The real estate industry has never lacked for uncertainty. But if there was a prevailing message from a panel of brokerage leaders moderated by Paul Boomsma, president and CEO of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World (LeadingRE), it’s that perspective matters.
For brokerage leaders navigating consolidation, commission pressures and rapid technology changes, that sentiment set the tone. The panel — which included Nick Boyd of Belle Property Australia, Dava Davin of Portside Real Estate Group, Mike Hickman of Seven Gables Real Estate and Jill Butler of RedKey Realty Leaders — centered on how independent brokerages are adapting while maintaining their identities.
Global perspective on productivity
Boyd, who traveled from Australia for the event, offered a reminder that market pressures are hardly unique to the U.S.
“We’ve been around for about 20-plus years now,” Boyd said, noting that Belle Property operates 211 offices with roughly 3,500 people across Australia. The company generates the equivalent of roughly $14 billion in U.S. dollars in annual sales volume.
But the metric Boyd emphasized most was agent productivity.
“The thing that I’m probably most proud of with our network is our agents. [Each] agent, on average, is doing 28 deals a year,” he said. Because Australian agents often handle both sides of the transaction, that translates to roughly 56 sides per agent annually.
Australia’s listing ecosystem also creates a different economic dynamic. Real estate portals can cost agents thousands of dollars per listing.
“If a vendor or a seller wants to put their property on just to have a digital presence on a portal, you’re up to about $10,000,” Boyd said. The solution, he explained, is to embrace seller-paid marketing.
“We’ve gotten really good at this beautiful [thing] called vendor-paid advertising, and we fundamentally drive our market on the seller paying for advertising now,” he said.
For Boyd, adaptability is the defining trait for brokers moving into 2026.
“If you think, ‘Oh, I wish it was how it was,’ you’ll lose,” he said. “If you don’t accept change, it’s going to change without you.”
Culture as ultimate differentiator
While Boyd highlighted operational shifts, Davin focused on something less tangible but equally powerful: culture.
Portside Real Estate Group operates in the coastal areas of Maine and New Hampshire, a region Davin describes as “a beautiful part of the state.”
In an increasingly crowded brokerage landscape, she believes authenticity is the key to standing out.
“It’s such a crowded market out there, and I think that culture is the ultimate differentiator,” Davin said. “Agents and consumers realizing that I’m an actual person, not a holding company … has helped us stay connected in our communities.”
One example she mentioned is an annual initiative called “Coffees on Us,” where the brokerage partners with local coffee shops across Maine.
“We actually have 50 coffee shops participating,” Davin said. “No Starbucks, no Dunkin Donuts. These are independently owned.”
The program gives agents an opportunity to engage their sphere of influence while supporting small businesses — reinforcing the brokerage’s local-first identity.
“It’s like that kind of thing that we just lean into, and that has really helped with our presence and our branding,” she said.
Coaching as competitive advantage
As Seven Gables Real Estate celebrates its 50th anniversary, Hickman said its path to differentiation has come through leadership and coaching.
“Our niche in the market has always been … how do we stand out in the sea of sameness?” he said.
The brokerage invested heavily in performance coaching for agents and managers, he added, with a goal to focus less on tools and more on people.
“If you look at PPP — production per person — we’re actually ranked No. 1 in Orange County, California,” Hickman said.
Technology, including artificial intelligence, plays a role — but not in the way many expect.
“AI is not our strategy at all,” Hickman said. “Our strategy is focus.”
The brokerage uses AI to eliminate administrative interruptions and free managers to focus on recruiting and coaching.
“We’ve actually been able to quantify it now and say that our managers are 24% more effective in their use of time,” he said.
That shift allows leadership teams to spend more time with agents, which reinforces relationships that larger organizations sometimes struggle to maintain, he said.
Opportunity in consolidation
For Butler, the founder of RedKey Realty Leaders in St. Louis, the wave of mergers and acquisitions in the brokerage space has created unexpected opportunities for independent firms.
“I think it’s actually a great time right now,” Butler said. “I feel super lucky and fortunate to be an independent broker.”
As national companies consolidate and expand, she said some agents are reconsidering where they belong.
“We’re getting calls from people who say, ‘I don’t want to be in a huge company,’” Butler said.
In many cases, agents who previously left for larger brokerages are returning.
“Sometimes brokerages were writing big checks, and it sounded really exciting,” she said. “And then later… [the agents] kind of look at things, decide that where they were was a better fit for them.”
Local leadership and direct support often become the deciding factors. “I think having leadership in town, people there to help, that’s what’s really important,” Butler said.
Relationships still drive the business
Despite conversations about artificial intelligence, portals and consolidation, Boyd argued that the core of the real estate business remains unchanged.
“There are three elements … relationships, moments, and the memories of those relationships and moments,” he said.
Strip away the noise of technology, Boyd said, and the fundamentals are still clear.
“It does not matter,” he said. “It comes down to how many relationships you have on a daily basis.”
This insight may be the industry’s most enduring and constant. Even as business models evolve and margins tighten, the firms that win will likely be those that keep their focus on the human side of the business — agents, clients and the communities they serve.