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Real’s Tamir Polog shares his lessons learned in scaling rapidly

Today’s RealTrending features Tamir Polog, CEO of The Real Brokerage. Poleg founded The Real Brokerage in 2014. It went public in 2020. The brokerage now has 9,000 agents and is growing quickly. Poleg stated that they added 1,000 agents in January 2023. However, rapid growth can also mean that it is difficult to scale company culture and systems to support agents’ needs. Poleg shares his lessons learned, how he rebuilt his technology platform in just eight months, and where he sees brokers having the greatest opportunity to gain market share today’s environment.

Here’s a preview of today’s interview with Tamir. This transcript has been lightly edited to improve clarity and length.

Tracey Velt – Everyone wants to say it’s terrible. It’s not a terrible market, but it’s definitely different from last year. Many brokerages are making changes to reduce operating costs and are continuing to do so. What steps have you taken to reduce operating costs this year? What are your priorities for the year?
Tamir Poleg says: I believe that the market is correcting itself right now. This is a healthy process, according to historical perspective. We identified the market was about to change in March 2022. We went from being in attack mode to making sure our agents knew what was coming. We just wanted to let them know that winter is approaching and that the party is almost over. How can you prepare?
We are very different because we can grow agents north of 100% year after year. Even if the market falls by 30%, you still grow. We are reliant on technology and non-brick and mortar, as you mentioned. We didn’t have high human labor costs or excessive expenses. I believe that we were very conservative with how we managed ourselves. We never raised hundreds of millions of money and spent it on things that don’t move the needle. It pays off in times like these. We probably didn’t enjoy the outrageous valuations of other companies like those that raised hundreds of millions of dollars and spent very little on marketing. We built the business in the way that we felt was best for the company.

RealTrending is a podcast that features the best minds in real-estate. Twice a month, industry leaders, top agents, team leaders and brokerage leaders share their success stories, trends and lessons learned in this ever-changing field. Tracey Velt hosts and Elissa branch produces.