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Thanks to booming homebuyer demand, skyrocketing home values and record-low mortgage rates, the nation’s top 1,000 teams had a banner 2020, according to RealTrends + Tom Ferry The Thousand and America’s Best Real Estate Professionals list released on Friday.
The Thousand recognizes the top .07 percent real estate agents nationwide, and Ferry’s America’s Best Real Estate Professionals list recognizes the top 1.5 percent real estate agents alongside real estate agents and teams who met the baseline criteria of 50 closed sides or $20 million in volume.
The top-producing teams were able to increase their annual sales volume by a whopping 49.7 percent, which represented a team average of 252.9 transaction sides in 2020. The top 1,000 individual agents performed just as well, with the average The Thousand honoree increasing their closed transaction sides 18.2 percent year over year.
“Calculating the same data for sales volume, we found that the most productive teams by sales volume increased their results from an average of $118,039,226 in 2019 to $173,144,415 in 2020, or an average increase of 46.7 percent in one year,” Real Trends Senior Advisor Steve Murray said of the teams’ data.
Much like T3Sixty’s Mega 1000 list, RealTrends report revealed accelerating consolidation in the industry. Ninety-seven percent of the 8,000 individual agents who qualified for the list and 96 percent of the 1,000 teams who made the list were associated with a well-known national or regional brand.
This trend falls in line with RealTrends 500’s report findings, which noted the nation’s top 500 brokerages grew their market share by 10 percent in 2020 to 38.5 percent — the highest annual growth rate since RealTrends began its reports.
“When we add in data from top agents and teams, it seems apparent that the largest-producing firms and agents are growing far faster than the market as a whole,” the report noted of the connection between the RealTrends 500 and The Thousand. “At least at this time, there does not appear to be any major shift of top agents and teams to own a brokerage firm, but rather they tend to remain affiliated with a regional or national brand.”
Once again, HomesUSA.com founder Ben Caballero topped both individual lists alongside Christian Angle Real Estate founder Christian Angle, Listwithfreedom.com’s Ralph Harvey, and GK Properties founder George Kypreos.
Well-known team leaders Branden and Rayni Williams, The Jills, Chris Cortazzo, and Mark Spain also nabbed the top three spots for their respective lists for small, medium, large and mega teams.
Coldwell Banker, RE/MAX, Compass, Keller Williams and Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices dominated the list with multiple agents and teams nabbing top spots for transaction volume and sides.
“Congratulations to the 92 Compass agents and teams named to this year’s WSJ RealTrends #TheThousand list?” Compass CEO Robert Reffkin tweeted on Friday. “What makes an agent great is not just the number of deals they do, but also the commitment and passion they bring to their community.”
“In a year that was incredibly trying for us all, I am most proud of how all of our agents guided their clients through one of the most significant decisions of their lives while facing many obstacles,” he added. “Congratulations!”
