How the Brokerage Business is Changing

Mike Simonson here. Thanks for joining me today. Welcome to the Top of Mind podcast. If you follow along with Altos Research, you're probably familiar with our weekly market data video series with the top of Mind podcast, we seek to add context to the discussion about what's happening in the market firm leaders in the industry each week. Of course, Altos research tracks every home for sale in the country, all the pricing, all the supply and demand, all the changes in that data. And we make the insights available to you before you see it in the traditional channels. People desperately need to know what's happening in the housing market right now. So if you need to understand the housing market across the country or communicate the market to others, go to altos research.com and join us and you can set up a free Altos account right now.

(00:48)
Dive in, we can review your local market and teach you how to use market data in your business. Okay, so in speaking of informing your clients with great data, I've got a terrific guest today, Jason Wa. Jason is president of Coldwell Banker affiliates for Coldwell Banker Real Estate where he runs the brand's marketing franchise sales and operations for a hundred thousand real estate professionals in more than 2,700 offices in 39 countries. So we're talking today from a boots on the ground perspective, running a brokerage in this crazy market 2025, and this very different legal world. So lots to cover today. So Jason, welcome to the show.

Mike. Thanks for having me. I'm a big fan of yours and everybody should be a subscriber to Altos Research, so thanks for having me. Happy New Year.

Alright, I appreciate that. Happy New Year to you too. Okay, let's start at the top. Coldwell Banker is an iconic brand in the real estate world, but that world's changing really rapidly. So what's it like running an iconic real estate brand today?

Yeah, it's interesting because I'm really attracted to legacy brands, whether it's our industry or other industries. And I often say this is the most iconic brand in real estate, but there's a famous quote by John Maxwell that I live by it and its change is inevitable, growth is optional, change is inevitable, growth is optional. So while we enjoy the richest history in real estate, we also know that we've got to always be adapting, always be growing. And so from the top down, from our parent company anywhere, all the way down through Caldwell Banker, it's really being leaning into the history, the experience. We've obviously navigated many different real estate cycles and markets, but we also know that we've got to be flexible and nimble enough to adapt to not only the needs of the consumers, but the need of our real estate professionals. And so we've really again, leaned into our experience and our history and fall back on navigating a lot of different market cycles and economic conditions, but also being nimble and flexible enough to adapt to an ever evolving landscape.

And when you say growth is optional, where are the growth opportunities where the growth vectors for Coldwell Banker these days? It's a hard market to grow in. So tell me where you guys are growing or where you seek to grow.

Well, certainly diversification of business. So we have a great commercial brand in Coldwell Banker commercial. That's an opportunity for our affiliates to diversify their business. Certainly when you look at all of home ownership, not just brokerage, but all the services that impact a transaction and ultimately the consumer's experience, you're talking about title and escrow, mortgage insurance. So having a diversified set of deliverables to ultimately create an exceptional experience is really who we are and that's in our DNA. And so we pride ourselves on being at least on the residential side, a home services, home ownership experience. And on the commercial side, we've got a great platform led by Dan Spiegel of Coldwell Banker commercial.

Cool. I am interested in diving into commercial in a few minutes because trends there that I only have a real surface knowledge of. So I'd be really curious about what you see on the commercial side. So it's like a hundred thousand agents. And tell me, I think at the national level, a couple of things have happened post post pandemic in the last three years, certainly the mortgage industry, fewer professionals, I think dramatically fewer mortgage professionals on the real estate side, I think we have fewer, but is it dramatically fewer? Is it like what is the dynamic going on with the number of real estate agents now and especially after August the last year? Tell me what's going on in that world.

It's fascinating. There hasn't been this mass exodus from the business and when you think about it, we're two and a half full years into what I've described as a market recalibration after a decade of historic growth. And so we're five months away from three full years of that. Again, recalibration and I would've expected, and I think most people would've expected greater attrition and we just haven't seen that. So I think that speaks to the appeal of this business. I think it's the greatest business that there is and there's always going to be opportunity. I mean, the headlines are now reading the fewest number of sales in 2024 and 29 years, but it was still over 4 million transactions, existing home sales, and that's just the transaction. There's two sides to it. So it's 8 million opportunities to be involved in a real estate transaction on existing home sales. So there's always going to be opportunity to achieve your goals in this business and impact a consumer's buying or selling experience. And so there's just going to be, it is surprising that the numbers have stayed elevated in terms of membership given the last two and a half years. But I think also it speaks to just the appeal of the industry and the opportunities that it presents.

So the reasons that people become real estate agents professionals is because it offers lifestyle flexibility, it offers personal connection kind of work, and it has often some decent money upside.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean 30 years in and around the business, and I'm an SOB meaning the son of a broker. So of my 50 years on this planet, 43 of 'em have been exposed to the real estate business. And I've always said there's not very many industries, and I'm a reformed lawyer as well, that there's not a lot of industries where you get to help navigate and be really instrumental in navigating someone through probably the most significant financial investment or transaction that they'll be involved in and make a very good living doing it. And the ceiling is self capped. So there's just not a lot of industries like that, and it's why I will always believe this is the greatest business that there is.

That's cool. So has the vibe changed? Has the economics changed? What has changed since August of last year when the big lawsuit came in? The big judgements came in limiting how the structure of how the buy-side agents can get paid. Tell me from the agent perspective and opportunity perspective, let's talk there first before we talk into the

Deal. It's interesting. I think it's still a little too early to really, truly appreciate or understand the impact of that. I think the next several quarters, next two or three quarters will probably have some greater conclusions and takeaways. But one takeaway is it wasn't the same experience for everybody. I mean, there were certainly markets across the country that were further along, whether it be in implementing and using buyer services agreements, whether the MLS allowed buyer agent compensation or not. So it hasn't been the same experience across the board at a macro level. I think at the end of the day, what it ultimately did was we all just got to get better at what we do. We've got to have more meaningful conversations around representation and what those services are and then how we are compensated for those services. I was talking to one of our affiliates in Georgia two days ago and I asked her that same question that you asked me and she's like, it's business as usual with the exception of the MLS, we don't disclose what we're going to offer a buyer's agent comp.

(10:11)
I spoke with one of our affiliates in a part of Wisconsin and they're starting to see a greater impact on the actual compensation. So it's not the exact same experience across the country, but I think what we all have to acknowledge and accept is change is inevitable, growth is optional. We all got to just get better at what we do and be able to articulate our value proposition and justify fair compensation for it. I do think that we underestimated the consumer's understanding of the process and the system. We do enjoy the most transparent system, meaning transacting real estate anywhere in the world. And so I think some of this was we underestimated the consumer, especially the seller's understanding of the structure and how it worked because we haven't seen a significant meaningful change in the practice, certainly the mechanics, but the overall economic impact, we haven't seen any significant changes yet.

Yeah, that's really fascinating. And the local observations are actually pretty insightful. And as we do work here at HousingWire on that topic that we are looking at local differences and you mentioned buyer services agreement and I know anecdotally with through colleagues, the ones that previously used services agreements for their buyer clients have no change at all in their business. And so those who didn't have that, and I don't know what are the dynamics where you end up with that. I don't know what would the local customs or what required that, why Wisconsin for example, didn't have that or maybe it was just one person in Wisconsin. It's really a tricky, fascinating scenario. So over time it would be really interesting. We're at HousingWire looking, we're gathering a bunch of different sources to try to measure that impact and can we see it happening in different regions. Have you found when you do the recommendations for folks in this new world, there have been a few different approaches on how you structure that and some folks are doing the I'm a seller, we will entertain any and all offers, put it in the offer and are putting some other contract in place. And I think it was Colorado had some specific approach that they were trying, but what's your recommendation to agencies days on the sell side?

At the macro level, right, there's going to be some nuances based on just your hyperlocal marketplace, but at a macro level it still is always going to boil down to the conversation and dialogue that you have with the seller, create what they present, what the options are and why, whether it's to market the home on the MLS or not, that's an issue that is pretty prevalent today, offers a compensation, the benefits of doing it or not doing it, and then mechanically how you make it a part of the contract. I think it really still just boils down to having that really candid, upfront, transparent conversation. Give a consumer specifically the seller what all of their options are so they can make a good informed decision and have them direct us as their representatives to present to the marketplace.

Okay, that's great. So that is on the agent and consumer side in the deal structure. Are there any trends that you've been able to notice yet? So for example, you mentioned that the folks in Wisconsin felt like they were seeing margin compression. Are there other trends or changes that you see? And let me give you an example. Things that have been on my mind were that as we made it, the ruling essentially makes it potentially harder for buyer's agents to be paid, which means that maybe we'll use buyer's agents less frequently. To my mind, that impacts first time home buyers more puts them in a worse position than say an institutional buyer who buys thousands of homes and knows how they're doing it. Have you seen anything like that where you go, this is a trend positive or negative or different? What do you see?

Well, first let me just clarify because you referenced that Wisconsin, not the entire state of Wisconsin,

One conversation

I just saw, I was talking with one affiliate and actually in a secondary market, a second and third home market and starting to see some different practices.

Okay. Oh, that's interesting, right? So yeah, that's great. That's a good point, right? It's not the entire state, it was one conversation, but in a second home market. So this is interesting to me. So now it's in a second home world, you might imagine you got somebody who has less urgency to buy who is like, here's what I'm doing. You might see it in a second home market. So that's an interesting potential place. Anything else like that?

So back to, thank you for allowing me to clarify that. I think with respect to just overall trends and changes, still, I think it's a little early to draw any meaningful conclusions one way or the other. I will most surveys, and I think it's a growing trend that the consumer values the representation of a real estate professional. And so there's always been folks that either ended up self representing or a real estate professional represented both sides, but the vast majority of times each principle has their own representation. I think that's going to continue to be the trend irrespective of the mechanics of how compensation is shared or distributed. I do believe that the consumer ultimately values the representation. I mean the data supports that and that's going to continue. It's just really the mechanics of how ultimately you incorporate compensation into the transaction is really the biggest shift.

Yeah, that's true. And I think that's an excellent observation. Certainly one of mine in the 20 years that I've been doing Altos research now almost 20 years, where it's the one thing I've realized is people, the outside world blows into real estate every once in a while and says, oh, realtors are overpaid. And then they continue to opt for full service. They continue to choose to pay the full service because they want that. And there are some people and some circumstances where they want a cheap low service thing. But it turns out that over and over, and I'm here in Silicon Valley and I know that the zip realty first internet brokerage back in 1997 had a, realtors are overpaid and they're pitched to the venture catalog. It's been a long time and yet we keep upgrading because it turns out consumers actually choose the full service.

Yeah, well I think, listen, at the end of the day, we work in an asset class that if you make a mistake, it can be pretty costly and not just financially, it's not like we're buying the newest pairs of skis and ski boots and they're uncomfortable after their first day take 'em back. I mean, we work at an asset class that demands a certain level of expertise to successfully navigate, avoid any of the pitfalls along the way. And so ultimately that's why I think the consumer does value the expertise of their representation because it's a significant event and a significant asset class.

Okay, that's terrific. I really appreciate that insight and maybe we'll do this conversation again in nine months and say, okay, what can we observe now? And we'll do some data, we'll track some data on the topic, see if things are shifting, but that's really great. Okay. There's a couple other things that I'm interested in getting your expertise on today. One is in the luxury space, I know you guys do some good research luxury market research and have just published a report. So first tell me what the conclusions of your latest report are, and then let's talk about high end and how that's changing and what's going on in that market right now.

Yeah, well, we're super proud of our Coldwell Banker Global Luxury Program. Believe we have the best real estate professionals and great assets and deliverables for the consumer. So you referenced our trend report, which we just released a couple weeks ago, which we do annually in pretty interesting takeaways. I mean, you look at demographic shifts, you look up, certainly there's some pent up demand. They saw NAR released last week that sales above a dollars rose by 35% year over year by far from a price point perspective outperformed every other price point last year. Some of the features and benefits that luxury space and that luxury buyer's looking for, those are kind of the takeaways. So from a demographic perspective, affluent women are really driving shopping, buying decisions. Single women are certainly outpacing single men when it comes to home ownership. Interesting data point there. Women with a net worth of $5 million or more now own over 15% of luxury real estate in the US and over 13% globally so that she elite is really starting to grow throughout that luxury space. And then Gen X has grown by 10% over the last five years. So you look at who's buying what age demographic as well as gender, and those were two really significant takeaways through our research.

Yeah, that's fascinating. Does the single women trend continue, single women continue to outperform single men in terms of economic gains and things like home ownership? Does that change how Coldwell Banker does marketing, does business feel like knowing that women are driving more and more of the real estate purchase decision?

I don't believe it changes how we certainly market our services. It's just an awareness I think in terms of who the buying public is. Certainly we believe that everybody deserves the best representation, but you got to be mindful of who are the buyers and in what space today. And so that, again, that Gen X is the biggest population of folks that are buying. So those folks aged 44 to 59 I believe it is, and then single women outperforming single men. So it's just again, awareness of who our consumer or most active consumer is today. But in terms of delivery of services, at least at Calwell Banker, everybody's going to get the best service. I think an interesting trend too in our report is what people are expecting from these type of homes and really more of this wellness centric lifestyle in the homes. I mean, you look at what were the three most important features? Number one was a spa-like Primary Bathroom fitness studios for whether it's yoga or Pilates or anything like that. And then really, really rich landscaping. So those are the three real drivers between at least the research in market intelligence that we acquired as far as what this group is looking for from those luxury properties.

That's nice. So I just Gen X here who just remodeled some bathrooms, so I tried to get a little bit of that spa-like feel going on.

Well, didn't you just get married too recently? Last

Year I did, yes. Yeah, in June I got married year.

Yeah. Well, congratulations. And so I'm assuming your now wife drove that behavior decision making about remodeling, right?

Yeah, maybe. But yeah, so okay, that's really fascinating. And the spa, like Primary Beth is that I can understand how that's an appeal at that. What's interesting is that what's not in there is the kitchen, at least in the top chunk.

Well, another thing I did leave out, it's that whole indoor outdoor living really almost coexisting, and oftentimes that's a feeder from the kitchen, so outdoor living spaces or outdoor kitchens. And so that has really become a very popular feature, having those two worlds, if you will, coexist in a floor plan and layout.

Yeah, okay. That's cool. Those are really interesting stuff. Okay, so you mentioned that over a million bucks outperformed in 2024. Do you have a take on why that is?

Well, I think it's a couple factors, right? We've seen tremendous price appreciation over the last several years. So homes that weren't a million dollars a couple years ago are now a million. And obviously we just still struggle with a supply issue. And so especially at that early entry price point. So I think between price appreciation that we've experienced in those, what I described as the unicorn years of covid, and then even 6% last year, those properties have just moved into that range and then we just again, still have the supply issues. Where is that entry price point going to come from? Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. Okay. You mentioned commercial as part of your affiliates growth strategy and opportunity, not just residential. And Coldwell Banker for years has done both residential and commercial. I don't know anything about commercial except that I live in San Francisco and I'm sitting here going, is anybody ever going to buy an office building again? Can you tell me about the commercial world right now?

Yeah, well, we've got a great team led by Dan Spiegel, Coldwell Banker, commercial. It's really interesting. I think what we have to be mindful of is the headlines in the media doesn't really fully represent the entire asset class because in commercial you've got many, many different types of commercial properties. And so typically it's just the office building that's sitting vacant in a downtown metro area. And then that's the commercial conversation. And that's not really reflective. I mean, we are today over office where if you look at the nineties, we had excess retail space, and today we just are over office. So what we believe we will see happen over time is where it makes sense, some of those buildings demoed because the value really is in the land. And so that will be redeveloped into, it could be distribution space, multifamily units, other types of commercial, but office buildings are selling. It's the reality of prices have had to recalibrate. And so seeing buildings trade for 70 or 80% less than maybe 10 years ago, that's just a necessary adjustment of the current landscape and the economic conditions. But quality retail space is in short supply today. Multifamily has performed very, very well. Industrial has performed very, very well. So you've got to really look at what specific type of property within the entire commercial asset class, not all the same.

Yeah, for sure. And I have the price adjustment makes a lot of sense. Obviously. I have a colleague in San Francisco who had signed an office lease for in December, 2019, a five year office lease in December, 2019, and then promptly stopped using it. They resigned in this December at a 65% discount for another five year lease with opt-outs, right? So it was literally, the building is, I'm sure their building is half empty now. And so their landlord was like, whatever we can do to keep you in. And so literally their rent dropped 65% in that period. And that actually gets me to a question. I remember doing this back in 2000 8, 9, 10, and in that period there were folks, the early folks who are doing the institutional buying of single family homes that the whole institutional single family rental class started in 2010 when there were people who were like, man, these cap rates are insane. I can get things super cheap. And everybody else in the world is like, no, I am never buying another house again. So are we at a point, are we at the 2010 point for offices?

Well, I mean, as we both know, I mean, how we work has really been dramatically changed, certainly by Covid and then post covid practices. And let's face it, most people don't want to commute anymore. Now we will commute for experiences and destinations and we see that's where the opportunities may lie. Let's ditch take malls for example, which was the 20th century most iconic retail property. Well, we just don't shop like that anymore. And so those have got to be repurposed or just dealt with differently. But these lifestyle centers anchored by the most quality and best brands, those are still attracting tenants and attracting consumers because again, we may not want to commute to downtown for work, but we will commute somewhere for a dining experience and experience out, and then that may also include some shopping. And so those sort of transformations in those properties we're seeing very, very popular.

Yeah. Okay. Alright, that makes a lot of sense. Here's a quick thought. One last thought on commercial, and this one is sort of personal to Coldwell Banker, you have 2,700 offices around the world that you run or support. Is that growing or shrinking?

So office consolidation certainly is on top of everyone's mind as well as even how agents use their office space. And I'm a big believer going back to the full service experience, I'm a big believer in brick and mortar. Now the days of being on every street corner are, that doesn't make economic sense in terms of how we use space, but our findings have been people still, especially in, I mean this is a relationship business, not just with the consumer but with each other. So coming together, idea sharing, collaborating, challenging and encouraging each other. I mean hard to do that virtually or in your home office. So there's still a real commitment to brick and mortar and the value that it brings in collaboration, idea sharing culture. Culture is a big, big part of Calwell Banker and it's harder to create that virtually. And so is our footprint shrinking from the total number of offices. Yeah, that's very strategic though. But there's still a commitment to brick and mortar because of the value that it brings culturally for the internal operations, but then also visibility for the consumer and making that an option to meet at versus meet at a Starbucks or some other place to meet. So we believe there's still tremendous, tremendous value in that existence.

So that makes a lot of sense. That sounds very strategic to me. It's like there are probably fewer offices, but they are more strategically important ones. And I noticed it sounded like you focused internal benefits of that office more than the external benefits, although you mentioned the consumer facing ones as

Well. Yeah, this could be an isolating business. Let's face it. If you're just left to your own devices at your home, you can feel like you're the only person navigating a particular issue and virtually is just harder to connect and it's harder to stay focused, it's easier to multitask virtually than when you're sitting in a room with your peers. And again, just the energy and the excitement and the enthusiasm and the idea sharing, encouraging, challenging one another, it's just better from the office than it is anywhere else.

Yeah, okay. I like that. And I think you're certainly not alone as business leaders, CEOs who are feel that important part, the culture development. I know at Housing Wire, the headquarters is Dallas and we're doubling down and building out a new office space for housing wire, and I'm out here by myself at San Francisco, but I even have an office that I like to go into to have my creative space and my good microphone and

Stuff. Yeah, yeah,

Absolutely. That's great. Okay, let's talk about m and a. One of the things that I find fascinating about the brokerage world, and especially in the last, I mean it's always been the case I think, but in the last decade, the biggest, one of the biggest changes has been Compass one of your competitors, compass, who raised a bunch of free money in the zero interest rate.com world from SoftBank and went out and bought a bunch of market share. And so tell me about what's happening in brokerage m and a and how you look at that.

Yeah, well I think with respect to competitors, I look at that it's just different business models and there's always going to be disruption in folks looking at opportunities in the business. And that specific company that you referenced is bought their way into the market. And I think again, for us leaning into 118 years in business and our experience, I think from an m and a perspective, the fundamentals remain the same and it's just really about timing and opportunity. And if the timing and opportunity align, then magic can happen. But there's certainly, we had a 10 year historic run, there was a lot of movement between companies then now we've recalibrated the last two and a half years I believe we're going to see more and more opportunities, some of it just aging demographic of ownership, some of it market and economic driven, and then just time.

(37:01)
So for us, it's really about making sure that we're talking with everybody in the business and if there is the right time and the right opportunity for us to come together. And there's great synergies, and this is where going back to culture, culture matters. I mean, for something to be sustainable long-term, everything's going to be a right fit, but you have to make yourself available to all those opportunities to explore if there's a right fit. So I think that the timing of the market, the economy is on is favorable to the m and a space here over the next 12, 18, 24 months probably. And so for us, it's really about partnering with our franchisees around their growth strategy and really helping them either with introductions or valuing opportunities and then navigating that process from actual close to then onboarding because ultimately you want to keep continuity of those assets, meaning the businesses and making a seamless transaction for the end user, which in our businesses, the agents. And so hopefully it's seamless for them, but I see a great window of opportunity in the m and a space over the next 12, 18, 24 months given the last two and a half years of the market.

Got it. So when you say opportunity for m and a, this is really, your franchisees are growing their businesses by buying other brokerages nearby, complimentary,

Correct?

Is that

Right? Yeah, and we will evaluate opportunities on the company owned side, but we've got two paths there. One company owned and then one are franchisees. And I think there's tremendous opportunity for our franchisees that have an appetite and a willingness to grow because again, those opportunities are going to be really hyperlocal, a lot of synergies that they're local. And again, I think two and a half years of the current market conditions that we've been in have created a great window of opportunity.

And you mentioned demographics on that. So it's like these are brokers who've been in the business for 40 years and they're now looking for an exit

And we want to be that business partner. That's an end-to-end solution. Join Caldwell Banker, we will help you with your growth goals throughout your active career. But on the backend, we also want to be a good business partner and create a succession plan where hopefully you have a significant financial event there to close it out. But we also create continuity in that asset and it just continues to go on for the next decade, two decades, three decades, whoever the owner operator is. So we believe we are the premier provider of that end-to-end solution and not just on the front end during their growth active cycle of the business

Over the last couple of decades that I've been paying attention, it's been really fascinating to me because I'm a Silicon Valley guy who stumbled into real estate as opposed to being a son of a broker, a lifelong. And so for me it was watching the brands in northern California. There was a lot of regional brands, San Francisco strong brands, bay area brands that grew and had market share. And meanwhile there's some big mega, and Coldwell Banker has been there a long time, but in the last 20 and 30 years, there's been some ebbs and flows of other brands that come in there. Are there trends at the brand level? Are we getting fewer regional brands? Are we getting more of them? What's happening there?

Well, there certainly was a period of time, especially that mid 2012 coming out of the great recession up until mid 2022 where you just saw a mass entry into the business. And there's been a growth of teams as well within brands. And so some of these teams are companies within companies as well. And so that's one area of how do you continue to support those folks as well as the individual entrepreneur. And so as a brand or any organization supporting different makeups of business models within your business model, I think the last few years haven't seen as many, but that's again, more probably economic and market conditions, but there's more business models in this industry than there's ever been before. And again, it boils down to who do you want to be? What kind of business partner are you? I look at it that we're a high value business partner and that's who we want to support and then deliver ultimately an exceptional experience to the consumer. But you kind of got two camps, low cost and limited services, which is just a business model. No criticism on it's just business models from my perspective, or you've got the high value, full service, a lot of resources, a lot of systems, a lot of tools to ultimately pass along to the consumer that benefits from a rich experience either buying or selling.

Yeah, yeah, right. The different business models are really fascinating. The rise of the teams in the last 10 years and people are scaling businesses, scaling I am a real estate agent with a hundred people on my team is a fascinating way to run the business. And do you have a take on that team's trend? Is it still growing or is it scaling back any?

I think it's going to continue to grow. I mean, some of that's going to, and I think that may be, and this is just my thought, I don't really have any verified data to support it, but when you look at what I would've expected, greater attrition in just realtor count or agent count, the fact that we haven't seen that leads me to maybe speculate that rather than leaving the business, they joined a team. And so as we've seen the growth of teams, that's probably where we've seen an impact on just overall numbers of membership within the industry.

Got it. Do you have a take on the total number agents? There's a conventional wisdom that we have too many real estate agents, right? There's too many of them. Do you have a take on the number?

Not necessarily the number, but let's face it. I mean there's only so many transactions and so last year there was 4,060,000 existing home sales doesn't include new construction, but so there is only so much business for everybody. It really just boils down to who treats this as a career and a business versus a hobby or something to do. And even if they do that but really, really well, it's still, I think that's really more kind of indicative of the number of licensees versus is there a formula that makes sense based on 4 million than there should only be X number of real estate professionals. I think it really gets down to why are you in the business and then how you invest in it.

Yeah, and I'm always of the view that I think the too many argument is really fascinating because it's like, it doesn't recognize that there are a lot of folks who don't sell houses, but they find the benefit of keeping a real estate license. They're ancillary, I don't know what the number is inside housing wire, but this is a media company and a data company, and I know there's a handful of people who have real estate licenses in the business and now they just write about the business, but they keep their license and they keep their license to be able to stay connected and do things. Or maybe you're an investor and you maybe you're, you are on a team and your entire business has nothing to do with actually doing a transaction, but it is related to the industry.

Yeah, there's multiple motivations to continue to have a license. Let's face it, this is one of those industries that a lot of people don't retire from, but there's opportunities to, especially when we look at not just succession planning for broker owners, but agent succession planning. So how do you marry folks that are newer into the business and on the, my father used to always say that You're inclining, I'm reclining, meaning he was reclining, I was inclining. But you've got those different stages, but that doesn't mean you drop a real estate license. You can still collect referral fees. You still have a a sphere of influence that maybe now you've introduced them to somebody that's still growing their business. So to your point, there's multiple motivations to have a license. I think it's really what is, again, why are you in the business?

Great. Let's do this. We're getting close to the top of the hour. One thing I always like to ask Jason, my guess is your vision of the future. Suddenly we're in the second half of the decade. What's your vision for the real estate market, the industry and Coldwell Banker specifically?

Well, Coldwell Banker is going to continue to grow and lead the way in terms of being the most iconic brand in real estate. I think we're certainly going to experience some continued volatility in uncertainty in the space in the short term. I talk awful lot about, I mean, affordability, that's the big number one question. And I often talk about the impact triangle that I refer to, meaning mortgage rates, prices, inventory, and the impact that those three have on affordability. I mean, we have to address affordability. We have to address supply and supply across all price points, especially that entry price point. That is we really have to have some realistic solutions to the supply side of the business. I really don't believe that there's going to be dramatic changes in how we actually deploy our services as real estate professionals. I believe the consumer is going to continue to value the services of quality representation and engage us in that way, and compensation will reflect the services that we provide. But as far as the industry as a whole, we have to have meaningful change to addressing supply and again, at that entry price point, but I'd argue across all price points is really what the industry collectively needs to focus on to keep growing.

Alright, that's really great. I love the impact triangle, the mortgage rates, inventory and home prices. All of those three kick into gear here. Well, that's a terrific view. It's actually really great conversation and we went all over the place, but I appreciate the boots on the ground view seeing and seeing what's happening. In many ways, the industry is under dramatic change right now, and so I appreciate your take and some of the anecdotes along the way.

Yeah, it's always a pleasure, Mike and sincerely meant what I said at the opening. I really value your contributions to our industry from a data perspective. I watch your content every week and those of us in the business, we should all do that. So thank you for what you do and your contributions to our business.

I appreciate that very much, Jason. Alright everybody, this is the top of mind podcast. If you enjoy conversations like this with Jason, I appreciate a nice five star review wherever you get your podcast. That helps other people find us and we will be back next week the rest again with another great conversation and we'll see you then. Thanks everybody