Real’s acquisition of RE/MAX is expected to close later this year, and if you’re a RE/MAX agent, that might have you feeling some anxiety and uncertainty about the future — or it might have you excited about getting access to new tools, training, and streams of income for your business.
Either way, today I want to run through the 5 things I think RE/MAX agents should be doing right now to prepare.
Here’s what RE/MAX agents should do right now.
1. Encourage Your Broker to Sign the New Franchise Agreement
If you want access to REAL’s Leo AI, training, and the reZEN platform — desktop and mobile — it starts with your broker signing the new franchise agreement.
Tamir, the CEO of REAL, has said that in the new franchise agreements, he doesn’t want anything about your day-to-day to change.
He just wants to give RE/MAX brokers and their agents more tools, technology, and resources to support the business they’re already running.
If you’re excited about getting access, then reach out to your broker directly and let them know— the sooner it’s signed, the sooner your office gets access to everything REAL has built.
2. Watch My Full Interview with Tamir Poleg
If you want to get accurate information about this acquisition, then make sure to watch my full interview with Tamir, who is going to be CEO of both REAL Broker and the new REAL/REMAX Group.
This way you’re not going off speculation or hearsay — you’re hearing his vision for the future of both companies straight from him.
A few things he made clear in that conversation:
- He does not want to change anything about how RE/MAX operates. Erik Carlson remains CEO of RE/MAX, and it stays a separate company from Real.
- RE/MAX continues operating on the franchise model; Real continues operating on the cloud model. He simply wants to offer RE/MAX franchisees access to Real’s tools, training, community, and additional income streams.
- There are still a lot of details to be worked out. Expect some growing pains, and expect Real’s leadership to be actively looking for feedback from RE/MAX agents as things roll out.
If you haven’t watched it yet, I’d genuinely recommend it before you form an opinion based on a headline or a comment section. For more background on the deal itself, Inman’s full merger breakdown is a solid third-party source too.
3. If You Want to Join REAL, Do So Now — Before the Acquisition Goes Through
If joining REAL is something you’re considering, I’d do it now, before the acquisition closes.
One idea Real’s leadership has discussed is that if a RE/MAX agent joins REAL after the deal goes through, the RE/MAX franchisee could get credit for that agent for revenue share purposes — rather than the agent naming their own sponsor.
We don’t yet know whether that would take effect once the acquisition is announced or once your franchisee signs the new agreement. So if you’ve been thinking about joining REAL, I’d do it now.
The benefit being that you get to choose who your sponsor at REAL is, rather than your RE/MAX Broker being your sponsor.
What a sponsor actually does: a sponsor isn’t your manager and isn’t your broker. They’re an additional resource — someone to help you get familiar with the platform, answer your questions, connect you to the right trainings and resources, and get on a call to mastermind with.
That’s why there’s real value in choosing a sponsor who’s already built the kind of business you’re trying to build, rather than being assigned one by default. (For the full mechanics of how sponsorship and revenue share work at Real, see my complete revenue share breakdown.)
If you’d like to browse potential sponsors, I have a page on my site featuring agents in my network who have successfully sponsored other agents into Real — you can look through their businesses and find someone who’s already built the type of business you’re working toward. Browse REAL Sponsors.
4. Start Attending REAL Masterminds
You may not have access to the full REAL Academy yet, but Real can still invite agents to live classes.
Every Monday, I send out an email with links to that week’s masterminds inside the REAL Academy — everything from Tim Macy and Katie Day’s Real Estate Video Blueprint (all about social media and video), to Eric Hatch’s CEO Connect (all about running real estate teams), to the REAL YouTube Mastermind I co-host with Jeb Smith, where we both break down how we’ve generated millions of organic views and built our businesses on YouTube.
If you want access to this training, you can sign up for my free weekly email here.
5. Sign Up for the REAL Originate Program by One REAL Mortgage — Now
I would not wait until after the acquisition closes to do this. As a RE/MAX agent, you can sign up for REAL Originate right now.
One Real Mortgage runs on the same reZEN platform as Real Broker, which means when you originate a loan through them, you get full transparency into where that loan is in the process — right from your dashboard.
That means better communication with your clients. And once your broker signs the new franchise agreement, you’ll get access to reZEN and be able to start tracking your clients’ loans there too.
For the full breakdown of how the program works, I’ve written about it in detail here: REAL Originate Fully Explained.
REAL Originate gives real estate agents three additional streams of income.
To access them, you’ll need to get your loan officer license and join Real Mortgage as a Loan Originator.
You’ll then be partnered with an experienced Loan Officer of your choosing, who processes the loan — your job is simply to originate it, which mostly means helping your client through the loan application.
Income Stream #1: An Additional 0.5% Loan Officer Commission
You earn an additional 0.5% of the loan amount as your loan officer commission, on top of your buyer agent commission, for any buyer client you connect with Real Mortgage.
This is fully RESPA-compliant because you’re a licensed loan officer actually originating the loan.
Here’s what that looks like in practice: say your average price point is $500K and you close 20 buyers a year. Using Real Mortgage, that’s an additional $2,500 per deal — an extra $50,000 a year, working with the exact same number of clients.
The only thing that changes is which loan officer you’re connecting them with.
This is especially powerful for team leaders. Many struggle to balance giving their team resources with staying profitable themselves. I spoke recently with a mid-sized team that closes 50 buyers a year — if that team leader had every agent use his link for One Real Mortgage, he’d add $125,000 a year to his business.
That’s the difference between charging his team less, offering more resources, or simply being profitable.
Income Stream #2: Free Stock for Hitting Milestones
You can earn free stock in Real REMAX Group for hitting certain milestones with One Real Mortgage:
- Originate $20,000,000 in Real Mortgage loans, and you earn $15,000 in free stock.
- Refer a Real Originate (RO) agent into the program who closes a deal within their first 90 days, and you earn $500 in free stock.
(For how Real’s stock and equity programs work more broadly, see my Real Broker stock awards breakdown.)
Income Stream #3: The Level Up Program
The third income stream is the Level Up Program, which works similarly to Real’s revenue share model: if you bring loan officers or other Real Originate agents into the program, you earn a percentage of every loan they originate through One Real Mortgage.
- Tier 1: 0.12%
- Tier 2: 0.08%
- Tier 3: 0.03%
- Tier 4: 0.02%
- Tier 5: 0.015%
For example, if you bring in an agent who closes 10 buyer deals a year at an average price of $500K, you’ll earn $6,000 a year just for bringing them into the program — plus a share of anything the agents they go on to bring in produce. You can run your own numbers with my Level Up calculator.
This program is already popular at Real Broker — I’m part of it myself, and I focus on educating and supporting agents who want to join. I think it’s going to be just as big at RE/MAX. As a RE/MAX agent, you can actually join right now and be one of the very first agents at the company taking advantage of it. If you’re interested in helping other RE/MAX agents get licensed and educated on the program, the 5-tier Level Up structure could be a significant opportunity for you specifically.
The Bottom Line
The acquisition is real, it’s moving, and it’s on a timeline you don’t control — but your own next steps are entirely up to you. Get your broker to sign the franchise agreement, hear the plan directly from Tamir, decide now if you want to name your own sponsor, get into the Academy trainings, and sign up for REAL Originate before the window closes.
If you want help thinking through any of this — your numbers, your sponsor, or how REAL Originate could fit into your business — I’d love to hop on a completely free video call with you. I’ve personally helped hundreds of agents, team leaders, and brokerages transition their business, and I’m glad to do the same for you. Grab a spot on my calendar here.
Thanks for reading, and I look forward to hearing from you.
