If you want your real estate firm to prosper like never before, you must connect with other great industry leaders. That's why many of our brokerage partners at Delta Media Group® are part of The Realty Alliance (TRA), a network of North America's largest, full-service residential real estate firms.

These partners include Watson Realty Corp., Coldwell Banker Tomlinson, John R. Wood Properties, Chinowth & Cohen REALTORS®, Dickson Realty, Howard Hanna Coach REALTORS®, Baird & Warner, Latter & Blum, Coldwell Banker Howard Perry & Walston, Crye-Leike REALTORS®, BHHS Homesale Realty, and NP Dodge Real Estate. 

Commencing in 1997 with the merger of two mastermind and peer review groups, similar to Delta Media Group, The Realty Alliance was formed to help real estate professionals improve their business operations and increase market share and profitability.

The Realty Alliance provides opportunities to share ideas, intel, and strategies unique to the large-scale business model, benchmark financials, and secure preferred terms with select vendors for its members. They bring real estate agents and executives together through virtual and in-person events.

Craig Cheatham, the President and CEO of The Realty Alliance, says, "The best resources for leaders of very large brokerages are other leaders from huge firms, and The Realty Alliance is the best network for leaders to connect with their peers."

Shelley Tomlinson Johnson, CEO of the Tomlinson Family of Companies, feels that no other group is as valuable for brokerage owners as The Realty Alliance.

"The Realty Alliance is a tremendous organization," she says, "We've been members for over a decade; I want to say close to 15 years now. I belong to other groups of real estate brokerage owners, and if I had to give them all up, I would still hold onto The Realty Alliance with both hands."

Connecting Companies Through Forums

The Realty Alliance utilizes a forum format to facilitate group discussion. During these forums, members are placed in small groups, and the conversation is guided by a trained peer moderator. This format allows more members to actively participate and learn. It also enables competitor firms in the same market to engage in separate forums. 

Johnson (Coldwell Banker Tomlinson) says, "The Realty Alliance gives me the chance to get together with people who are not direct competitors, who know what we're doing, and to learn from them."

Sheryl Chinowth, CEO of Chinowth & Cohen REALTORS®, finds the opportunity to connect and gain insight from some of the country's top real estate brokerages to be extremely valuable for her team at Chinowth & Cohen, saying, "The Realty Alliance has many of the best companies in the country attending the forums, which helps keep us in front of the curve."

These forums can be a safe space to bring up issues and concerns within their firm or the whole real estate market and seek guidance from their industry peers.

Rod Messick, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices (BHHS) Homesale Realty, says, "I think anybody who talks about The Realty Alliance is going to talk about the value they get from their forum, where you come in, share your biggest concerns, your biggest challenge as a leader, how you're working through those. It's like having somewhat of a counseling session and a little bit of an advisory board all rolled into one. And it's really, really helpful."

Many times, when a brokerage is navigating a hurdle, at least one of the other firms in the group has already been through the same or a similar situation, making it the perfect opportunity to find a solution. These solutions are often strategies they wouldn't have considered otherwise.

"We're really able to get out-of-the-box solutions to problems," says Chinowth (Chinowth & Cohen REALTORS®). "There also may be challenges that other brokerages face that we haven't encountered yet, so we're able to get ahead and implement strategies and solutions much quicker."

The participants also feel that rather than being in a competitive environment, like they are accustomed to as real estate industry leaders, The Realty Alliance forums allow for a unique experience where they can be open and honest with one another.

"I didn't expect the level of candor I get from other brokerage operators," says Johnson (Coldwell Banker Tomlinson). "I'm used to mixing and mingling with brokerage operators that function in our markets. As you might imagine, we've got sort of competitive notions that inhibit some of our conversations by necessity. When I go to Realty Alliance meetings, I can look under the hood of other successful brokerages and let them look under our hood as well."

Sharing Solutions With Similar-Sized Firms

TRA is different from other networks within the real estate industry because they don't have quite as strict limitations on who can join, such as limiting the network to a single franchise or ownership group. 

"Other networks limit themselves to one franchise or one ownership group or restrict themselves to independents — and those that include firms from the outside usually have so much diversity in practice that it limits the actionable takeaways due to lack of commonality," mentions Cheatham.

Although they don't have set guidelines for acceptance, they ensure that the firms represented have enough in common that participation is beneficial for all parties involved. That said, the firms represented in The Realty Alliance are all larger, full-service real estate brokerages. 

Members like Messick (BHHS Homesale Realty) and Chinowth (Chinowth & Cohen REALTORS®) see the value in having a network made up of all similar-sized firms with multiple offices. 

"They're focused on large, multi-office firms that are vertically integrated with insurance, mortgage, title, and property management, firms that are most like us around the country," says Messick. "We've had some of those experiences with network-focused mastermind groups for senior leaders, but The Realty Alliance, in the fact that the firms are very much similar in size and scope, makes it a little bit of that on steroids. So it's been positive. We're really happy with the decision to make the investment."

"With The Realty Alliance, we have colleagues who share a unique understanding of running a large firm like Chinowth & Cohen," says Chinowth. "The idea-sharing is much more specific and applicable because we have a great sounding board specific to our needs."

Johnson (Coldwell Banker Tomlinson) sees The Realty Alliance members, which are a blend of large independent and franchise firms, having the commonality that they are all profitable and highly successful in their market.

"We're talking about mostly the largest brokerage operators in the United States, so these are folks who are largely engaged in the same challenge I am," says Johnson. "Second, there are all sorts of backgrounds, all sorts of parts of the country, and different affiliations. So you've got franchisees, independents, all walks of life, but all are profitable and successful, and that's important to me."

Opportunities For Everyone, Not Just CEOs

Additionally, The Realty Alliance offers opportunities for more than just CEOs. It provides agents and executives from various departments, including marketing, IT, accounting, recruitment, training, HR, and more, with a valuable platform to connect. Considering most TRA members have at least one, if not multiple affiliated businesses, they welcome those in property management, title, insurance, and mortgage services as well.

BHHS Homesale Realty certainly enjoys the fact that there are opportunities for all departments to learn and grow, especially since many of the firms within their franchise network don't have nearly as many staff or as many departments, so they aren't able to collaborate or offer solutions.

"We may be the only firm in our network that has a VP of Technology or VP of Marketing, those folks that are departmentally hyper-focused on what's going on in their particular area aren't necessarily in a 250-agent firm that might be in a network CEO sharing group," says Messick. "So having those opportunities to get our team in front of their peers around the country via Zooms, via other email chains, whatever the mechanism is for idea sharing, has certainly been a unique feature, at least in our experience, to being a member of The Realty Alliance and really valuable."

Chinowth (Chinowth & Cohen REALTORS®) feels that being able to offer solutions for staff members from different departments is a unique opportunity Chinowth & Cohen REALTORS® is happy to have with the Realty Alliance.

"Each company is different, so one of our key staff members connecting with their counterpart at another brokerage across the country allows for direct idea-sharing by offering that staff member's unique perspective on something versus a CEO or top leadership," she says. "It's less of a top-down approach."

Johnson mentions that the subgroups that meet periodically — virtually and in person — have been especially valuable for Coldwell Banker Tomlinson's marketing, IT, and finance departments. 

"The Realty Alliance has subgroups that also have in-person and periodic virtual meetings," she says. "The ones that we have found to be particularly valuable have been around marketing and IT, and then also around finance and accounting. Our CFO belongs to the finance and accounting group. He attends those meetings and finds a lot of value in them."

Tackling the Topic of Real Estate Technology

According to Cheatham, much of what TRA members focus on is meeting their clients' needs. One strategy that comes up often when it comes to this is using the most modern technology to give agents and clients the simplest way to connect and improve overall business efficiency. 

"Member firms have kept their focus on meeting the needs of their clients, allowing them to transition from tools of the past that hardly are what we would call 'technology' today to the current landscape where agents and consumers rightfully expect everything to involve tech platforms and near-instant connectivity," he says. "These breakthroughs benefit the public and are welcome methods of improving business efficiency."

Nancy Fennell, the CEO of Dickson Realty, appreciates that The Realty Alliance is always keeping them up to date on industry news and trends, including what's new with real estate technology. 

"The Realty Alliance does an excellent job of keeping our members alerted to news and events that are important to our business and industry," she says. "They publish news articles and create monthly webinars on every aspect of our business, presenting industry experts with new and existing technology tools and services. They are a major resource for our firm."

A Network That Advocates For You

Another function The Realty Alliance takes on is to advocate for its members and those in the industry, including advocating through companies like The National Association of Realtors® (NAR) or the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). It also includes legislation advocacy through Congress or regulatory bodies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

Johnson (Coldwell Banker Tomlinson) says, "We as brokerage owners typically are what I'll call sort of large, small business owners. The volumes look large, but the revenues are much smaller, as we know, and the margins are even thinner than that when talking about net income. We need a voice with our electeds to help them understand that we are at the end of the day, relatively small business owners trying to feed our families like everybody else. The Realty Alliance offers a valuable avenue for that."

Chinowth (Chinowth & Cohen REALTORS®) feels that the network brings brokerages together as one unit for the common goal of helping their agents and their clients. 

"The Realty Alliance makes us a united front as an industry," she says. "We're able to stay up to date with industry knowledge and legislation that impacts our agents and clients."

Ensuring Support in 2024

The Realty Alliance plans to provide its members with resources and strategies to make the most of the improved market in 2024 and the challenges brought on by the new MLS approach to facilitating fee negotiations.

"TRA is looking to equip its members to make the most of the improving market conditions and to support any transitions in industry practices authorities might impose as a response to the current legal challenges to the multiple listing service platform's approach to making professional fee negotiations efficient for all involved," says Cheatham.

Join The Realty Alliance

For the past few years, as a more exclusive network, The Realty Alliance has focused on growth in terms of adding new member firms. However, they have seen a substantial increase in the number of agents. This year, The Realty Alliance is finally looking to expand by bringing in new firms.

"TRA's agent count has more than doubled over the years, while the number of member firms has remained largely unchanged as many companies in the network have merged," says Cheatham. "Our members' market share has also grown despite pundits predicting their demise. The organization is looking to grow in 2024 and 2025 for the first time, expanding the pool of ideas and experience for members to tap into."

With this rare opportunity to join The Realty Alliance this year, you can take your real estate firm to the next level by gaining new ideas and strategies to help you grow and overcome industry obstacles. So many of our Delta Media Group partners have already seen the tangible benefits this unique network provides for their brokerage, and by joining The Realty Alliance, you can, too!

Is your real estate firm interested in applying to or learning more about The Realty Alliance? Reach out to Craig Cheatham at Craig.Cheatham@therealtyalliance.com.