So Tamir, we're going to start this in kind of a couple different phases here. One, first we're going to talk about the brokerage, then we'll kind of we'll keep going as is. So, first question for you, and this is about the brokerage. So, you've recently said that the brokerage was our starting point, but the platform is our destination, and that you've never set out to build a better brokerage, but to reinvent the model entirely. Can you kind of explain that and explain what your vision is for Real in the future?
Sure. Wow, that's a big question. First of all, how's everybody doing?
Great. So yeah, when we started Real, we just wanted to find ways to make agents' lives better, and that was back in 2014, and I think that this is still what's leading us. This is why we wake up in the morning. This is why we spend all of our energy on always finding ways to make your lives better and creating more opportunities for you. While we're doing that, we also realized that if we want to serve you in the best possible way, we need to find ways to serve your buyers and sellers in the best possible ways, and try to create an unfair advantage for each and every one of you, because to be honest, the brokerage industry is archaic. The way people are buying and selling homes hasn't changed much in the past couple of decades. So we thought about the different steps that a buyer, for example, takes when they're buying a home. So, it involves all of the brokerage relationships, everything that they do with you. It involves the lending, it involves in Canada, it's convincing, all of the appraisal, all of those things that people have to deal with when they're buying a home. And at the end of the day, they don't care about all of those steps. What they want is the home that they want at the price that they want at the time that they want. And this is what we need to be delivering, but instead the industry is built as silos. Lending doesn't talk to brokerage. Brokerage doesn't talk to other things. So I think that if we look at a coherent experience for buyers and sellers for consumers, we need to build something that works better for them. And that something is a platform where they can find all of the real estate services that they need, whether they're buying or selling, obviously centered around the relationship with the agent, but this is what we want to build. And nobody has built it before. People were trying to, you know, glue mortgage and brokerage or in the US title and brokerage, but nobody tried to build an end-to-end experience, and I know that it's difficult, but at the end of the day we need to find a way to make all of those pieces work in harmony with no friction, because we need to create a frictionless transaction for people. So that's what we're trying to build. It's going to take a few years, but I think that we will be leading the way when it comes to not just building a brokerage, but building a platform of real estate services.
And right now in the States, if we're looking at like traditional brokerages, the Anywhere Group, Remax, right now they're accumulating mass of debt, margins are thin or in some cases probably right now underwater. You've got brokerage wars that are going on. Almost every week there's a new announcement of somebody's partnered with somebody to kind of, you know, team up. Do you think we're approaching a real consolidation moment in the industry, and how are you looking at Real's role within that environment?
Wow. You're asking big questions this morning. Yeah. What I mean, you touched on that, and we have to understand where did that come from for each and every one of those companies. For Remax, for example, the debt was in place because they wanted to acquire some regions from, you know, folks who own them. So, I'm not sure that all traditional brokerages have debt, and not all debt were, you know, made similar, but we need to understand the big picture of what's happening in the US because I don't know if the same is happening or will happen in Canada, but it's a scary moment. It's a scary moment because I think that what's happening is that Compass is confusing everybody with taking steps that might look like they're, I don't know, if insignificant. All of that discussion about coming soon or preview or whatever you want to call it, it's just a way to try and create data fragmentation. And I'll try to explain. Compass is a brokerage, and brokerages have thin margins. Compass gross margins, for example, are 17 to 18%. Zillow, on the other hand, has an 80% gross margins. So, super high margins, but what Zillow does is they monetize data, and that data is pretty much listing data. And listing data is handed over to them free of charge. So, the agents that have a listing uploaded to the MLS, the MLS then they give it to Zillow and other portals free of charge, and then those portals monetize that data with 80% gross margins. What Compass has seen is that, 'Hey, we can take control of that data that we own, that our agents own, and maybe try and monetize it like Zillow does, or at least participate in the economics.' Now what Compass was trying to do a couple of weeks ago is just say, 'Hey, coming soon's are now going to be on Redfin and we are going to participate in the economics on those leads that are generated out of those coming soon.' But that breaks the hegemony that has been in place for years between MLS's and NAR and agents. Now, all of a sudden, it's not just one path of agents uploading to the MLS and the MLS then showing, and by the way, MLS's have a coming soon feature as well, which is also shared with Zillow. So, Compass is slowly breaking that bond between NAR, MLS's and agents in a way that will allow them to one day come and say, 'Hey, we're big. We have 25% market share. In some regions, we have more than 25% market share. If you want our data, you now have to pay us for that data.' And I think that that's the big thing that is going on behind the scenes. It's not a race to who's going to launch the best partnership when it comes to coming soon's. It's about who can dominate market share to have leverage over the portals. And that is a strategic change, which by the way, I don't think is good for consumers and it's not good for agents. It's good for agents if Compass were to say, 'Hey, every dollar that we will receive from Redfin or from Zillow or from whoever uses the listing data that you agents provide us, we give you a portion of that.' And it doesn't matter if it's 20% or 80%, but the agents could monetize their own data. Compass is not doing that yet. It's bad for the consumer because what will happen is a situation like exists in Europe that if I'm a buyer and I wanted to understand all of the available inventory in a certain market, the MLS will no longer be enough. I will need to go to compass.com, realonereal.com, exp.com, remax.com, all of the MLS and only then I will have a picture of what's available, but also a lot of inventory that is expired, that has just never been on the market, a lot of websites that will appear that will just show listings that are not available. It will be a really bad experience for the consumer. So, I think that we are at a point in time, and I'm sorry that it's a long answer, but I'm quite passionate about it. I think that we're at a point in time where things might go in the wrong way for consumers and for agents. And Real intentionally decided not to participate in everything that has been going on in the past 3 weeks or 4 weeks and you can rest assured that everybody was chasing us, everybody wanted us to be a part of their camp. We're the fifth largest brokerage in the US right now. Everybody wanted to say that, 'Hey, Real also signed that agreement.' But I think that it would be a mistake on our part to focus on that very narrow tactical thing of coming soon which represent 2% of the market and tie ourselves in a partnership and exclusive relationship with somebody while the more interesting thing that is going on is how can we create a future where if MLSs are no longer the one source of truth and data for listings, how can we be a significant player and how can we create opportunities for our agents because of that size. So hopefully more to come, but we're not ignoring what's going on even though we're silent.
I've noticed in some of the other calls that I've been on that you've hinted at some information or some change coming or some sort of real announcement. Is there anything that you can give us further details or am I reading too much into maybe this conversation?
No, I think you're probably reading too much into it. I can just say that, you know, we are working on the things and if we wanted we can turn on a switch and overnight we will have, you know, coming soon website and a coming soon partnership. It could be with either one of those two or three sides. But I just try and focus on the bigger picture at the moment.
I've heard, I've read a lot of people and I think more influencers and for Click talk about, you know, in 5 years, in 3 years, whatever that there'll be one, two, three, maybe five brokerages left and we're all kind of consolidating right now for a lot of reasons, margins being obviously a big one. We obviously are a rev share company and agent led in terms of attraction, but do you see an opportunity or do you see a possibility of us being somebody that acquires and starts to accumulate brokerages through acquisition?
I'm not sure I support that vision of, you know, two, three, four, five large brokerages and that's it because there will still be room for local brokerages, for boutique brokerages. I think that they will still be a significant part of the market. I do agree that the mid-size players will struggle to survive. And we identified that trend a couple of years ago. By the way, it came from our conversations with brokerage operators, folks that, you know, run brokerages that are 500 agents, 1,000 agents, sometimes above that, that clearly said that strategically they don't see a future for their business in the next 10 years. So yes, we are looking at opportunities. I don't think that rolling up, you know, slowly rolling up 200 agents, 500 agents as an acquisition strategy makes sense for us. We are looking at bigger things. And by the way, a little bit behind the scenes, everybody's talking to everybody. So even the most unreasonable combinations are also being discussed. Just, you know, floating ideas. But I think that what we have, which is different from everybody else, we have the growth and the technology. And that translates into better valuation. So let's say we acquired or merged with a company that had no growth, all of a sudden that name had growth in it because Real brought the name. But more importantly, due to reason, we can process transactions very efficiently at a very low cost. And if you're a brokerage that processes a lot of transactions, and you need to become more efficient, and you want to improve your profit margins, then embedding our technology is probably the right way. So what I'm trying to say is that we are in a really good position right now. And we're cautiously looking at our options and calculating our steps.
Awesome. Thank you. We've talked a lot about the brokerage as a whole macro. Let's talk a little bit about Real in Canada. So, Canadian agents don't obviously for a multitude of reasons, mostly because of our financial laws, have some of the compelling revenue tools. It's a question I get asked quite a bit. The debit card, mortgage, title, these are three kind of things that we talked a lot about and it's a big focus for the brokerage because the margins are so good in the US. Is there any update you can give us on those three in terms of the Canadian market and eventually getting one of those or two or three of those in Canada?
I'll start by saying that I wish there was a way for me to show you my calendar for you to understand how much time I'm actually spending on Canada versus the US because I don't think it's proportionate to the business. Because we do want Canada to grow and succeed and we want you guys to be happy. As you said, there are different rules, different regulations in Canada and things are just more expensive. So, let's talk about the wallet, for example. We launched the lines of credit first in Canada because that was possible for us. The checking accounts and the debit cards or even credit cards, to do that in Canada, and we've talked to probably every possible partnership from the banking side, is just so costly that we need huge volume in order for that to make sense. Or I'll put it differently. If we launched the bank accounts and the debit cards right now or credit cards in Canada right now, we will be losing a lot of money on a monthly basis. So, we need the scale in order to go ahead and launch that. On the mortgage side, I know that Kate is looking for solutions. Obviously, title does not exist over there, so that's not an opportunity. But, I know that Kate is looking for solutions as well. But, if you have other ideas on launching a new product in Canada that we will build just for you, just tell me. I would love to do something just to show you that we're trying. And maybe we should do more communications around, 'Hey, we talked to these companies. Those are their offerings. Those are the cost. Please understand, this is what we're looking at.' And don't get me wrong. We are fine with losing money for a certain period of time to launch a product until it gets going. But, I think that's when we're analyzing some of the things that you mentioned at our current agent base in Canada and the current volume, it would just be losing money no matter what we do. So, we're trying to find ways to make it happen. But that's my sincere answer.
One thing I can suggest now that you're on a call, we've talked about it at both lab in US and Canada lab, is getting our Real Signature involved with CREA and our web forms. Web forms is cross Canada. So, it's one service across Canada. I know it's hard in the US because there's different states and then, you know, and so to put Real Signature in all those is just too much of an endeavor. This isn't because it is just, you know, asking one association. So, it's something that we're talking about in lab with Canada, but it's something that I can bring up to you if there's something that you guys think this would be a great one because it moves the needle not only for people that understand cloud-based brokerages, but if we can say to traditional brokerages, 'Hey, we have our Real Signature web forms and this is how it integrates.' So, all of our forms integrate into Real Signature. That's a very handy attracting tool for the brokerage, I think. And every agent will see it in their web forms. So, it's something we can talk about offline about, but that would be a great thing to have involved.
Noted. Noted, by the way. But, you know, this doesn't go into revenue generating opportunities for you. It just goes to the level of service or, you know...
Yeah. Let's do the conversation. It's an attracting tool, I think, more than anything else because that would make everybody's business very streamlined through web forms. Okay, so sticking on Canada here, obviously we're a relatively small footprint. Saskatchewan is the latest expansion. We have the Maritimes on the horizon. Obviously I sit on both Canadian leadership and US leadership boards, and I see structural differences between the two countries on how we operate. One of the major hot things that you've done lately is hired Dusty Oglevee and Jason Cassidy to step into meaningful executive roles from agents to executives at Real. As Canada matures, do you see a path to Canadian agents stepping into executive or managerial roles at the company to further build Real in Canada?
I don't think that where the person resides is what drives us in hiring. I live in Israel. I'm Israeli. So, we're not necessarily looking for people who live in the US when we're looking for talent. I think that it's just based on talent. And I can tell you that I was interviewing someone who lives in Canada for the president role, and it didn't really matter that he's Canadian. It's just we're looking for talent, and it doesn't matter where the talent resides. So, to your question, of course, if we find that person we would love to hire them.
As you brought it up, I thought I'd kind of now shift gears a little bit. How are you looking at leadership right now in Real? Obviously, Sharran left some pretty big shoes to fill. Are these appointments that you're doing with the agents? Is that to fill that role? Are you still looking at a president role eventually?
Well, Sharran is a unicorn, and he cannot be replaced. And he has great talents. And as you said, those are big shoes to fill. At the same time, we also have to acknowledge that Sharran was a part of our journey for 2 years and 3 months, and the company's been around for 12 years. So, we need to put things in perspective. I think that we have an amazing leadership team, and we're trying to strengthen it all the time. So, yes, we added Jason, we added Dusty. We added Ken to the board as well. I've been looking for someone who could be a president of Real for a long time now since Sharran, you know, decided that he's transitioning to the board. It's tricky because you have to find someone who is a consensus, somebody who's extremely talented, somebody who's well-known, somebody who can pour into agents, somebody who's available and not constrained by previous non-competes, which in most cases they are, and somebody who has our DNA. Somebody who wants to work hard and has a kind heart. And those individuals are extremely rare. And sometimes when you find them, there are some other hurdles. I can tell you that we're willing to go a long way to bring in a talent or that type of talent, but the ones that we identified, we're not in a position to come over. So I'm still hopeful. At the same time, I also am very confident in our ability to deliver, regardless of, you know, if we do or do not have a president. We have a very strong team, a very strong leadership team, and we're trying to continuously strengthen it. But having a president would be a nice thing.
And we've seen growth, you know, regardless. I think the momentum from, you know, since Sharran's been gone a year now, I believe, or pretty close to a year, or I guess it's June of last year. So, he announced around this time, but in June of last year, he left. We think the momentum of attraction has continued to the brokerage to this date, seeing how we've still almost every month announcing another thousand or so members, so yeah, great to see.
So, I'll just give you some perspective. In 2023, we added about 5,000 agents. In 24, we added 10,000. And I'm talking net, net of churn. So 10,000 in 2024, 7,700 in 2025. And I think that this year we'll do anything between 5,000 to 10,000. And we also have to remember that in 2025, there was a lot of churn in the industry. So, 7,700 in 2025 is not 7,700 in 2024. So yes, there's momentum. And it's thanks to all of you and your hard work and the fact that, you know, you are out there and pitching the story to others and the fact that we have a great platform and a great offering that we're confident in. But we need to continuously, you know, push. And growth doesn't just happen. We need to keep pouring more gas on the fire, but I just think that the fact that we continued to grow in those very challenging years when everybody else was losing agents or just flat in terms of agent count, that's a testament to the community of agents that we have here and the value of the platform itself.
So, let's pivot a little bit to the stock. We have a group chat of about 300, 400 agents and when the stock goes way up, we talk about it. When the stock goes down, we talk about it. We have other people with questions about the stock. So, Real in 2025 hit $2 billion of revenue. That's a 56% year-over-year increase. At what point does the story shift from like we're scaling to we've arrived and then what does arriving look like to you? What does the, you know, is it financial? Is it agent count? Is it tech? Frame that for us and how you think about arriving and, you know, being there?
The funny thing that investors change their interest based on, you know, the period. So, sometimes they're interested in growth, sometimes they're interested in profitability, sometimes they're interested in gross margins. I'll say something general about the stock. And I spend probably 30, 40% of my time talking to investors and analysts. So, you know, working for the stock. What changed between 6 months ago and now is only the sentiment in the market. It's still the same company, the same trajectory, the same offering, everything is the same or even better. What changed is the sentiment in the market. And now there's a strong negative sentiment towards real estate, towards software companies. We are in the middle of all this. And sentiments can change in the other direction. And it can change very quickly. And it will. That's the nature of markets. So, just remember that because even for me sometimes it's difficult to go to sleep at night and feel relaxed about, you know, we've got this. I think that we have not arrived. We are far from arriving. There's a long way in terms of growth. There's a long way in terms of working on our growth margins and adding ancillary services that can, you know, change the pattern of profitability. But as you started by mentioning that we grew revenue by 56% in 2025, which is by far the most impressive growth that any of our peers demonstrated, we also in terms of profitability, we went from a loss of $28 million, a net loss, in 2024 to a net loss of $8 million in 2025. So, we not only grew, but we improved profitability dramatically. And by the way, there's a difference between adjusted EBITDA and net profitability. I won't get into that. But in the most difficult year in the past three decades to do such a great job on profitability and on growth, this is something that in a normal market everybody will be cheering us for that. And the stock would skyrocket. But those are not normal times. And I think that what we can do right now is focus on what we can control, on the execution, put our heads down, continue to execute, continue to grow, continue to try and work on our margins, continue to work on the profitability, continue to be more efficient, and then the stock one day will reward us. It can be in a month but it's going to happen.
Yeah, I look at this time as a positive in a way because I'm thinking, well, I'm buying now stock because of the macro environment at a $2 price point versus if things were let's just say even normal, we may be looking at a 5-6. So, you know, it's always the old adage, buy low, sell high. It's so simple to do, but when the stock's fluctuating, you know, there's obviously, you know, trepidation or concern. So, and one thing I found you said that was really interesting, it was on the Q4 earnings call. You talked about profitability is largely a strategic choice for Real. Can you give these agent/shareholders some context on that?
Sure. I'll mention two big things. We have One Real Mortgage and One Real Title. Those two businesses lost a little over $6 million in 2025. So, our net loss was $8 million. Almost 100% attributed to our ancillary services. In addition to that, our R&D budget, our tech development budget is around $20 million, a bit above that because we invest in technology. We can decide not to invest in technology, just maintain what we have here, invest $4-5 million a year, and all of a sudden you have an additional $15 million in your budget. So, if you take the ancillary services and the R&D, we could have been profitable. It has been a choice. It has been our choice to invest in those services that we believe will be massively profitable in the future and invest in technology that we believe will be very valuable for our agents in the future. But, at this point, profitability is a choice.
Before we move on, Connor Kelly, you have a question about the stock.
Yeah, can you guys hear me?
So, if I look at EXP's stock, their stock is down basically since inception. So, anyone who's ever owned the stock almost at any point in its time is now down at a time when agent count has basically 40X. And I think that's because they dilute their stock with stock reward programs.
And the icon reward and everything, right? And we do the same thing here. So, I guess my question is there will be a day where maybe Real isn't growing as fast anymore on the agent count side. Are we going to be able to grow enough with our ancillary services and the banking side to basically, I guess, create enough demand for the stock even though we're diluting it to continue pushing up the stock price? And secondly, this might be a difficult question to answer, but like EXP, basically what they're doing now is they're doing share buybacks because their agent count is declining. And is that like, does that not kind of turn into a Ponzi scheme at some point? Like, can that not blow up if you don't actually increase your revenue because you're just, if they can't be profitable enough to actually buy back the shares and they have to stop buying them back, then you just have more supply of those shares growing every quarter. So, I guess the first question is, can we create enough demand for the stock with our ancillary services? The second question is, what happens to EXP stock if they can't find another way to increase revenue outside of this growing agent count?
A lot of companies are now buying back their stocks because they believe it's priced very well and those companies have cash. So, the best investment that a confident company can do is buying back their stocks. So, I don't think it has anything to do with the Ponzi scheme. It just has to do with, you know, just them managing their balance sheet and equity. And I think that it's a good decision. By the way, we are also buying back stocks, our own stocks. I don't think that there's a correlation between lack of growth to buying back stocks. I think that, you know, they're trying to deliver value to shareholders and obviously if you're buying back stocks, you're decreasing the number of outstanding shares and every share that remains is just becoming more valuable. But that's kind of something that a lot of companies are doing and there's nothing wrong about that. When it comes to Real, I think I just forgot the first question. I'll try to...
Ancillary services, will they create enough of a margin of... yeah.
