Hi, thanks for joining us, guys. This is the annual Stephens Investment Conference, coming to you live from Nashville. For all those out in webcast land, we've got the RE/MAX team up here. That's ticker RMAX. We've got CFO Karri Callahan. We got the new CFO, our new CEO here as well. We got Andy, the IR as well. We're excited to hear about this. We're excited to hear about the story. We're going to run through a couple of different things here. We usually have Ward Morrison with Motto with us. He's not here this go-around, but we've introduced Erik. We've got him to the team here now, which is exciting. So we want to definitely hear from him. The way this works here is we run through a quick fireside kind of chat session, and we'll open up to the audience for Q&A here as well.
I've got my email here as well. So anybody out in webcast land who wants to ask me a question or me to pass along a question, I'll be checking my phone as much as I can as well. So feel free to shoot it my way. And that's john.campbell@stephens.com. But with that, we're going to start off kind of with the tradition that we've had here for a while, which is kind of pulling our real estate-related companies and kind of give us a sense for the macro, where people differ. I think we tend to see people on the same page the last two years. The years before that, it's been all over the place. So with that, whoever wants to answer, anybody on the stage for next year, U.S. housing, is it up sharply, up modestly, kind of neutral to flattish, down modestly, or down sharply?
Anybody? John, first off, thanks for having us.
Sure.
Yep. I'm going to let Karri kind of weigh in on, since this is a historical type perspective on this fireside chat, firing the questions on the macro.
Yeah, for sure.
Karri, take it away.
I think that we are cautiously optimistic that we're kind of modestly up.
Yeah, modestly up, and I think that question is going to hinge a lot on 30-year interest rates, so maybe if you could talk about our 30-year mortgage rates, maybe if you talk about a similar timeframe, where you think that goes.
I think, yeah. So I think maybe a couple of weeks ago, had you asked that question, you know, maybe it would have been strongly up, right? Obviously, I think, unfortunately, there's just a little bit more uncertainty right now of what happens to kind of the longer tail of curve and what does that mean for mortgage rates. And so maybe just tempering that a little bit right now. Obviously, kind of a lot more uncertainty right now.
Yeah. Views on U.S. home prices. It's felt like it's kind of defied logic, but it's then against kind of supply and demand. So your latest views on home prices for next year?
Yeah, kind of flattish, just maybe slightly up.
Okay. How are we doing so far?
Good.
All right. Good. We're moving right through these. You know, I feel like when I ask the question about politics, anything politics is always like, and especially now, it's very polarizing. So without putting your feelings aside, just thinking about the impact to U.S. housing, positive, neutral, or negative?
I mean, look at it, I think it's wait and see, actually. I think it's neutral.
Yeah, neutral. Okay. This is a big one. But a year from now, how much, if any, impact do you feel like there are going to be on real estate agent commissions?
First off, I want to let you know that agent commissions are always negotiable.
Yep. Well done.
Look, I think what were the three selections? I think, you know, negligible.
Okay.
Not much of it. Somewhat neutral.
Okay.
Yeah, somewhat neutral.
Last one on kind of normalized market. You know, I think it's anybody's best guess of what is normal, right? What is normalized now? But your view on kind of where you expect U.S. existing home sales to go and how long it takes to kind of get to that normalized market. That's a tough question, by the way.
So we've been debating this a bit. I mean, a normalized market maybe somewhere around five and a half.
Okay.
5.5 .
Okay. Yeah.
That's probably a few years. That's probably a few years out.
I think I've had some folks talk about more 5 million. I think in the past, I mean, especially when we were closer to six, and there were moments where a little bit above six, I think the normalized at that point, people were saying maybe six, right? So it really a lot depends on where you are in the cycle. But we'll keep moving here. Maybe getting into the kind of more on the higher level view of U.S. housing. What do you think outside of rates? And obviously, rates are a big deal. But outside of rates, what are the most influencing factors you see in U.S. housing?
Supply.
Supply. Yeah. How important is GDP? Wage growth, job growth?
I don't think it's playing much of a factor right now. I mean, I think really, I mean, I think there's kind of demand. Yeah, I think rates get to, and you're probably going to ask us later, but you know, it's got a five or a low six. We saw, you know, a couple of months back where there's a little bit of a, you know, rate improvement, and we saw activity, I think, nationwide. And we definitely saw activity, whether it was on the, you know, Motto franchise sales side or just activity in homes. So, you know, every quarter that goes by, obviously, the folks that are locked in, you know, it's mitigated a bit, right? And there's still kind of, you know, there's still life events that are happening.
Yeah.
So I think, you know, new normal on homes is one, new normal on what rates will be. Obviously, there's been a lot of free money for a while. So, yeah, I think that, you know, there'll be a new normal on rates too.
Yeah. I agree with that. We've tried to size up, pin down demand. I think it's really tough to quantify, but it feels like there's a lot.
You can only go so long until life events eventually catch up with you, right? And people can bite the bullet and hang on for a while. If they've got one or two kids, and then when you add the third kid, and it's been a couple of years, like things get tough, right? I think for the Millennials and the transferable wealth, I mean, kind of what's going to happen in the rental industry will be interesting to watch.
Yeah. I saw a stat yesterday. It was actually, there's now 30 to 1 renters to owners or renters to prospective buyers. It's the highest it's been by a long shot. You know, looking at a 10, 15-year time frame, it's just been remarkable to see how much that's changed. All right. So, you know, you mentioned rates and the impact is, you know, being a pretty big driver of U.S. housing. You guys just put out your October, I think, home sales report, and home sales are up like nicely. But I think that's probably a lot of that's due to the rate locks. So like lower rates in September. So maybe talk about the influence of rates as far as what you saw in October.
You want to take that?
Sure. So I think we did see kind of October actually bucking the trends in terms of what we normally see in terms of seasonality between September and October. So that was good to see. Some of that was obviously rate related. I think a lot of it also is just demand related. I mean, even what we've seen from a price appreciation perspective, there's still really strong demand for housing. And as we think about just generational wealth transfer, just what's happening with the Millennials and Gen Z and just moving into those prime home buying years, there's still a lot of pent-up demand, and there's still not enough supply. And so I think seeing some movement from a rate perspective was good. I think it helped us not only from a RE/MAX perspective, but from a Motto perspective as well.
So with respect to our mortgage division, we had the best month that we've had in well over a year in September, as we saw some rate relief there as well.
Yeah. And then I guess just anecdotally, this is probably tough to really suss out through numbers or through hardline facts, but the election uncertainty. I saw Redfin posted that from a year-over-year standpoint, like the uptick in housing activity and housing demand, home tours, all that stuff was up 15% year-over-year in the weekend after the election, which is maybe a little bit of an indication of that, but talk to us about what you've heard out there and to what extent you think pent-up demand is kind of has shelf life here over the next couple of weeks to months.
Look, I mean, I think the election was definitely kind of one factor. You're seeing that from some of our competitors in the space that maybe have better access to data like that. I still think that there is a bit of uncertainty, even though some showings are up based on the way the election went. So I think that's going to take a few quarters to try to shake out.
Yeah. Okay. Let's move to the staying on the kind of industry level. The NAR settlement, NAR proposed, you know, or not proposed, but practice changes in the industry. Very big deal. Lots of changes happening, but you'd mentioned that maybe commission rates don't change that much. I tend to agree with you. But walk through the changes for those who are new to the space. What was proposed, why that came to be, and the main practice changes you're seeing in the market.
Sure. Do you want me to take that? So, you know, I think on the main practice changes, really, there are two that I think are fairly relevant for agents and buyers and sellers. And that is one, commissions can no longer be posted in the MLS, right? So historically, if you were an agent looking at a property, you know, dial up my zip code or your zip code, right, you could see actually the commission rate that the seller was offering in the MLS on the listing that was associated with NAR or not. Now that commission rate is no longer there if there is, if it is a NAR-associated MLS. And I think part of the reason that that probably went away is folks who were concerned about steering, right? And so what did that commission rate do?
So if it was a higher rate, you were more likely maybe to show the home. If it was a lower rate, maybe you'd pass on that, right? So obviously, agents have a fiduciary responsibility. And so that, you know, that comes into helping agents no longer steer buyers or sellers for that matter based on a commission rate. The second is buyer agreements are now required before a property can be shown. So 22 states in 2022 had a version of this prior. But now there needs to be a buyer agreement negotiated with that buyer, which can have a variety of different things in it before actually a showing is put forth. So me as an agent, I need to have my buyer sign and sign an agreement with me what those services may be, what that rate may be. I'm going to pay. It could be fixed.
It could be hourly. It could be a commission. It could be a wide variety of things. Maybe we'll get into that a little bit later. But I have to have that agreement signed before I can show a home. So those two practice changes were significant, as you said, for the industry.
Yeah. Let's just get right into it. I mean, some of the changes you've seen, obviously, you guys are a franchisor. And I think people often miss that, that you guys might be a little bit more common to like a Dunkin' Donuts than you would, or like a hotel brand than you would like at Anywhere Real Estate, which is one of the largest brokerages, right?
Yep.
So you guys don't have as much of insights, but I'm sure you're hearing and talking, and you're probably pulling your crew constantly to figure out what's going on. So just at a high level, give us a flavor of the changes in the market, how you've adapted as an organization, and what you're seeing as far as ripple effects, if there are any.
I think you're right. I mean, we are a franchisor, so we're a little bit of a different bucket than maybe like an eXp, a Compass, obviously a national brokerage, or even Anywhere, as you mentioned. But, you know, one is we prepared for the changes by, you know, I think one of the strengths of our model is being able to provide kind of a two-pronged approach or a hybrid approach to how we educate and train. So one at a franchisor level, obviously, we can deploy training either in person or virtually. In this case, we did a lot of training on the rule changes and the impact and what it could mean. You saw, you know, some of our brokerages, you know, we'd be deploying training nationally, and they'd have watch parties in their local brick and mortar, right?
You know, after that watch party occurs, it's a great time for that broker who is an expert in the local community to have a face-to-face conversation with their agents. So that's what I like to call is a hybrid approach, right? We can provide national assistance, and then the broker can really dive in from a local perspective, whether that's a form, it's a particular rule in a state or a county, etc. But really, that face-to-face mentorship, I think, is a big deal for us. Obviously, you know, we've got some things working in our favor, right? We're full-time professional agents. We're the most productive, twice as productive as any of our nearest competitors. That to me means agents get more at bats. They're better. They're more skilled, better negotiators. They've been in front of customers more.
Our agents are handling the change quite well. Anecdotally, we are hearing that, you know, we're not hearing any horror stories from RE/MAX agents per se, but we are hearing at different events or folks that we pull, you know, hey, the person I'm sitting across the table from needs a little bit more education on what the rule changes meant. And so our agents are actually helping those agents through the process. Now, you can see some of those are coming from independents. Some of those are coming from other brands that maybe didn't do as good of a job training. But, you know, I feel like our RE/MAX agents, because of the productivity, the full-time nature of our agents, they're managing the change quite well.
Yeah. Makes sense. So lots of uncertainty in the space leading up to it. There still is to an extent, but like, I think like leading up to these industry changes, lots of uncertainty. You could go plug in any of these terms, and you would see 100 different podcasts of people having differing opinions and all the industry periodicals and sources were all saying different things. And so like, with that period of like uncertainty, how beneficial is that from a recruiting standpoint? So I guess first start off, talk about kind of how fragmented the industry is, how many different brokerages there are, independent agents versus like franchise and branded agents. But the opportunity to bring those people in-house, they view you guys as a safe haven.
When you talk about independent brokerage conversions, like, is that helping push people to a safe, like a safe haven, like a RE/MAX brand?
There's a lot there, John.
Yeah, there are lots of questions there. That's typical of me. Sorry.
It's all good. So, you know, like RE/MAX in the U.S., 89% market share, right? And so I think, heck, you probably would know it better than I would, but Anywhere with their basket of brands, probably somewhere in the 16%-18% range, right? And we'd be kind of like third on that list behind Keller. So from a fragmentation perspective, it's unlike Canada where we're going to come in somewhere around the 29% market share. There's a lot of brokers and opportunities. I think half are about independent now, right? So there's a lot of agents out there. There's a lot of brokerages out there, brands, independents, etc. Right now, you had mentioned kind of uncertainty coming up to the rule changes in August. And I agree with that. There's a lot of noise in the system.
I think today there's still a lot of noise in the system. And what I mean by that is there are a lot of brokers or agents trying new ways to represent a buyer. That may mean, hey, what is my value proposition for this particular buyer? Am I going to charge you hourly? Am I going to charge you for gas money? Am I going to charge you a fixed fee? Am I going to negotiate a commission? So I think that, you know, as it relates to like, hey, when do we think things settling down? I think I've said it a couple of times. Like I'd be thinking more a little bit about one is long sale cycle, a lot of noise still in the system.
You know, probably you get your first read starting at the end of Q1 and maybe, you know, Q2, Q3, you start to kind of normalize from what those best practices will be. If that makes sense.
Yeah, for sure. So very fragmented space. These industry changes may be the positive ripple effect is that it draws more to a safe haven.
Well, I mean, look, for us, I mean, I think because of our professionalism, our productivity, the strength of our brand and the awareness, and that we stand for trust, I mean, I do think, you know, we have an opportunity to capitalize on, you know, brokers that, you know, don't have all the toolset and the process and the education, and so they'll come to us. Our CM&A pipeline is decent right now, and so we're trying to take advantage of that. Yeah, and I do think, you know, agents can, you know, find a safe haven, although, you know, we're going to be picky, right? We want productive, trusted, professional agents, right? So we're not going to take all comers necessarily.
And I think the other thing that I would add too is I think all of these changes really also provide an opportunity to kind of cleanse lower performers and cleanse part-timers just out of the industry in general. And I think given our structure and our competitive advantages, we just have an outsized opportunity to do really well in that kind of environment. We really have seen that already happen in Canada. And so I think that's another, you know, opportunity for us as well.
Yeah. I'm with you there. I mean, you've got 1.4 milion, 1.5 million realtors, and you've got less than 4 million home sales now, you know, a little over a million listings. It's just, it's oversaturated, you know? So taking the part-timers, taking one or two transactions away from a broad swath of the industry and adding that to a RE/MAX model is not a bad thing for you guys, for sure. One more on the industry front. Clear Cooperation Policy has been like a very hotly debated topic now. You've got divided sides that are taking very public campaigns at this point. You guys talked about this a little bit on the earnings call. So first talk to about, explain what Clear Cooperation Policy is and then where your stance is on that.
Very high level. I think put in place somewhere in the 2019 timeframe. If you, when you publicly list your property, you have to also place it in the MLS within one day, right? And so what does that mean? That means obviously, you know, transparency, wide distribution for your listing, which we agree with, by the way. Like we're going to side with the consumer here that we think the broadest distribution for your property, for your listing is in the best interest of the consumer and in the best interest of the market today.
Makes sense. In the world that it goes away, what might that potentially mean for the RE/MAX model? Again, with the backdrop of you not wanting that happen, but if it does, what might that look like?
Well, look, what we're going to try to do is right for the consumer because I think that's the best long-term play here. However, with 89% market share and doing business in every state and having, you know, 3,200 brokers in the U.S., we have the ability to take advantage of a situation where Clear Cooperation isn't present, right? So whether that is private listings or, you know, holding inventory, whatever it is, right? I mean, you know, we have a large referral network. So although it would probably be an advantage for us, we're still going to side with the consumer. So we ultimately think that that will win and getting consumers best distribution, best price on their own, I think leads to a better experience and better referrals. And it's just better for our network.
Yeah. Makes sense. We're going to make our way into their model here eventually. But just staying high level, I just want to touch two items because I think these are really important for your story. But U.S. agent count growth, do you feel like you're at least heading back towards a path to better growth there? And then secondly, is that, do you frame that up as a matter of quarters, years, you know, a year, years, decade? Like broadly speaking, when do you feel like you can get that back to a path of growth?
Yeah, great question. So, you know, obviously U.S. agent count been on a bit of a decline, 5%-6% over the last few years. We've been working hard over the last year to understand kind of what that looks like. So is it a retention problem? Is it an acquisition problem? Why are folks leaving? Where are they going? What tools, services, products, etc. do they want? And I think that we've made a lot of progress over the past year, although, you know, it's not necessarily showing up in the outcome yet, but some of the initiatives that we have in place, you know, whether it's tools, services, I think can help our value proposition as it relates to acquiring agents, right?
So today, you know, retention is not, you know, you can always do better from a retention perspective, but that's not where the biggest hole is, right? We are losing agents. We lose agents generally, you know, low producers, low tenure.
Like everybody does, right?
Everyone does. You know, I think, you know, we all wish that we could do a better job on onboarding agents and make them more successful and things of that nature. But really, it's more of an acquisition problem. And so some of that will shake out to, you know, I think how many agents are in the market, but more or less it'll be, you know, why are we better than, you know, another brand, whether that's an independent or whether that's, you know, a big network or a big brokerage? And what tools and services are we providing to one, make it easy for them to do business, not only with us, but with their broker and also with the consumer, right? So being very simple to do business with and providing them, you know, tools and services that can be a modern toolset.
That's part of our initiative with IRE and BoldTrail and services like Lead Concierge to make it easier for them to do business and more profitable. So look, we've got a number of initiatives, some of them we've talked about to help us, you know, reposition our value prop with brokers and agents. And I think, you know, look at, I would hope that we'll be able to stabilize that somewhere in the back half of next year.
Okay. Interesting. As you've gone through and really dissected, right, on both sides, the gross adds, the recruiting as you mentioned, and the retention side, are they wanting the same thing? Is that different? Like what has been the big aha moment where you say, hey, this is the one thing that most people want, or is it just a scattering of multiple different things?
It's really a scattering, and you think about the wide, you know, there's obviously you can use averages to think about kind of like average age, average tenure of an agent, but averages generally get you in trouble, and so look at, I think we have to figure out how to attract new agents into the business and make them successful. We're not going to run away from what I think makes our brand great, which is being professional full time, being trusted, and being productive, and so we've got some plans in place to figure out how to, you know, acquire new agents and help them, whether that's from an experience perspective or brand new, but, you know, some of the things that we've talked about, whether it's Lead Concierge or the BoldTrail initiative, I think do that, right?
I think we have to show up where agents and consumers want to transact. As the population gets younger, you know, you've got some kids. I don't know if they're on their mobile device yet. Mine certainly are a little bit older, but.
They can maintain their childhood.
You know, I think that there is, you know, there's a shift, right? And so we've got to show up for, you know, those Millennials and Gen Xers.
Yeah. That's a great point. I'm just curious, like, what is, if you have any examples you're willing to share, but it sounds like some of the initiatives you rolled out are in direct response to some of your findings, right? What are the one or two things that you've established to say, hey, people want this, but we're refusing to budge. We're not going to go down that path. What are those one or two things, if you can share that?
You know, I don't think on the initiatives that we've been talking about, we haven't seen that.
Equity compensation maybe is one of them, maybe.
We haven't rolled that out though.
Yeah.
Well, no, I mean, you mean you're, I mean, downline.
Is that a potential?
You know, look at when I talk to our agents or when I talk to agents. I mean, there's a very low penetration rate there, right? So I think it's a shiny object. I do think we're in an industry where folks do like to chase technology and like to chase shiny objects, right? And it makes sense, right? I mean, look at, I mean, it's a wonderful market because you've got entrepreneurs at every level, right? Agents are their own entrepreneurs. Brokers are their own entrepreneurs. We come from a very entrepreneurial background. And so I think you have to focus on what's really going to make a difference and try not to chase shiny objects, right? That's hard.
I mean, when you think about the average brokerage, you know, 12, 15 pieces of tech in-house, changing three of those over every year, that's, I mean, it's a lot of work for a broker to do. Yeah, when generally, you know, they're great sales and marketing people and not great operators or technicians.
Yeah. A lot of balancing act for sure. So we're a little past the midway mark. I've had my back turned to Andy the entire time. I'm sorry. I don't know if there's any other way to do this, but I want to get you in maybe for one question. Just like, you know, as you spent the last 10 years talking to investors, what do you think, what do you feel like is the most underestimated or most underappreciated angle to the RE/MAX story?
Yeah.
Sorry to put you on the spot.
No, no, that's all right. And Karri may chime in here because she's got more longevity than I do. But, you know, I think the cash generative nature of the business, I mean, the franchise model at scale is, you know, a tremendous amount of every incremental dollar of revenue translates into profit and then into free cash flow. And so, you know, at scale, you know, it's a marvelous business. And so when we think of opportunities ahead, man, if we just get that top line going a little bit, we can really get things moving. And so it's exciting to have Erik here. I think we have a tremendous model, but there were a lot of things we can do with the foundation, the plumbing, etc., that we've gotten after the management team.
And so, you know, the thought of diversifying that top line and kind of tapping into what we think are fairly low risk, high reward opportunities like Lead Concierge, like the, you know, monetization of our digital channels. These are exciting, you know? And so we're running the business better. And it's nice to finally look out on the horizon and not see, you know, just potholes, rain clouds, but maybe a little bit of sunshine. So we got to execute, but we feel like there are many things within our control and get that top line moving again. Boy, that can really boost that profit and then the cash flow. And then you really open up the playbook in terms of what opportunities there are for you to do with that cash.
Yeah. Absolutely. So I asked you the question. That's a great answer. Karri, anything to add to that?
I think the only other thing that I would add to that, and it's really building on that revenue diversification front, is just the size and scale of what the network has to offer. So 145,000 agents globally, 9,000 franchise owners, an 8%-10% market share in the U.S. just in terms of the transactions and almost 30% of the transactions in Canada. And so as we think about just other revenue diversification opportunities, just really, you know, tapping into all of that in addition to, you know, thinking about how we can leverage Motto not only in terms of our franchisee base, but the LOs that are in that network as well as the loan processing platform and the capabilities and the technology there.
Okay. All right. We've touched the industry. We've touched high level for you guys. Giving for investor purposes, who are kind of new, just kind of getting into the model, you guys are very different P&L than your competitors, right? And the competitors in the market, right? Maybe walk through the key differences in those models. And then from like a transactional standpoint, like as housing recovers whenever the heck that might be, you know, sustainable recovery at least, what areas of your P&L should you really look to as the key beneficiaries?
Sure. So I can say that just, John, before I forget, I was so excited about your initial questions. I forgot to appease our legal team in Denver and just refer to the safe harbor language on our website. But from a P&L perspective, I think as Andy alluded to, we are, you know, a 100% franchise business today. And so when we look at our P&L, if you exclude some pass-through revenue that's in our franchise agreements that we have to use to continue to promote the brand and our consumer-facing technology initiatives, about 65% of our revenue is really tied directly to the number of agents that are in our network that pay us either a monthly fee via our franchisees or an annual dues directly to us to be part of the network.
And then about 20%-25%, kind of depending on what's happening with existing home sales, is really tied and variable in nature because it's tied to the commissions that our agents earn on every transaction. So historically, we've been about 50/50 in terms of helping both buyers and sellers. And so as there's, you know, hopefully more tailwind, you know, hopefully we get to more of that, you know, modestly to strongly up next year, you know, we should see a tailwind in that kind of 20%-25% as the model looks today. I think as Andy noted, there's some really exciting opportunities from a revenue perspective.
You know, some of that is going to be kind of filling a decline, you know, as we kind of hopefully get to a point of stabilization in terms of U.S. agent count, you know, but hopefully there's, you know, there's tailwinds and diversification on top of that.
Yeah, for sure. Okay. So I always tell people, like, if you're going to start a RE/MAX revenue model, you got to start off with agent count. Like, and everything kind of goes from there. But all agents are not created equal. And maybe in your eyes, but not in the P&L. But talk to us about the difference in revenue differential between U.S., Canada, international, and why you see differentials there.
Sure. So in the U.S., that's where about, you know, call it 75% or so of our revenue comes from based on our U.S. agents. The majority of our agents in the U.S., we're getting, you know, call it about $2,500 in terms of total revenue per agent. In Canada, in terms of if you look at it on a constant currency basis, it would be about the same. But just given FX fluctuations, it's a little bit less than that. But that's the kind of combined basis actually between the U.S. and Canada. Outside of the U.S. and Canada, very much a medium to long-term growth opportunity for us. It's obviously taken us decades to plant flags in 110 countries and territories. But the revenue per agent contribution is about a tenth outside of the U.S. and Canada of what it is here in North America.
Okay. So you've talked about a lot of new initiatives coming about. You're not necessarily throwing official guidance or goalposts out there, but reaccelerating or stabilizing the U.S. agent count late next year. But you're feeling like you're starting to put the puzzle pieces in place that will potentially make that a reality. How important is like franchise sales to this, right? Because it feels like you can kind of nickel and dime your way up in agent count, or you can potentially add a lot more agents with larger like franchise sales or maybe independent broker conversions where you're taking big land grabs at any one time. So maybe talk about those other areas outside of just one-to-one agent recruiting.
Yeah, I think ultimately I'll be doing my job if I get you off U.S. agent count. However, you know, look, we have to stabilize agent count, and I do think franchise sales can help us grow market share, especially kind of, you know, if you want to just focus on independents for a second when, you know, profitability is an issue and they may be struggling. So we can obviously provide a brand. We can provide tools, tech products, and process to help them not only be more profitable, but also capture market share within their particular area. So it is definitely a focus. But, you know, our other focus really is to, and it has all to do with our initiative with our BoldTrail piece of technology, right? We've had the CRM. We're implementing the back office.
So from contract to close, we'll be able to actually see consumer transactions, right? So when you think about consumer transactions, we have to help monetize those either through agents, through brokers, or directly ourself. And we have about 650,000 of those flowing through, you know, the channels today. We'll, over the period of the next couple of years, get those into our back office. And we'll have upside from a consumer perspective to not only monetize, you know, agents by selling them additional services and brokerages, but also consumers.
Yeah. And so thinking about even outside of agents, like revenue per agent, there's lots of different things like Motto, like the non-RE/MAX side of things can actually drive. But just sticking within RE/MAX, franchise dues, you know, you've done agent dues and continuing franchise fees, like you've had pretty much price hikes almost every, it feels like staggered every other year, something like that. How important is that nearer term? Are you in an environment where that's even really a potential? Do you try to hold off on that? Like, how's your thought process go into that?
Yeah, I wouldn't call our price hikes necessarily every other year. It's been a little bit spottier than that. I do think, look at my background, pay TV, I mean, raising prices every year.
You have to, right?
Providing value. I do think that we have to get kind of back to that. I don't think at four million homes when broker profitability and agent profitability is an issue, you know, so tomorrow is not probably the right time to do it. I think we have to bring more value to both brokers and agents. Ultimately, we have to take cost out of their business, add to our top line, and provide those services at a more effective rate. So if you think about the power of our scale that Karri talked about, the 145,000 agents worldwide, we can use the power of our scale more effectively and efficiently to drive not only better execution for brokers and agents, but also cost savings.
Yeah. Makes sense. I am running out of time here, and I've got a million questions on diversification and Motto. So maybe I'm going to test you guys on this one. If you're an investor new to the story, why has RE/MAX looked to diversify? What have they done thus far, and what's the opportunity long term?
Karri, handle that first, and then I'm going to come on over the top.
Yeah. So I think, you know, as we look holistically across, you know, what we want to accomplish in terms of just really delivering the best experience in real estate, we really want to make sure that we're, you know, making it as easy as possible to do a transaction with us, which is what really led us to the mortgage business, both in terms of providing a better experience, but also diversifying top line and bottom line, not only for us, but really for our franchisees as well, where we know that that's a problem. And so really, I think that that's been an important part. And then making sure that we think, you know, over the long term, you know, how can we expand upon that and how can we continue to move down that path across other aspects of the transaction.
I don't know another place you'd want to be, John, if you were an agent right now. I mean, look at a tremendous brand. It's one of the reasons I joined the company, worldwide presence. I do think, you know, if there's one thing to take away, is we definitely hadn't leaned into our business, and we are working hard to lean into our business. And that means with a focus on improving the customer experience and obviously the agent and the broker experience. So we have to be the simplest place to do business. We're already the most trusted. We've got the most productive agents. We've got professionalism. Those are very important for buyers and sellers when they're trying to think about making kind of this hugely financial and emotional decision. I do think that we will be still an agent-focused, you know, transaction, although tech-enabled.
Now we are leaning into helping our agents and our brokers and ultimately buyers and sellers with tech-enablement to make sure that we show up where they want to be, when they want to be, and to make it easier to do business with us.
Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. So kind of putting a bow on this, I mean, the stock trades now at this point, like broker stocks, right, from an EBITDA multiple standpoint, PE multiple standpoint. At one point in time, you guys carried kind of a double-digit, you know, multiple for, you know, closer to a franchise model. So getting back to revenue growth, super important. Getting back to potentially margin expansion, important. The other side of that, though, was like the dividend, right? That was long kind of a hallmark of the RE/MAX story. You guys ended up having to pull that. I don't think that was even really an option. So talk about what led to that and how important you view the dividend over time.
You want to take that?
Sure. So I think you're right, John. I mean, from a capital allocation perspective, return of capital has always been a really important leg of the stool. I think we made a very prudent and very smart decision in the third quarter of last year to settle some of the ongoing litigation. We were, you know, the second company to do that. And I think we look back, our franchisees look back on that as just a really smart thing to hopefully put behind us. Since then, our priority from a capital allocation perspective has really just been to replenish the cash balance. We do have some debt on the balance sheet, which as a franchisor, we think is appropriate just in terms of, you know, kind of optimizing the balance sheet, but we had to pull that leverage down.
So we need to kind of get below three and a half times and have some cushion there to have ultimate kind of flexibility to do what we want from a capital allocation perspective, and as we look at that, you know, return of capital, you know, whether that's from a repurchase perspective or from a dividend perspective or things that we're going to weigh, obviously, because it's a really interesting time to be looking at RE/MAX right now. A lot of opportunities, you kind of mentioned where we're trading, but we do see a lot of opportunities and a lot of excitement, and so kind of we'll kind of weigh what's happening from that perspective when we can get back to return of capital.
Yeah. So like in this, this is an impossible question. I'm not asking you to do an exact timeline on this, but like if you assume modest earnings growth from here, like what's your pathway to 3.5x ?
Yeah, so I mean, we're sitting at 3.52x right now.
Okay.
So, you know, so I think it's, you know, by the end of next year, you know, we should be in a good position to be able to really make some decisions. The last thing we want to do is kind of be hovering around that and have to go back and forth and want to make sure that we're making good long-term capital allocation decisions. So we've done a good job. It's a huge focus for the rest of this year into next year and, you know, kind of as we get into the back half of next year of the visibility.
Assuming modest growth next year in earnings, you would technically, you're not promising anything, but you have the handcuffs taken off.
Yes.
Okay. Fair way to frame it. Okay. I'll stop there and see if there's any last questions from the audience. There's one in the audience for Andy around the Denver Broncos. Are they serious this year?
Yeah?
Yeah? Promising quarterback.
First-year starter, Bo Nix.
Yeah. Look at it. He looks pretty good.
He looks pretty good.
Looks pretty good like Kevon Williams from Barbarians .
That's true.
That's true. Okay. That's a wrap. Appreciate you guys taking the time.
Thanks for coming.
Thank you.