L
eading real‑estate firms are tightening their dominance through a mix of mergers, platform‑driven growth, and agent‑reward programs. The 2026 Swanepoel Trends Report, released November 2025, maps these shifts.

    **Brokerage consolidation** has intensified, highlighted by the 2025 merger of Compass and Anywhere. While the U.S. still hosts roughly 100 000 brokerages, sales are increasingly concentrated in the top ten. Their share of national volume rose from 14.3 % in 2017 to 27.2 % in 2024, showing a clear trend toward concentration.

    **Acquisitions** drive this concentration. The industry’s consolidation roots trace back to the 1990s when firms like Anywhere Real Estate and HomeServices of America began aggressive buy‑outs. Compass, now the largest brokerage by sales volume (2023), leveraged Softbank capital to acquire nine of the country’s 100 largest brokerages by early 2025. Peerage Realty Partners entered the U.S. in 2019, snapping up major Sotheby’s affiliates and joining the top ten by 2023. By 2018, 27 of the 100 largest brokerages had been acquired, largely by the cohort that dominates in 2025.

    **Organic growth** offers an alternative path. Firms such as eXp Realty, The Real Brokerage, Redfin, Side, LPT Realty, and Fathom Realty have scaled rapidly without owning office space. They redirect capital toward agent incentives—revenue sharing, equity, or fee‑based models—technology, marketing, and back‑office services. LPT Realty achieved $10 billion in annual sales within three years of launch; The Real Brokerage reached that milestone in eight years, and eXp Realty in nine.

    These strategies illustrate how the industry is reshaping competition: consolidation through acquisitions and rapid, platform‑driven expansion. The full chapter detailing these trends is available for purchase from T3 Trends. Real Estate News operates independently within T3 Sixty.