From left, Rick Haase, Whitney LaCosta, Tara Brown, Boomer Foster and David Howell. Photo by AJ Canaria.
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Real estate brokerages are no strangers to consolidation.
In 2026, Real acquired REMAX; Compass acquired Anywhere, and eXp and NextHome are now under the same parent brand, AGNT. Beyond the mega deals, large regional independents are constantly buying out or merging with smaller competitors while top-producing mega teams switch franchises.
But evaluating whether consolidation is the right move for your brokerage is a delicate business with little margin for error, according to several leaders who’ve been through it and shared their insights during RISMedia’s 38th Annual CEO & Leadership Exchange.
During a Sept. 30 panel on consolidation, moderator Rick Haase, president of United Real Estate based in Dallas, said that his brokerage has acquired and made investments in 14 different companies in the past five years, growing its agent count from 6,000 to 25,000. Haase said that larger, well-capitalized brokerages can offer agents tools, services and support that smaller firms may struggle to provide.
“For those people, a consolidation opportunity makes a lot of sense, and my guess is they think that’s a pretty good safety net for them,” Haase said.
Consolidation has advantages with right conditions
Haase asked other panelists if they feel consolidation, particularly through acquisitions, helps a company gain advantage of scale. Whitney LaCosta, president of Howard Hanna | Coach Realtors® in New York, agrees it’s possible to scale through consolidation while keeping local leadership and presence strong—as long as certain conditions are met.
“I think the key is having a very strong cultural infrastructure…meaning the top leadership of the company has to be able to articulate the goals and the vision of the company, and everyone underneath that has to believe it,” LaCosta said.
She encouraged other leaders to look to businesses outside of real estate who’ve been successful in scaling their operations and growth while maintaining a strong culture.
For Tara Brown, CEO of Peerage Realty Partners and president of Sotheby’s Peerage Group in Toronto, consolidation in the luxury real estate space in which she operates helps drive effectiveness and efficiency. But those aren’t the only benefits.
“It’s really about the opportunity to leverage scale to actually focus on those value creation areas: the reputation, the relevance, and also the relationships,” Brown said. Consolidation, she said, enables you to “actually do that even better than you could have done before.”
Weighing brand consolidation over individual reputation
In some acquisitions, some agents may love (or hate) the idea of aligning with a bigger, more visible brand. Brown stressed the importance of the brand in today’s M&A deals. Consumers “care about your brand and what you stand for and how you support and service them.”
But Boomer Foster, president and CEO of Paul Wesley Real Estate, doesn’t see it that way.
“Consumers don’t even care about the brand a bunch anymore,” said Foster, who started his brokerage in March after being a president with Long & Foster for over a decade. “They care about the agents because they’re going directly to consumers.”
Foster noted that branding is more important in the luxury world but, for the most part, consumers just want to work with a great agent.
While the brand may matter to agents, LaCosta agreed that consolidation doesn’t matter much to the consumer—but “they might if it changes their…experience with you, the agent and the company.”
Meanwhile, David Howell, executive vice president and chief information officer with Corcoran McEnearney in Virginia, said he feels that consolidation is only beneficial if it improves the consumer experience.
“There has to be a trusting relationship with the individual, and to the extent that consolidation for technology helps that relationship and benefits that consumer experience,” he said.
To consolidate…or not?
The choice to acquire, merge, sell or close up shop completely isn’t an easy one. But leaders agree there’s not a one-size-fits-all answer.
Though many brokerages who acquire brands that don’t have the same tech stack tout the advantages, “Consolidation isn’t really about technology; technology is table stakes,” Howell said.
“The future is promised to no company. Becoming big isn’t the guarantee for success, and staying small isn’t the guarantee for success. It still boils down to having consumer focus in mind.”
No matter how big your company gets, the leaders all agreed that personal relationships—with your agents and staff, and your agents with their clients—must be prioritized.
If you decide to consolidate, make sure to bring your people along for the journey—and spell out the future opportunities they’ll see from the move, Brown said. It’s critical, she added, to communicate where the company is going, where it’s taking agents, what’s changing and what’s staying the same.
“Humans don’t mind change; they just don’t like uncertainty,” Brown said, adding that leaders have to clearly communicate direction and vision to foster belonging. “Ultimately, they can see the opportunity for where you’re going; that’s what creates the momentum.”
