- 4 days ago
On this episode of the RealTrending podcast, Tamir Poleg, CEO of The Real Brokerage, sits down with Tracey Velt to unpack why Real’s acquisition of REMAX is less about market share and more about combining scale, brand power and technology under one umbrella. Poleg explains that Real saw an opportunity to bring its AI-driven platform and growth mindset to a legacy franchise brand that still carries enormous recognition with consumers and agents alike.
The conversation digs into the cultural alignment between Real and REMAX, the growing debate around private listings and listing fragmentation, and why Poleg believes the industry may be nearing a “point of no return” when it comes to listing data fragmentation. While many brokerages are loudly taking sides, Real has intentionally stayed quiet, choosing instead to focus on what its agents and consumers actually want.
Poleg also lays out his vision for AI in real estate — not as a replacement for agents, but as a productivity engine that creates “super agents.” He describes a future where specialized AI assistants handle contracts, marketing and administrative work behind the scenes, allowing agents to focus on the human side of the transaction.
Throughout the episode, he emphasizes that the future of real estate belongs to companies that can remove friction, improve transparency and create a smoother consumer experience without losing the trusted advisor relationship at the center of the business.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Real says the REMAX acquisition is about combining complementary strengths: brand recognition, scale, growth and technology.
Poleg believes REMAX’s slowdown was tied partly to a tech and value proposition gap that Real can help solve.
Real plans to keep both brands culturally distinct while sharing technology, education and referral opportunities.
The company intentionally stayed quiet during the private listings debate because most of its agents said clients weren’t asking about it.
Poleg warned the industry may be approaching irreversible MLS and listing fragmentation.
He believes fragmented listing access could ultimately hurt consumers by making housing data less accurate and harder to find.
Real sees AI as a friction-reduction tool, not a replacement for agents.
Poleg described a future where agents use multiple specialized AI assistants for contracts, marketing and transaction management.
Real’s approach is to weave AI naturally into workflows rather than forcing agents to learn entirely new systems.
Poleg says the industry’s biggest challenge isn’t technology — it’s delivering a simpler, faster and more transparent homebuying experience.
Related to this episode:
Tamir Poleg's LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamir-poleg-1b303429/
The Real Brokerage, Inc.
https://onereal.com/
REMAX
https://www.remax.com/usa/en
The conversation digs into the cultural alignment between Real and REMAX, the growing debate around private listings and listing fragmentation, and why Poleg believes the industry may be nearing a “point of no return” when it comes to listing data fragmentation. While many brokerages are loudly taking sides, Real has intentionally stayed quiet, choosing instead to focus on what its agents and consumers actually want.
Poleg also lays out his vision for AI in real estate — not as a replacement for agents, but as a productivity engine that creates “super agents.” He describes a future where specialized AI assistants handle contracts, marketing and administrative work behind the scenes, allowing agents to focus on the human side of the transaction.
Throughout the episode, he emphasizes that the future of real estate belongs to companies that can remove friction, improve transparency and create a smoother consumer experience without losing the trusted advisor relationship at the center of the business.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Real says the REMAX acquisition is about combining complementary strengths: brand recognition, scale, growth and technology.
Poleg believes REMAX’s slowdown was tied partly to a tech and value proposition gap that Real can help solve.
Real plans to keep both brands culturally distinct while sharing technology, education and referral opportunities.
The company intentionally stayed quiet during the private listings debate because most of its agents said clients weren’t asking about it.
Poleg warned the industry may be approaching irreversible MLS and listing fragmentation.
He believes fragmented listing access could ultimately hurt consumers by making housing data less accurate and harder to find.
Real sees AI as a friction-reduction tool, not a replacement for agents.
Poleg described a future where agents use multiple specialized AI assistants for contracts, marketing and transaction management.
Real’s approach is to weave AI naturally into workflows rather than forcing agents to learn entirely new systems.
Poleg says the industry’s biggest challenge isn’t technology — it’s delivering a simpler, faster and more transparent homebuying experience.
Related to this episode:
Tamir Poleg's LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamir-poleg-1b303429/
The Real Brokerage, Inc.
https://onereal.com/
REMAX
https://www.remax.com/usa/en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:08When the news broke about the acquisition of Remax by Real, I think a lot of people were
00:14surprised that Real was the acquirer. And today I spoke with Tamir Pollack. He's the CEO of the
00:21Real Brokerage. We talked all about the acquisition and we also dug into AI and the listing
00:29fragmentation and what the future might look like for agents and brokerages. So enjoy the podcast.
00:39So Tamir, lots of things happening with Real Brokerage right now. Welcome to Real Trending.
00:45Thank you for having me. Yeah, exciting times.
00:47Yeah, definitely. So I think the acquisition of Remax really took a lot of people by surprise.
00:53They didn't know that Real was in the market to purchase other brokerages. And you're a tech
01:00forward, tech enabled brokerage purchasing a legacy franchise model. So why was this the right move
01:08right now? Well, first of all, I'm happy that we managed to surprise people and hopefully we can
01:13continue and surprise. I think that, I mean, we've known Remax for a long time and it's the most iconic
01:19brand in the real estate industry and everybody knows Remax. And we've started looking at Remax a
01:23few years ago. And I think that at that point, we realized that the two companies are very
01:28complementary. Remax has this iconic brand. They're known everywhere. They have the scale and Real has
01:35the growth and Real has the technology. And when we started to try and analyze why Remax was kind of
01:42slowing down in North America, we realized that it's because of a tech gap. It's because of a value
01:48proposition that needed a little bit of a boost. It's because their franchisees slash brokers are
01:54struggling a little bit with margins. And this is exactly what we thought we could help with.
02:00We built a tech platform that allows brokerages to be very efficient. We have the growth mindset.
02:07We've been enjoying great momentum. And we thought that just bringing that energy and that technology
02:12and the value proposition to the Remax side, we can really turn around that ship and make their
02:18franchisees and agents just more happier and just boost the value proposition. So in terms of why we
02:25did it, it's because we thought that we can generate an outcome of a company that kind of covers both
02:33worlds. If you're an agent that seeks more freedom, flexibility, you're a little bit more tech savvy,
02:39you want to work from anywhere, you can join under the real model. If you're an agent that is looking
02:43for more of a brand name, office location or office present, you want your broker close to you,
02:49you can join other Remax. But now we can offer both models under the same umbrella. In terms of timing,
02:57as I said, we've been looking at Remax for a few years. And sometimes you have to buy an asset
03:02when
03:02or a company when it's for sale. And it was just now when they decided that it's the right time
03:09for
03:09them to engage. So I'm happy we did it. I would have been happier if it was done before, just
03:17because
03:17we could have spent time on building together. But super excited about what we're going to build
03:23moving forward.
03:24Yeah, I can't I can't wait to see, you know, as you move through the process, how how it goes.
03:29And
03:29culturally, you're you're both very different in my mind. So how do you bridge that gap?
03:36Culturally, and plus their franchises, so they don't automatically have to embrace the tech
03:43platform that you have, because they're individually owned. So how do you bridge that gap?
03:49When I first met Eric, Remax CEO, I think it was about a week after he started at Remax. And
03:57I think
03:57that the first thing we talked about is the similarities in the culture, because both companies,
04:03both Real and Remax, focuses on helping agents succeed in real estate. Both companies are focused
04:08on productivity, agent productivity. Both companies are kind in nature. We're trying to disconnect
04:14ourselves from the politics in the industry, we're trying to focus on our businesses. So there are a
04:19lot of similarities. I think that one thing that a lot of people are missing is the fact that we
04:24have
04:24such a deep understanding of their brokers slash slash franchisees businesses, because we run a
04:30brokerage, we large, we run a very large brokerage with 34,000 agents. So we understand what their agents
04:36and franchisees are going through. Even though Remax is a franchise, and real is a brokerage, we
04:42understand what their clients are actually going through. And I think that that helps us a lot with
04:47in terms of culture. As you mentioned, we are going to operate two very different brands, there will be
04:53some overlap, there will be opportunities for agents to enjoy education, which will be combined lead
05:00referrals, which we are going to combine between the two companies technology that will be shared to
05:06some extent. But in essence, Remax stays Remax with their own culture, real stays real. I think that
05:14the cultures are very much aligned. But we were also going to be very mindful of the fact that
05:22they need to continue and operate as two different brands and agent communities.
05:27Yeah. And you mentioned staying out of politics. And I have noticed that you've been very,
05:31very quiet on private listings and this whole debate going on right now. So what are your
05:37thoughts? Not whether you support private listings or not, but what is your focus moving forward,
05:47knowing all of that is happening in the industry right now?
05:51You know, I work for our agents at the end of the day. This is who I serve. This is
05:56who we chose to
05:57wake up every morning and build for. And the first thing we did when this whole private listing,
06:04private exclusive, free marketing started to be a discussion, we just reached out to our agent
06:09population and asked them, is this meaningful to you? Do you want us to do something about it?
06:14And about 95% of our agents on the real side said, you know, our clients are not even asking
06:20us
06:21about this. Like, this is not even a discussion. Out of the remaining 55%, 50% of them, so two
06:29and a half
06:29percent said that their clients are somewhat interested in having a discussion about private
06:34listing. So for us, it was a clear indication that this is pretty much a lot of noise, at least
06:40for our agents, and we shouldn't try and do anything about it.
06:46I do think that there's a status quo in real estate right now. And I think that every time you
06:55try to
06:55change something in a status quo, you have no ability to predict where it will end. And I bought
07:02properties in other countries, so I know what the experience could look like as a consumer. And I'm
07:08somewhat concerned that we will end up in a situation that we didn't want to be in. And that's my
07:13main
07:14concern. I think that by combining Remax and real, and becoming the second largest brokerage, we have
07:21a seat at the table, we're able to move quickly, we have the tech tech development capabilities to move
07:27fast and react. But as of now, I'm not sure that the recent changes are serving anyone meaningfully. And
07:35by saying anyone, I mean, agents and consumers. And those are the groups that I'm that I care about.
07:42And this is why we stayed quiet. We're observing, we're learning. But if and when the time comes to
07:49react, we will. And I think that we're just thinking about all this a little bit differently. And we have
07:56some ideas in mind, some of them are pretty groundbreaking. But we're not pushing the button yet.
08:02Do you feel like we're moving toward more fragmentation in listing access? As far as
08:10consumers finding different inventory, that seems to be happening more frequently now and with several
08:18different companies? Or do you feel like we'll find an even keel somewhere in that?
08:24I think we're getting to the point of no return on this. And, and I think that very soon, and
08:32when I
08:32mean very soon, it could be in a matter of a few months, we'll be at a point where fragmentation
08:37is, is beyond our control. And we cannot get the genie back in the bottle. And, you know, I bought
08:45a
08:46property in France. And in order to find the property, I had to go through so many different websites
08:51with so much false information, or inaccurate or just outdated information. It was just not a great
08:58experience. And I hope that we do not end up this way in the US and Canada. But I think
09:05that in terms
09:05of fragmentation, and everything that's happening with the MLSs and the kind of the large forces that
09:11are pushing in different directions, and namely Compass, I think that it's becoming inevitable to find
09:20ourselves in a situation which could be less in favor of, of consumers ability to find data,
09:27accurate data in a in an easy way. Yeah, well, and AI actually plays a role in that, because I
09:34do feel
09:34like a lot of the data conversations are around, how much are you allowing, you know, do you have the
09:42infrastructure, the AI infrastructure, to maintain accuracy of your own listing datas, or will AI come
09:51in and pull your information and use it in places that maybe you're not approving of. And I know that
10:00you're very tech savvy on that. So I may have this completely wrong, but it's conversations I hear a lot.
10:06So tell me, what are your thoughts on on that? At the end of the day, AI should help create
10:14better
10:14experiences, both for agents and for consumers. So AI is not just, you know, an entity or someone who
10:22operates completely independently. And we should be directing or building AI to to just help with
10:29eliminating friction in real estate transactions or providing more transparency or shortening the
10:35timeframes to either find a property or to close on a property. And that's how we think about AI
10:41generally, we, I think that we're far ahead of everybody else when it comes to AI capabilities,
10:47but we are trying to put AI into work in a way that will eliminate friction, provide more transparency
10:55for our agents, clients, and just shortening the timeframes in a real estate transaction. And,
11:04you know, I would assume that AI will be used in different ways in the industry. I know that
11:10there will be folks from the outside who will be trying to use AI in order to eliminate agents or
11:18eliminate agents to some extent. AI is also a huge buzzword right now.
11:24Yes. And, and, and, and at the end of the day, obviously AI is the future, but you really need
11:31to be mindful of what AI means. And, and I think that as long as AI is easily accessible, it's
11:38working
11:38for you, it does the right things, then it's, it's welcome. At the same time, hopefully AI is not gonna
11:48do anything negative, um, to our industry. We hope not. Um, what do you think are some of the biggest,
11:56um, kind of roadblocks or misconceptions that brokers have about AI and what are some creative
12:05ways that you're actually looking at it and using it? About misconceptions. I think that people
12:11underestimate, um, what it takes to build efficient, uh, and valuable AI tools because everybody can use
12:22AI a lot of, everybody uses, you know, Chad GPT, Claude, Gemini on a very superficial level. I think that
12:30when it gets interesting is when you're thinking about, uh, agentic use of, of AI and just building
12:37agents that are focused on one specific task. So for example, at real right now, we're building
12:42multiple, um, AI agents. Each one of those agents is focused on, on one thing. So for example,
12:49one agent who specializes in drafting contracts, one agent who specializes in social media content.
12:57And at the end of the day, if you bundle all of those AI agents with one point of entry.
13:02So for
13:03example, I would launch an AI assistant that will be able to tell you, Hey, Tracy, everything in your
13:09business could be taken care of by 30 different agents, which are like 30 different employees,
13:15but you only talk to one person and that one person governs those 30 AI agents. I think that that
13:21can,
13:22can provide a lot of value to you. Um, and just building something like this requires so much
13:28understanding and knowledge about AI, about how AI works and also databases that can feed that AI
13:35beast that, that you're building. Um, and a lot of people think that it's really easy to build, but
13:41it's, it's really not, but that's where the future is. The future is us as real estate professionals
13:48employing AI agents as if they were our employees and they become specialized in, in one specific task,
13:56uh, which eventually they will perform better than we perform.
13:59So what do you, is there, do you find that agents are intimidated by this or have you kind of
14:06cracked
14:06the code on making it so simple for them to use that, um, you know, they're not rejecting it outright,
14:14just because it's one more thing that they have to look, look at or learn or find.
14:19Yeah. I think that the key is how do you embed AI in the overall experience that you're providing.
14:24Um, so at real, we, we enjoy a hundred percent adoption of our technology and AI is just weaved
14:30into the, the, both the onboarding process, the support process, all of the processes that we have
14:36with our agents in a way that is not intimidating. That is very natural. That is very helpful. Um,
14:42I think that a lot of agents are intimidated because typically people are intimidated by things that
14:47they don't fully understand. So it's the fear of the unknown or just hearing about AI and not feeling
14:53like you're, um, deploying AI enough or using AI enough. Um, I think that the key as, as a company
15:00who develops technology is how do we, uh, weave that those capabilities in a way that will not change
15:07how agents operate. Um, it, it, it doesn't change, you know, their, their tasks and their processes.
15:14It just improves the, the, the time to get them answers, the quality of the answers, uh, being 24,
15:21seven on. Um, so I think that a year and a half ago, people were much more hesitant about AI,
15:29but now everybody talks to, um, to chat GPT and chat GPT knows you and they understand your personal
15:35life and your professional life. Uh, and I think that, that people are now much more comfortable,
15:40um, generally about AI. And by the way, when we build things, we build things for,
15:47for the future. So obviously we think about our agents, but we also think about what will our
15:53agents need in five and 10 years? What would those folks that are still not, still not, still not
15:59licensed the folks that are now 15, 17, 18 years old, and they're not even in the business. What will
16:06they need when they get into real estate? Uh, and that's how we're kind of framing our, um,
16:13our thoughts around future developments of AI. Yeah, definitely. Um, and so obviously there's a lot
16:20of M and A activity, uh, going on right now and I'm sure there's more to come. Um, but it's,
16:26you know,
16:27I think it's about, it's different things for different people, but I don't think it's all about
16:31market share. I think it's about data distribution, kind of control of the consumer relationship. Um,
16:38what are your thoughts on that through the lens of real? I think that referring to the latest, uh,
16:46large M and A activities, um, in our space, I think that each of those deals were, was done, um,
16:55because of a different motivation. Um, and, and I can refer to why we did this. Uh, we, we joined
17:03forces with Remax because we think that it's a great company that is lacking something. And together
17:09we can build something amazing, uh, because they bring something to the table. We bring something
17:14to the table and together it's, it's just, it becomes a whole. Um, and that's probably different
17:21from what others thought when they did, uh, their, their M and A activities. Um, I do agree
17:28that scale and market share is likely to become more important. And maybe it goes back to your
17:36question about fragmentation of data and the potential dissemination of MLSs or, um, who controls
17:44listing data, which by the way, I think is something that we need to talk about in the industry. Um,
17:50I think that that's kind of a by-product of, of, you know, our decision to go and, uh, and
17:55offer,
17:56uh, to merge with Remax. But, uh, but we just thought that Remax is a, is an amazing company that
18:03needs something and we can deliver that thing and, and take them back on a positive growth trajectory.
18:09So you said you're anticipating kind of even five years down the road. What do you think the
18:14industry will look like? Um, maybe even three years down the road.
18:18Change happens slowly in real estate. I've been in, in real estate for over 20 years. I started real
18:23over 12 years ago. And, um, and the one thing I learned is that, you know, sometimes you think
18:29that something has to happen tomorrow and it takes a decade. Um, so it, I think that in three years,
18:36things will look almost the same. Um, I think that we should identify what's not working well right now,
18:45especially for the consumers. So real estate transactions take a long time. Home buyers
18:52don't have control over everything. They're still relying on, on their, um, lender to give them
18:58their clear to close. When I, when I ask a room full of agents, what do your buyers want? I
19:05get
19:05typically, you know, they want great service. They want me to be knowledgeable. They want, um,
19:10they want a lot of options, um, a lot of things, but at the end of the day, what buyers
19:16want is a home.
19:17And we, as an industry, we don't provide them homes. This is not what we deliver. We deliver
19:22a set of tasks and paperwork that they don't understand and the lengthy process that they're
19:27concerned about. Um, and that has to change because as an industry, we need to deliver homes
19:34while leaving the agents in the center of the transaction and just eliminating all of the
19:38friction that exists. So how can we leverage the agent relationship with that client and create
19:46a tech experience that just takes care of everything and eliminates the friction provides
19:52more visibility, provides them more control, shortens the timeframe. Um, and it's just delightful.
19:59And I think that if we're thinking in terms of 10 years from now and 20 years from now,
20:03this is what the consumers of the future will require. And we, as an industry need to build that
20:08for them. And I think people, you know, kind of assume that if you're very tech forward,
20:15you're not relationship forward, but I always think there's a balance between the two, obviously.
20:20Um, so, so tell me, you know, you had said something about agents worrying about AI taking over, which
20:28personally, I don't think is possible because the human connection, but what are your thoughts on that?
20:33A hundred percent. Um, I think that AI can help agents, uh, with a lot of the tasks that they're
20:40doing. I think that if you're an agent and you're handling, let's say 10, 20, um, potential clients at
20:47once you will be able to cater to a much larger number of, uh, of clients at the same timeframe,
20:54just because you will have AI agents helping you. Um, but people will still need humans to hold
21:03their hands and guide them through that somewhat complicated, highly emotional transaction that
21:08they're going through. And it's a phase, it's a phase in life. Uh, it takes a few months at best.
21:14And, and as humans, we want to be guided by humans because this is who we trust.
21:19So I think that agents are here to stay, but we can turn agents into super agents with the right
21:25technology and the right help. Uh, and that's what we're going to try and do.
21:29Yeah. It's interesting. I don't know if you've seen all of the, like the set,
21:32there are several colleges where the, um, keynote or the commencement speaker spoke about AI and got
21:38booed by, by the, the kids, um, graduating. Um, so it's really interesting how, you know, people view
21:47AI and your view makes a lot of sense, you know, just helping people be more efficient and be more
21:56able to build that relationship personally, because they're not bogged down by the tasks that they might
22:04have to do that, that can be handled otherwise. And, you know, you can make an analogy to,
22:10to the internet. When the internet started, people thought that, you know, a lot of industries will,
22:15will be eliminated. A lot of jobs will be eliminated. But what happened eventually is that
22:19the internet made all of us just more productive. And I think that there will be a jump in productivity
22:26also in the real estate space. Um, and, and that will, will probably be the, the main impact.
22:33I mean, if you look at how often people move to new homes right now, I think that the number
22:38is
22:39every 12 years or so, but what if the transaction was so simple and accessible that people would say,
22:48okay, this is not that bad. I mean, moving to a new home is exciting and it's not a painful
22:53process.
22:54So maybe it's, uh, it's, it makes more sense to move every five years or seven years. We will just
23:00see more transactions happening and, and the agents will be able to, to cater to that because they will
23:07be more productive and they will spend less time per transaction. Um, so I think that by the way,
23:12one of the byproducts of, of AI could be people moving, uh, at a much faster pace or changing homes
23:20much more frequently than, than it is now. Yeah. Um, so any last thoughts on, you know,
23:26anything coming up for real, other than the obvious closing of your transaction?
23:32No, I mean, obviously we're focused on closing the transaction and, uh, and you know, hitting the
23:37ground running. I know that a lot of folks on the Remax side are really looking forward to hearing from
23:43us and understanding the vision for the combined company and, uh, and learning about the technology.
23:47This is what, what we're going to be focused on for the foreseeable future. Um, and obviously we're
23:55keeping an eye on, on the industry and everything that's happening and still trying to be opportunistic
24:00when it comes to any opportunity that will arise in, in the marketplace or in the, in the industry to
24:06maybe, uh, maybe even do something more on the acquisition fund or, um, maybe any kind of
24:15partnership that we can do that makes sense that could improve our agent experience or the consumer
24:20experience. And, uh, it'll be interesting to see how things play out with, you know, everything that
24:25you mentioned at the beginning of the call with private listings and, uh, and MLSs and, and just data
24:30overall. Yeah, absolutely. And I look forward to seeing that breaking news from you. So, um,
24:36thanks so much Tamir for joining the real trending podcast. It's always a pleasure to speak with you.
Comments