Real Brokerage Q1 Earnings Call Highlights

Key Points

• Real Brokerage posted strong Q1 growth, with revenue rising 32% year over year to $466 million and adjusted EBITDA increasing 80% to $14.9 million, despite a weak housing market. The company also improved its operating loss and ended the quarter with a record $62.9 million in cash and investments and no debt.
• Agent and ancillary business growth remained a key bright spot, as closed transactions rose 25% to nearly 42,000 and the agent count climbed to more than 33,900 by early May. Real highlighted rapid expansion in Real Wallet, One Real Title, and One Real Mortgage as additional growth drivers.
• The planned RE/MAX acquisition took center stage, with Real citing about $30 million in expected cost synergies and the potential to expand high-margin mortgage and title revenue across the combined network. Management expects the deal to close in the second half of the year, pending approvals and regulatory review.

Real Brokerage NASDAQ: REAX reported sharply higher first-quarter revenue and adjusted EBITDA, while management used much of its earnings call to outline the strategic rationale for its planned acquisition of RE/MAX Holdings, Inc.

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Tamir Poleg said Real generated revenue of $466 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2026, up 32% year over year, despite what he described as one of the softest housing markets in years. The company reported an operating loss of $3.4 million, an improvement of $1.8 million from the prior-year period, and adjusted EBITDA of $14.9 million, up 80%.

Real ended the quarter with $62.9 million in unrestricted cash and investments, which Poleg said was a record for the company. Chief Financial Officer Ravi Jani said Real generated $23.3 million in operating cash flow during the quarter and continued to carry no debt.

Agent Growth Outpaces Weak Housing Market

Poleg said U.S. existing home sales were “essentially flat at trough levels,” while Canadian home sales activity declined in the mid-to-high single digits. Against that backdrop, Real agents closed nearly 42,000 transactions, a 25% increase from the year-earlier quarter.

The company ended the quarter with approximately 33,500 agents, and Poleg said that figure had grown to more than 33,900 as of May 6. He said the company’s ability to grow while improving retention in a difficult market demonstrated the value of Real’s platform for agents.

Jani said consolidated revenue growth was led by Real’s North American brokerage segment. Gross profit increased 24% to $42.2 million, compared with $33.9 million a year earlier. Gross margin was 9.1%, down from 9.6% in the prior-year quarter, which Jani attributed primarily to transaction mix. Approximately 40% of closed transaction sides came from capped agents, up about 200 basis points year over year.

Total operating expenses were $45.6 million, up 17% from $39.1 million a year earlier. As a percentage of revenue, operating expenses improved to 9.8% from 11.1%. Jani said operating expenses included about $300,000 related to the RE/MAX acquisition and that the second quarter is expected to show a more material increase in acquisition-related costs, which the company plans to disclose as non-recurring items.

Ancillary Businesses Continue to Expand

Management highlighted growth across Real’s ancillary businesses, including Real Wallet, One Real Title and One Real Mortgage.

Poleg said Real Wallet revenue more than tripled year over year to $436,000. The platform now has 8,000 active agents, representing 23% of Real’s total agent base and 40% of agents who generate more than $150,000 in annual gross commissions. Weekly debit card spending has exceeded $1 million, deposit balances have grown to more than $25 million, and the company ended the quarter with about $9 million of credit extended to agents in Canada and the U.S.

Poleg also said early data showed a link between Real Wallet adoption and lower agent churn.

One Real Title revenue increased 22% in the quarter, which Poleg called the strongest quarterly growth since the first quarter of last year. The company operates 13 title joint ventures across 19 states and expects to open Colorado in the second quarter, bringing its state footprint to 20.

During the analyst question-and-answer session, Poleg said some title joint ventures are seeing attachment rates of 40% to 50%, with a couple reaching as high as 80%. He said Real is opening the joint ventures first to the most productive teams and agents in each market.

One Real Mortgage revenue increased 20% year over year. Poleg said Kate Gurevich, who joined as CEO of the mortgage business in January, is focused on aligning the loan officer base with Real’s agent footprint and improving the cost structure. The company is migrating to a new loan origination system in the second quarter, which Poleg said will reduce per-file costs.

RE/MAX Deal Takes Center Stage

Real announced last week that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire RE/MAX Holdings in a transaction that implied an enterprise value for RE/MAX of approximately $880 million as of the announcement date.

Poleg said the combination would unite RE/MAX’s brand recognition, global franchise network and high-producing agent base with Real’s technology platform and agent-aligned model. He said Real and RE/MAX would continue to operate as separate brands with distinct value propositions.

“If you are a RE/MAX agent who thrives working in office side by side with your broker owner and your team, that is not changing,” Poleg said. He added that Real agents would also continue to have the same flexibility and benefits under the company’s existing model.

Based on 2025 results, Poleg said RE/MAX generated approximately $94 million of high-margin adjusted EBITDA, mostly from recurring franchise fees. He said the transaction value represented roughly 9 times trailing adjusted EBITDA, or about 7 times after expected synergies.

Management said the combined Real and RE/MAX networks closed more than 700,000 transaction sides in the U.S. in 2025. Poleg said a 1% attachment rate for One Real Mortgage across that addressable transaction base would generate approximately $25 million of high-margin revenue for the combined company after closing. A 1% title attachment rate would generate more than $10 million of revenue, he said.

Real is targeting $30 million of cost synergies from what Poleg described as visible duplicative costs, including two public company cost structures, shared services and vendor contracts. Jani said the company underwrote the transaction based on that $30 million figure, while noting that additional opportunities could emerge after the businesses are combined.

In response to a shareholder question, Jani said Real’s first capital allocation priority after the close would be deleveraging. He said the company expects to reach 2 times net debt to adjusted EBITDA by the end of the second full fiscal year following the close.

Technology Rollout and Integration Plans

Chief Operating Officer Jenna Rozenblat said Real beta launched HeyLeo, its consumer home search portal and AI relationship management platform, to agents in March. The platform has ingested 357 MLSs and is on track to exceed 400 by the end of the second quarter, with full Canadian coverage already live. Rozenblat said HeyLeo covers more than 85% of Real agents’ geographic distribution.

Rozenblat said 450 agents are currently in the beta test, with another 4,500 on the wait list. Early use cases include re-engaging dormant leads and helping agents nurture buyer conversations involving property details, neighborhoods, schools and ownership costs.

Rozenblat has taken on the role of chief integration officer for the combined company. She said Real’s experience building reZEN, deploying Leo AI and automating brokerage workflows would be directly transferable to RE/MAX franchisees.

The company also appointed Jason Cassity as chief growth officer in March. Rozenblat said Cassity will oversee agent acquisition, activation and engagement strategy across markets.

Outlook and Closing Timeline

Jani said Real does not provide formal guidance, but expects second-quarter revenue to improve sequentially in line with normal seasonal housing patterns. He said gross margin is expected to decline through the year as more agents reach their annual commission cap, consistent with the company’s model.

Asked about the gross margin trajectory, Jani said the second-quarter year-over-year decline would likely be similar to the first quarter, while the second half of the year could be more flattish on a year-over-year basis. He said a stronger housing market could support gross profit by increasing the share of transactions from pre-cap agents, and ancillary services could also provide a tailwind because they carry higher margins than brokerage revenue.

Poleg said Real expects to file the necessary documents for the RE/MAX transaction in the coming weeks. The deal requires shareholder approvals from both companies and standard regulatory clearances. Management is targeting a closing in the second half of the year.

Poleg said the company’s three priorities ahead of closing are retaining agents and franchisees, ensuring operational stability on day one and delivering the targeted synergies. He said the goal is for agents and franchisees on both sides to “wake up and find their businesses running exactly as they were the day before” the transaction closes.

About Real Brokerage NASDAQ: REAX

Real Brokerage Inc is a publicly traded, cloud-based residential real estate brokerage headquartered in Toronto, Canada, with operations across the United States and Canada. The company’s platform offers licensed real estate professionals a fully integrated suite of digital tools designed to streamline every phase of the property transaction process, from lead generation to closing.

Through its proprietary technology, Real Brokerage provides agents with transaction management, customer relationship management, digital marketing automation and real-time analytics in a single, user-friendly interface.

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