51Do I think it'll be a few?
08:52Yes.
08:52But if a few big brokers do that, then there'll be others that do it.
08:58Yeah.
08:59And then it's, you know, you want my agents to be members of the realtor association?
09:04You collect it from them.
09:06You bill them.
09:07I'm not making it a requirement if they're with my firm that they have to be.
09:11I want to join the realtor.
09:13These brokers don't want to leave the realtor organization.
09:15Yeah.
09:16So, you know, there's a lot of sorting out.
09:19But all that change is bubbling up from local and state level.
09:23Yeah.
09:24Yeah.
09:25And how do you feel like the, you know, you talk to brokers every day.
09:30And, you know, there was so much made of the settlement and ultimately what brokers had
09:37to change their policies and practices.
09:40Do you see that having a huge impact on brokerages right now?
09:46No.
09:47Okay.
09:48And why not?
09:50If I hear the story correctly, and I've heard it a hundred times, the listing agent's position
09:58now is, I'm going to charge, you know, X.
10:02That's my listing fee.
10:05Now, if you want to offer to pay the buyer's commission, that's your decision to make.
10:11Seller goes, what do you think?
10:12Do you think it's a good idea?
10:14I do think it's a good idea because 85% of the buyers are being represented by a buyer
10:20agent who expects to get paid.
10:22Right.
10:24And so while we've separated them in the MLS, there's other ways that are legitimate that
10:30they communicate that they're offering co-op.
10:32And I think millions of conversations between listing agents and sellers, they're going,
10:37you know what?
10:38And the market has slowed.
10:40There's more inventory.
10:41I think it just makes good sense that not all sellers, but we've collected a lot of
10:49data.
10:50We still do 15 or more valuations a month.
10:52We look at the data.
10:54There's no change in the average commission rate.
10:56Yeah.
10:56Not yet.
10:57Yeah.
10:57I haven't seen it in some of the studies I've done.
11:00They're mostly anecdotal.
11:01But yeah.
11:03Yeah.
11:03We've seen no change.
11:04Yeah.
11:05And that's interesting.
11:06Now, I have heard from some other people who said they have seen a drop.
11:12But in general, I think even Redfin reported it, that there really wasn't a change at all.
11:18Well, I mean, you can look at the public reports of Compass and EXP and Fathom and Anywhere,
11:26Real Brokerage, Douglas Elliman.
11:29You can look at all those public reports.
11:31Yeah.
11:31I mean, that's a couple million transaction sides.
11:34And you just do simple math and it tells you, yeah, do we see a little bit of erosion?
11:40Yeah.
11:40We see Anywhere, for instance, strikes me.
11:43And I could be off a little bit, but I think their average now is 4.8.
11:48But that's not that far below where it was a year ago.
11:51Yeah.
11:52So high.
11:53Yeah.
11:53So it's really been, I mean, I don't want to say nothing, Berger, because it impacted
11:58the industry quite heavily.
12:00The industry wrote checks of, you know, over a billion something dollars.
12:05Yeah.
12:05And we're not done yet.
12:06Yeah.
12:07So what's the next, you know, legal threat that could possibly impact brokerage that they
12:15really should be, you know, and what can they do to protect themselves from it?
12:20I frankly don't know.
12:21Okay.
12:22That's a fair statement.
12:23I'm sure there's always them out there.
12:25Yeah.
12:26I think this industry argument over clear cooperation, all this leaves different parties
12:34vulnerable for different reasons.
12:36If I'm a listing agent and I say to my seller, we want to go private exclusive for a month
12:43and we'll put it on my less.
12:44And during that time, we find a buyer for a number.
12:49And then the seller finds out a month later from their buddy down the road, I didn't know
12:55it was on the market.
12:56I would have paid more than that.
12:59Now, this has happened in the past.
13:00Yeah.
13:00Whether it'll happen again, I don't know.
13:03And I'm sure I'm simplifying this too much, but I just smell that there could be something
13:08that's going to happen.
13:09But that's more of a isolated cases.
13:11Yeah.
13:12I think then just some industry wide thing.
13:14Yeah.
13:15And let's talk a little bit about clear cooperation in the private listings, because you have kind
13:20of a different take on it.
13:22And also, I feel like there's just a lot of noise around it.
13:26And I feel like it is a distraction right now.
13:29I don't really feel like it's something that necessarily needs the conversations that it's
13:37had.
13:38I mean, comes this position and perhaps some others, if that's what they want or how they
13:44want to approach working with their sellers, as long as they do full disclosure and the
13:49seller makes choices, what's the old Clara Pell Wendy's commercial?
13:54Where's the beef?
13:56Right?
13:56Where's the beef?
13:57If the sellers understand what the options are and they choose, all right, so what's the
14:10beef about that?
14:11Zillow's response, cloaking themselves in the, we're protecting consumers, is nonsense.
14:17They're protecting themselves.
14:18Because if it became a trend that a lot of national or major local regional brokers started
14:26doing private exclusives for a month or two, it would ruin the efficacy of the Zillow homes
14:35for sale website.
14:37I mean, it would put a hole in it.
14:38Yeah.
14:39Their credibility.
14:40So they're not fighting for consumers, they're fighting for themselves.
14:45And we've seen this happen in this industry before.
14:48People say, oh, I'm the one protecting consumers.
14:52You know, it's like this whole trial we just went through and all this litigation.
14:55I mean, I've been in four to five other antitrust cases.
15:03I mean, at the end of all, the outcome since last August is there were no consumers harmed.
15:08Yeah.
15:09Never were.
15:09They had plenty of choices.
15:11They chose not to choose FSBO.
15:14They chose, and the same thing with PIC operation.
15:17Yeah.
15:17If consumers, if a consumer wants to do it and the company has a very thoughtful plan of
15:23how we're going to market your home to make sure you get the, you know.
15:27Yeah.
15:27I mean, you got these new tools like these coffee cups sitting in a final offer.
15:31Yeah.
15:32I've seen that.
15:33That's pretty good.
15:34Yeah.
15:34That would alleviate a lot of that.
15:38Yeah.
15:38Perhaps.
15:39Something like that.
15:39Yeah.
15:41So I want to touch on, I know you and Scott have invested in a new M&A app.
15:50Yes.
15:51Can we talk about that?
15:51Yeah.
15:52Okay.
15:52Fiji app.com or Fiji marketplace.com.
15:57It's kind of like we're trying to slit our own throats because what we're doing is we're
16:02putting an online valuation tool, which we have tested fairly thoroughly.
16:08Yeah.
16:08And it's really good.
16:10And it costs about 10% of what it would cost you normally to use us or other valuators
16:17to get a good valuation and a report.
16:20Right.
16:20Now, it's a range, not a specific number, but it's very useful for a lot of purposes.
16:25Then to eliminate some of the lack of transparency in the M&A market, we have a buy-side marketplace.
16:32So a broker can say, hey, I'm in Atlanta, I'm looking to acquire, here's who we are, and we're looking to acquire these kind of firms.
16:41Yeah.
16:41So it's a buy-side marketplace.
16:43Well, sellers anonymously can communicate with sellers or with buyers.
16:51Now, if they need our help, people like us to help, we're right there and it says so.
16:56So now we've got a transparent marketplace.
17:29So we've got to stack up against your peers by size, by region, so on and so forth.
17:35But also then we have what we call our sliders.
17:38So you've got six or eight sliders.
17:40So you can now put your data in, go over and say, well, what if I recruited 10 more average agents?
17:45What would that do for me?
17:47Or if I added a transaction fee.
17:50And you can just slide these back and forth and it automatically adjusts your value and your EBITDA.
17:57There's never been a tool like that available.
17:59And you can get this, you can get the whole package for like, I mean, one brokerage doing it by themselves.
18:06It's a yearly subscription of about $50 a month.
18:09Okay.
18:10And you get access to all that.
18:11And so if you were starting a brokerage today, what model would you choose?
18:17What would you, what would be your, how would you go about it?
18:20I would, I would, I would do something like the teams do, frankly.
18:25I would, I would build a business based around that I was generating buyers and sellers for the agents of my company.
18:34And I would only add enough agents and support staff that to handle the business we could generate as a company.
18:43So you do more like a team rich and small.
18:46You wouldn't want to scale it?
18:47Well, you know, it, I'm not one of those people who thinks that size is always the most important thing.
18:52I'd want to continue to grow it and be profitable.
18:56But I think that particular model, it, it, it's, it's more, it, if it's run well, it's easier to manage and it's more profitable.
19:07That's all I can say.
19:08Yeah, absolutely.
19:09So my final question for our interview today is what is, what do you think brokers today need to do to, you know, who, who have hit that stagnant area where they're not really growing anymore and they're trying to get above that?
19:30What do they need to do to do that?
19:32If, whether this is a national or local frame, if, if you have now hit two, three, four, five years of stagnation, you need to probably catch your breath, step away from the table with some good, smart people,
19:51and re-imagine your business, given the environment you're in now.
19:58Yeah.
19:58You're not just keep, do the same old things over and over and expect a different outcome.
20:02Right.
20:04Some of the fundamentals will never change.
20:08What do we need to do?
20:09You know, it's like when we had Paul D. Podesta.
20:12Yeah.
20:13Years ago at the Gathering of Eagles, Paul D. Podesta was the guy who was money ball.
20:17Mm-hmm.
20:18Mm-hmm.
20:18That would change baseball, change sports of all kinds.
20:22Look at data.
20:23Mm-hmm.
20:24One of the key questions he shared with us that day was, if you weren't doing things the way you are, how would you be doing them?
20:31Yeah.
20:32And that's what I would do.
20:35Yeah.
20:35I would take a step back.
20:37If I could do it all over again, given my assets, resources, skills, how would I redo this?
20:45Yeah.
20:45So it's a better business for all of us.
20:48Yeah.
20:48That's what I would do.
20:49Great.
20:50Well, as always, I appreciate you coming on.
20:53Yeah.
20:53Thanks so much, Steve.
20:54Always great, Tracy.
20:55Thanks.
20:55Thanks.
20:56Thanks.
20:59Thanks.
21:00Thanks.
21:01Thanks.
21:06Thanks.
21:14Thanks.
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