The Ten: Amid industry division, brokerages went after scale 

Editor's note: In a year of epic mergers — and industry division — a handful of people and themes have emerged as defining forces. Real Estate News has selected the top newsmakers of 2025, based on their industry impact and influence. They are The Ten.

Facing a brutal market and ongoing legal threats in 2025, brokerages increasingly found strength in numbers.

There was no greater example of this move toward consolidation than the Compass-Anywhere mega-merger, which — if it clears regulatory hurdles — would create the world's largest brokerage. It would also give Compass potentially market-shaping leverage as it continues its push for private listings.

It took a deal of that magnitude to pull focus from Rocket's acquisition of Redfin, which created a powerful rival to an already beleaguered Zillow in the race to create a one-stop shop for homebuyers. 

But a brokerage doesn't have to be massive to embrace consolidation. In a market defined by fewer transactions and higher costs, joining forces can make pain more bearable by spreading risk, creating efficiencies or unlocking more powerful tools. 

Drivers of brokerage consolidation

Slowing sales momentum in recent years has left the country's thousands of brokerages with fewer potential listings, fueling more mergers as firms seek security through scale and shared overhead costs. 

Consolidation can also become self-fulfilling: As growing firms capture more market share, small brokerages find it harder to compete and start looking for lifelines — that could mean merging with a larger company, or for struggling broker-owners, selling their brokerage and retiring from the business. 

But as the market continued to lag in 2025, it wasn't just the minor players pursuing consolidation out of necessity — regional brokerage powerhouses like Washington's Windermere, Chicago's Baird & Warner and Pittsburgh-based Howard Hanna leveraged their already-strong positions as "natural acquirers" to gain market share in their space. 

Indies see opportunity — if it's 'the right fit'

"Cultural fit is actually a real thing," Windermere President OB Jacobi told Real Estate News in October, adding that most successful brokerage acquisitions aren't just about financials: "Making sure there's a strong leadership component to that switchover is critically important." 

Sometimes that shared culture is centered around a desire to retain the sense of being a local, independent brand as companies merge. That was a critical factor in Baird & Warner's June acquisition of Dream Town Realty, according to Laura Ellis, the brokerage's chief strategy officer. "We would have never done this if the values didn't align," Ellis told Real Estate News. 

In announcing the deal, Baird & Warner called the merger a celebration of "agents' preference for a fiercely independent and locally owned brokerage" — marking a contrast, perhaps, with the January acquisition of rival Chicagoland brokerage @properties by Compass, a national, public company. 

Finding the right opportunity can sometimes be an exercise in patience, however. When Howard Hanna acquired NYC-based Elegran Real Estate in October, the move represented "Main Street coming into a Wall Street marketplace," CEO Hoby Hanna told Real Estate News — but the brokerage waited to enter Manhattan until it had found "the right fit," something Elegran offered due to its entrepreneurial mindset, private ownership and full-market coverage, Hanna said.

The leader of another growing brokerage — United Real Estate, which aims to double in size within three years — takes a similar approach. We "identify the true gems in the marketplace and get to know them … really do the due diligence to see if it's a fit," United President Rick Haases told Real Estate News. That process, he added, sometimes takes "five years of persistence and consistency."

The year of mega-mergers and mega-brokerages 

The Rocket-Redfin and Compass-Anywhere deals set a new precedent for what competitors can expect to face as residential real estate continues to evolve — but those acquisitions were more than opportunistic growth plays. They created real estate companies so large, so vertically integrated and so well-capitalized that they can influence how homes are marketed, how agents are recruited and retained, and even how consumers experience the buying and selling process. 

And because the companies are publicly traded, their strategies are not only guided by agents and consumers, but by Wall Street.

Rocket's purchase of Redfin was fairly straightforward. The mortgage giant saw a chance to expand its funnel, scooping up a national brokerage and high-traffic home search site at a steep discount — and the deal quickly started to pay off. Within three weeks of the acquisition, nearly 200,000 Redfin visitors were routed to Rocket after clicking a new "Get Prequalified" button, Rocket CEO Varun Krishna told investors in July.

Residential powerhouse Compass — led by confrontational CEO Robert Reffkin — also has big ambitions. If Compass succeeds in acquiring Anywhere and its stable of national brands, the country's largest brokerage by sales volume stands to boost its agent count from roughly 40,000 to about 340,000 across 120 countries and operate a combined company worth around $10 billion.

But the deal is also about leverage. Compass would control more listings and a much wider distribution engine for its technology and marketing platform — along with Anywhere's title, escrow and other ancillary services, which Compass said could add more than $1 billion in revenue. 

The merger first has to clear some hurdles, however, including possible scrutiny from the DOJ over antitrust concerns or "potentially illegal" market share in some major metros, as well as recent lawsuits filed by Anywhere shareholders challenging disclosure statements in merger documents. 

What consolidation means for consumers and the industry

As brokerages join forces and grow more powerful, questions about competition, transparency and consumer impact have intensified. These concerns aren't theoretical: The commissions lawsuits that reshaped the industry were fueled — at least in part — by the frustration of homebuyers and sellers.

At the same time, consolidation has put added pressure on the National Association of Realtors and MLSs — real estate's foundational institutions. As brokerages gain scale and influence, some leaders have become resistant to NAR policies or willing to defy them altogether. Others have moved ahead with their own initiatives, such as implementing referral fee disclosures after NAR's delegate body failed to approve new transparency rules in November.

Similarly, disputes between powerful brokerages and MLSs have made headlines and landed in the courtroom.

Whether consolidation ultimately strengthens or destabilizes the residential real estate industry is yet to be seen. But what's clear is that in 2025, brokerages seemed less interested in aligning with institutions and more focused on securing their futures through expansion and M&As — a trend that will likely continue to reshape the landscape long after the deals are done.