New: 🧠 Market Minds Issue #083

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The Rise of the Teamerage

Flexibility Wins the Talent War

LPT Realty’s breakout growth isn’t luck. By customizing compensation models to match where an agent is in their career (flat-fee for rookies, traditional splits for top producers), they’ve aligned incentives like a high-performing startup. Agents don’t churn when they feel seen. And when team leaders win, everyone down the line does too.

The Team Is the New Brokerage

The real movement isn’t agents switching brokerages, it’s teams becoming brokerages. The industry term is “teamerage,” and LPT calls their next phase “Teamerage 2.0”—not teams defecting from brokerages, but brokerages joining teams. This inversion of the traditional hierarchy is real estate’s version of Netflix turning Blockbuster into a delivery mechanism.

The Data Doesn’t Lie

The top mega teams are delivering thousands of sides annually. These aren’t mom-and-pop teams; they’re corporate engines running marketing, admin, tech, and lead-gen like McKinsey scaled down to a local market. Jason Mitchell Group and Mark Spain Real Estate are doing 10,000+ sides a year. If you're still thinking in terms of solo agent vs. team, you're missing the new class divide: teamerage vs. legacy brokerage.

Systems Trump Star Power

A small team in Indiana (just two agents) closed nearly 1,000 sides thanks to a builder partnership and hyper-operational systems. Talent matters less than leverage. Relationships matter, but execution at scale is what gets you in the RealTrends rankings.

AI and Ops Will Eat the Middle

Everyone’s obsessed with AI, but the smart money isn’t waiting for ChatGPT to replace cold calls. The real innovation is in filling operational gaps: AI-enhanced CRMs, transaction coordination, predictive lead scoring. The teams that win aren't building smarter agents, they're just building better machines around them.

Opendoor's Shrinking Bet

The Rebrand: From iBuyer to “Asset-Light” Machine

Opendoor isn’t just shedding employees, it’s trying to shed its identity. The company’s latest layoffs are part of a broader pivot away from capital-heavy iBuying to a leaner “multi-product, multi-channel” strategy. Translation: less house-flipping, more referral revenue and agent partnerships. It’s a departure from the original promise of algorithmic house trading, and an admission that turning real estate into a commodities exchange has limits.

$2.8 Billion Later, Profit Still Elusive

In 18 quarters as a public company, Opendoor has turned a profit in just two. The firm has burned through 76% of its peak cash reserves. Once flush with $2.3 billion, it’s now running on $559 million. The Nasdaq delisting threat (shares closed at $0.60) adds insult to injury. This isn’t a tech downturn; it’s a structural failure to translate scale into margin.

Leadership Shuffle and Shrinking Headcount

Since early 2023, Opendoor has executed multiple waves of layoffs—560 in April 2023, 300 later that year, 65 in early 2024, and now 40 more. The headcount has quietly dropped from nearly 2,000 to just under 1,200. When a company cuts this deep and this often, it’s not right-sizing—it’s surviving.

What’s Really Happening?

Opendoor is abandoning the very model that made it famous. Not because they want to, but because the math no longer works. Home price volatility, thin margins, and rising capital costs turned algorithmic arbitrage into a cash bonfire. The new model? Monetizing agent referrals and other lower-risk, lower-reward revenue streams. In short, they’re trying to turn a Formula 1 car into a Prius.

Inventory’s Rebound Is Real

We’re Not in 2021 Anymore

Inventory is up, and not just marginally. National supply has increased at least 19% year over year across every region—up nearly 41% in the West. This isn’t just a seasonal bump; it’s structural. Sellers who waited on sub-5% mortgage rates have accepted reality. Meanwhile, longer days on market are compounding the supply effect. Translation: more homes are sitting, and that’s adding pressure to rebalance.

Still a Patchwork Market

Don’t mistake national data for a universal recovery. Some regions have seen a near return to pre-pandemic inventory norms (think 2017–2019). Others are still crawling out of the supply hole. If you’re relying on national headlines to gauge opportunity, you’re flying blind. What matters now is hyperlocal variation, and knowing whether your market is leading, lagging, or stuck in neutral.

A Softer Seller’s Market Emerges

We’re not in buyer’s market territory yet, but the seller’s stranglehold is weakening. The 51-day median time on market reflects a real shift from the cutthroat sprints of the past few years. This gives buyers something they haven’t had in a while: leverage. It also reintroduces nuance into pricing strategy. The days of “list it and let the bidding begin” are fewer and further between.

Art Meets Architecture

This Phoenix, AZ home listed for $8.95M has stunning view from EVERY room that are a must see…

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TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read)

Teamerages are overtaking traditional brokerages by aligning compensation with career stages and scaling operations like startups—systems now matter more than star power. Opendoor, once the face of iBuying, is unraveling under the weight of its own model, pivoting to low-risk agent partnerships after burning through billions and slashing staff. Meanwhile, inventory is surging across the country, with some regions nearing pre-pandemic levels as sellers finally adjust to the new rate reality. The seller’s grip is loosening, and in today’s market, execution and local insight—not brand or size—are what separate the winners from the rest.

Have a great weekend - we’ll see you next Saturday.

Cheers 🍻

-Market Minds Team