Today on RealTrending, Tracey interviews Ryan Schneider, the CEO of Anywhere Real Estate. This episode originally aired on our sister show, Power House, but this week we are bringing it to the feeds of our real estate audience.
Tracey and Ryan talk about Anywhere’s refocus on luxury and what they think is going to happen to M&A as the market shifts this year. They also talk about AI’s relationship with operational efficiency and a surprisingly effective place to turn for mentorship — your agents.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Settling litigation early provided a competitive advantage for Anywhere.
Investing in luxury markets has led to significant growth.
M&A opportunities are expected to increase as the market shifts.
Market predictions indicate a potential recovery in home sales over the next year.
Mentorship from agents is important for leadership development.
Proactively embracing change is crucial for success in the industry.
Related to this episode:
For Anywhere, the challenges of 2024 were blessings | HousingWire
https://www.housingwire.com/articles/anywhere-real-estate-earnings-q4-2024-ryan-schneider/
Anywhere
https://anywhere.re/
Enjoy the episode!
The RealTrending podcast features conversations with the brightest minds in real estate. Every Monday, brokerage leaders, top agents, team leaders, and industry experts join us to share their secrets to success, trends, and the lessons they’ve learned. Hosted by Tracey Velt and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.
Tracey and Ryan talk about Anywhere’s refocus on luxury and what they think is going to happen to M&A as the market shifts this year. They also talk about AI’s relationship with operational efficiency and a surprisingly effective place to turn for mentorship — your agents.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Settling litigation early provided a competitive advantage for Anywhere.
Investing in luxury markets has led to significant growth.
M&A opportunities are expected to increase as the market shifts.
Market predictions indicate a potential recovery in home sales over the next year.
Mentorship from agents is important for leadership development.
Proactively embracing change is crucial for success in the industry.
Related to this episode:
For Anywhere, the challenges of 2024 were blessings | HousingWire
https://www.housingwire.com/articles/anywhere-real-estate-earnings-q4-2024-ryan-schneider/
Anywhere
https://anywhere.re/
Enjoy the episode!
The RealTrending podcast features conversations with the brightest minds in real estate. Every Monday, brokerage leaders, top agents, team leaders, and industry experts join us to share their secrets to success, trends, and the lessons they’ve learned. Hosted by Tracey Velt and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Rapid industry shifts and challenges have kept brokerage leaders on their toes over
00:06the last couple of years, and no one knows that better than Ryan Schneider.
00:10He is the CEO of Anywhere Real Estate, and I spoke to him today about how they are strategically
00:16focusing on certain areas of business to continue the growth that Anywhere has seen, especially
00:22in their luxury segment.
00:24We go into AI, strategic growth, technology versus human interaction.
00:31We go into it all, so enjoy the podcast.
00:34Ryan, thanks so much for joining the podcast.
00:37Well, hey, thank you so much for having me.
00:39I'm really excited to be here.
00:41Yeah, we have a lot to talk about, so I'm just going to jump right into it, and I want
00:45to make sure I get this quote right, because you opened Anywhere's earnings with a quote
00:50that said, people of accomplishment rarely sit back and let things happen to them.
00:55They go out and happen to things, so I wanted to know how this philosophy really informs
01:02your leadership style, especially with so many changes happening in real estate right
01:07now.
01:08Well, you really hit on it with the number of changes happening in real estate, Tracy.
01:12The amount of change out there, whether it's the challenging housing market, whether it's
01:17the industry practice changes, whether it's some of the M&A that we're seeing more of,
01:21there's a lot of change out there.
01:23And so you really have to be proactive from a leadership standpoint if you want to do
01:28a great job taking care of your agents, your franchisees, and your consumers.
01:32You can't just sit back and let this happen to you.
01:35So we are really trying to be proactive going out there to both be ahead of some of these
01:40changes and set up our customers for success.
01:46And can you give me an example of that?
01:48Maybe something recently where you really felt like the company made things happen.
01:53Sure.
01:54You know, if you step back, the last couple of years have been pretty taken up by a substantial
01:59amount of litigation and then industry change.
02:02And we were incredibly proactive on the litigation, kind of realizing where the world was going,
02:08made the decision to settle our litigation first.
02:12We got the best deal when you look at the numbers.
02:14And then we went full force into making sure we were doing the best job possible, helping
02:19our agents and franchisees navigate the industry changes.
02:23And we got a huge amount of success we saw on that dimension.
02:26We heard a lot from our agents and franchisees that they got a competitive edge from how
02:31prepared they were to navigate this new world that we've been living in for about six months
02:36now.
02:37And so, you know, you got to be on your front foot on these changes, whether it's those
02:41that happened recently or those that are ahead of us.
02:44Yeah, I remember when that came out that you settled and everybody was like, what?
02:50So early.
02:52So I really do feel like it gave you a competitive advantage in the market.
02:57And so how did you kind of rally the organization toward that end and also inform your franchisees
03:05and the agents and downward from there?
03:08Well, it was a great message for agents and franchisees because all of them were protected
03:12by the settlement that we did.
03:14And many of them, because they're quite large, would have been subject to some pretty meaningful
03:19financial hits when NAR finally did their settlement with the plaintiffs a year plus
03:25later.
03:26And so we were really excited by being able to have that positive message for folks.
03:32And it let us really push them to pivot from, hey, don't worry about litigation.
03:37Let's worry about growing our market share.
03:38Let's worry about taking good care of our customers.
03:41Let's worry about innovation.
03:43And so being able to spend our time on those topics instead of on legal things or other
03:49things like that was a real advantage for us and really made it easy to rally the whole
03:54ecosystem to move forward.
03:56Yeah.
03:57And when you talk about expanding your market, I know you recently announced that you had
04:02a 12 percent unit growth in Q4 of your luxury segment.
04:08Can you focus a little bit on the strengths of the luxury market or expanding franchises
04:13to kind of offset industry headwinds?
04:16Yeah.
04:17So if you think about our strategic strengths and our focus, our luxury business is really
04:22right at the top.
04:24We invest disproportionately in luxury.
04:28We love our luxury businesses that cut across brands like Sotheby's International Realty,
04:34Corcoran, and Coldwell Banker Global Luxury in particular.
04:38And so the fact that we've been able to outperform the market substantially throughout 2024 was
04:45an awesome thing to be able to share with the world and to be able to share that.
04:50We sell more million-dollar-plus homes than anyone, $2 million-plus, $5 million, $10 million,
04:54$50 million, $100 million-plus homes.
04:56I even gave the staff that we sold 1,000, 10 million and up homes last year, and we
05:02have 1,000, 10 million and up homes in our listing portfolio right now.
05:07We just really like that business.
05:08We think it's incredibly strong.
05:10We love the agents and franchisees in it, and so we invest disproportionately in it.
05:16And so when you can find something like that where you can drive meaningful above-market
05:20growth, it's totally worth pushing on, and we've got some great assets there.
05:26So just a big focus for us.
05:28Yeah.
05:29And so that was a strategic focus.
05:32And I know in years past, you were strategically focused on M&A, and obviously a lot of people
05:38dropped out of the big M&A in the past several years and really focused on more local acquisitions
05:46or mergers.
05:48Are you looking at that as a possibility for one of your levers of growth moving forward?
05:54Absolutely.
05:55We went through this cycle where I think M&A was less attractive just economically, given
06:00how the math was working five, six, seven years ago.
06:04But as I talked about on my last earnings call, I think M&A is going to be back here.
06:09And I think 25 is going to be a big year for M&A.
06:13We're here to do good deals, so they've got to make sense economically.
06:17We're not going to do deals just to do them.
06:19We're not going to do it just to grow revenue.
06:21We're about the bottom line, but we do think that's going to be more a part of our growth
06:25in the future, because we've gone through a couple of years where there hasn't been
06:29much M&A in a tough market.
06:33Sellers' expectations may have been a bit high during that time.
06:36There was a lot of uncertainty with litigation, but with litigation behind us, the industry
06:41changes mostly behind us, I think the path to M&A is stronger.
06:47And we're hearing more about that, both from our franchisees and on the inbound calls that
06:51I get directly.
06:52So we're excited about it.
06:53Yeah, it's interesting.
06:54I know like Peerage and Karen, they've kind of stopped doing any acquisitions.
07:02But I do know that like we just recently had the one of Keller, I can't remember, Stone
07:07something.
07:08Stone Point.
07:09Stone Point.
07:10So it looks like private equity might be moving back into real estate.
07:15Have you seen that?
07:16Any indications of that other than the Keller Williams acquisition or investment?
07:21That's been the only one that we've really seen, but having one is a lot better than
07:25having zero, at least in terms of either a trend or showing the interest.
07:31So that would be exciting for us.
07:34But I think it does come back to kind of where we are in the cycle, right?
07:37I mean, there were some times when I think the pricing of M&A wasn't great for the bottom
07:45line, and that may be changing.
07:49And then, you know, given some of the opportunities going forward, given that we're at the bottom
07:53of this cycle, hopefully from a housing market standpoint, you know, this is not a bad time
07:59to plant those seeds of growth.
08:02And M&A is one of the ways to do that.
08:04Yeah.
08:05Yeah, absolutely.
08:06So I want to talk a little bit about technology, because I know you've said it's kind of central
08:10to Anywhere's vision.
08:13And then you accelerated like an aggressive AI agenda.
08:17You're using a lot of AI to process transaction documents.
08:21So how are these innovations really changing the way Anywhere operates?
08:26And tell me a little bit about your investment in AI and technology moving forward.
08:32Yeah.
08:33So we've always been on a journey here, you know, in a business that is very kind of human
08:38centric and has the customer in the middle and the agent in the middle to still utilize
08:42great technology to operate our company better and help our agent and franchisees succeed.
08:48You know, one example of that is, you know, when I came to the company, we had about 12,000
08:51employees.
08:52You know, at the moment, we're delivering, you know, our business with about 8,000 employees.
08:56And a lot of that's because we've been able to digitize and automate a lot of kind of
09:01how we do our business.
09:03But this generative AI opportunity is huge.
09:06And we're seeing it both in customer facing products that we can give to our agents and
09:11franchisees that can make them more successful or more efficient.
09:15We're also seeing it in amazing ways, Tracy, in how we just run the company.
09:20And you mentioned the brokerage operations kind of processing as an example.
09:25But we see it everywhere, you know, and my analogy for this goes back to the transition
09:31I saw when the world, you know, went to the Internet.
09:34You know, companies had Internet teams and then Internet became part of everything that
09:37we did.
09:38Right.
09:39And today companies have AI teams, but it's going to become everything that we do.
09:43And I don't think it's that the opportunities are really that specific to real estate.
09:48You know, I think what are the opportunities to how you run your people processes and that'll
09:53affect every industry.
09:54We should learn from all industries, right?
09:56You know, how do you run every part of your operations?
10:00You know, how do you deliver to customers?
10:03All of those things are going to be opportunities for every business, you know, out there in
10:08the economy.
10:09And ours has enough technology kind of backbone in it that we think there's going to be great
10:16opportunities.
10:17So we're really increasing our investment.
10:18You know, we're investing more in technology in 25 than we did in 24 and 23.
10:25And we already invested a pretty meaningful amount relative to anyone else in our industry.
10:30Yeah.
10:31It's really interesting.
10:32I'm seeing I'm hearing, first of all, from a lot of the tech companies on how they're,
10:38you know, I've been in this industry for a long time, even before Zillow.
10:43So I, you know, I've seen the different iterations of Disruptor.
10:47We're going to intermediate the agent, you know, and to now being more of a support partner.
10:53And in fact, I interviewed several tech CEOs recently who really are focused on understanding
11:00that real estate is about human interaction, but that technology is a way to push that
11:05forward even through AI.
11:08And I've talked to a lot of brokers who are doing compliance through AI.
11:13They're building programs for compliance and also coaching, taking all of their videos
11:19and all of the coaching that they've done and putting it into one chat type of, you
11:25know, AI formula for agents to learn more and ask questions.
11:31So it is interesting where it will go from here because it's not just marketing.
11:35Yeah, those are great opportunities.
11:37I was earlier today talking with a venture capitalist and, you know, she and I agreed
11:41on one thing, which is people are not investing money these days in 2025 to try to disintermediate
11:48the agent.
11:49Right.
11:50That used to be true.
11:51That used to be where a lot of the money was flowing.
11:53But people have realized that the agent plays a critical role in this, you know, quite rare
11:58and quite high dollar transaction.
12:01And so, you know, the money being invested has shifted to making those agents more productive,
12:07to making things more efficient, et cetera.
12:10And you know, we've always thought the agent was central to the transaction.
12:14So we've always been investing in those ways.
12:17And we think it's an exciting opportunity and we want to be at the forefront of it both
12:22in our industry and anything we can learn from other companies and other industries.
12:26We're here for it.
12:27Yeah.
12:28And now you run a more of a traditional model with your brokerages.
12:33Do you feel like, you know, there's a ton of talk about, oh, the traditional model is
12:39dead, but that's not really showing that the traditional model is dead.
12:44So what is your what do you say to those detractors or generally it's your competition, of course,
12:50saying that?
12:51It's funny, you know, most of our most of our biggest competitors run the traditional
12:55model.
12:56Right.
12:57So, you know, and if you look at kind of, you know, the biggest companies in our industry,
13:01they're running the traditional model.
13:03And if you look at even, you know, the newer companies that have had growth in our industry,
13:07they're running the traditional model.
13:09So, you know, I think that's a reasonable amount of hyperbole, you know, to serve whatever
13:15interest people are talking about at the moment.
13:18But the reality is, it's what happens with the consumer, right?
13:22It's how, you know, agents help consumers, you know, get, you know, from or to their
13:27next home.
13:29And there are huge opportunities to change how we do that with, you know, the products
13:34we provide them like we provide a listing concierge product that does the marketing
13:38of a new listing.
13:40Over half of our listings, you know, in our own brokerage business are done on that.
13:44And you know, we embedded AI in it in a way that's made it incredibly easy, so much faster,
13:51you know, got named the best use of AI by a brokerage for 24.
13:56Always great to kind of win those kind of awards.
13:59And you know, but it's still got taking a doing a great job marketing the consumer's
14:03product at the heart of it, right?
14:05And their product, obviously, is their home in that case.
14:08So you know, the a lot of the comments on the model, I think, are, you know, hyperbole
14:14and a little self serving in the moment.
14:17The reality is, you know, improving how the transaction happens is a great opportunity.
14:23And you know, having the opportunities we have with our scale, and with our gen AI technology
14:29kind of innovations, really an exciting thing we're doing right now.
14:34Yeah, it really is more.
14:36There's a lot of iterations of a traditional model.
14:39So a lot of companies that say they have a different model really don't necessarily have
14:44a different model.
14:45Maybe they're capped.
14:46Maybe they're, they do charge a transaction fee.
14:50But you know, when you really boil it down, there aren't a lot of opportunities for new
14:55models in real estate.
14:58Yeah, those are just pricing differences, frankly, right?
15:01I mean, you know, you know, a new a new model, you know, would really be, you know, you know,
15:07some new fundamental way to try to sell or buy a home.
15:11And those are pretty rare.
15:12And the people that have invested in those have, you know, you know, as my venture capital
15:16comment kind of described, those haven't really worked out really well.
15:19So yeah, we're excited that we have the the scale that we've got in, you know, touching
15:27customers and helping them buy and sell homes.
15:30We're absolutely got to keep innovating on how we do it and the products we provide and
15:34how we deliver, you know, services as efficiently as possible.
15:38But you know, getting customers into their next home is where the real value is.
15:43Yeah, absolutely.
15:45So I want you, you had mentioned that we're kind of at a cyclical inflection point.
15:51And you notice we're at a low point in the cycle of the housing market will improve over
15:55time with a strong medium term outlook fueled by demographics and demand for homeownership.
16:02So tell me what you're seeing in the market right now and and where your predictions are
16:08taking it in the maybe the next six months.
16:11Well, look, you know, it's it's tough out there, right?
16:16You know, we're now coming into a third year, third calendar year, even almost, you know,
16:22more than that, if you go back to the middle of 2022, you know, kind of, frankly, pretty
16:27record low unit sales.
16:31And you know, the reasons for that have been well talked about and are out there in the
16:35newspapers and stuff.
16:36But at the end of the day, you know, for the United States to have four million home sales
16:42in twenty three and twenty four, and that's kind of the latest projections for twenty
16:46five. That is just historically unheard of.
16:49Right. We haven't been at this low level of unit sales for like 30 years and for Tappan
16:54three years in a row.
16:56Wow, that's that's a tough one.
16:58You know, now we're navigating it as a company well and we're still, you know, you know,
17:03quite profitable and throwing off free cash flow.
17:06But that's not true for for our industry as a whole, frankly.
17:11And so, you know, it's a tough time out there.
17:13But, you know, but the demographics are totally in all of our favor.
17:19Right. You've got the largest generation ever in the millennial generation, totally in
17:23their prime home buying years.
17:24You know, you've had like 30 million people be added to the U.S.
17:28over the last 20 years.
17:30And so, you know, the demand for housing is clearly higher.
17:34And we're seeing that every day.
17:35I mean, we announced our January numbers, you know, and its price increases that
17:40continue to drive the overall volume of housing.
17:44You know, units aren't changing, but prices keep going because demand is greater than
17:48supply and demand is greater than supply, even at six to seven percent mortgage rates.
17:54You know, it's a very unhealthy situation.
17:57You know, I'm not at all happy about it, but, you know, it is clear that demand is
18:03greater than supply.
18:05And it is clear that, you know, over the medium term, we should at minimum be back to
18:10those normals of five to six million unit home sales.
18:13And one of our competitors, you know, predicted probably about 60 million sales over 10
18:17years. And I think that's that's a reasonable assumption given the demographics in the
18:22household formation.
18:23Yeah, it's really hard to predict what's going to happen with the housing market.
18:27I know our analysts kind of feel like when we get to six percent, you know, mortgage
18:32rates, that it'll open up some.
18:34But then we've got tariffs on lumber.
18:36So you've got some new home builders kind of raising prices.
18:41So the price, the affordability issue isn't necessarily being solved for right now.
18:48I don't know. It's just going to be an interesting an interesting market in the coming
18:52year. Yeah.
18:53You know, but as I tell my team is we're all subject to the same market.
18:57None of my competitors have a better housing market than I do.
19:00So let's go out there.
19:01Let's innovate.
19:02You know, let's use Gen AI differently.
19:05You know, let's take some more luxury market share, you know, because we do all face the
19:10same housing market.
19:11We all face the same interest rates.
19:13And so, you know, let's not let the tough market turn us into victims to your opening
19:19point. Let's go out and have some impact on the world.
19:21Let's go out and do things, you know, to the world, not just be victims of kind of
19:27what's happening. Because, again, it's a level playing field.
19:30Right. None of the competitors have a better housing market.
19:32None of the competitors face lower interest rates for their customers.
19:36So, you know, let's be on our front foot.
19:39Let's go out there and have some impact.
19:40Yeah, I absolutely agree.
19:42And I know we've at RealTrends and HousingWire have done studies on the brokers that
19:47grew the most and they grew the most through really tough markets because they didn't
19:53take that victim mentality.
19:55They took the we're going to make this work mentality.
19:59And either they grew through M&A or, you know, productivity of their agents and that.
20:05So it is really interesting.
20:07I do believe that the companies that grow during this time are the strongest companies
20:13out there. So, yeah, definitely.
20:18So I want to talk about aha moments.
20:20And this might be personal.
20:21This might be professional.
20:23But have you maybe your most impactful aha moment that really impacted the way you
20:29lead or impacted the direction of that you took your company?
20:36Boy, there's a you could I could you could spend days on that question with anybody,
20:41especially, you know, having seen different industries and worked in different
20:46industries. I think for me, the biggest aha moment was probably
20:53in my career was probably, you know, it was over 20 years ago at this point, even more
20:57than that. And it was the day that I really realized, Tracy, that
21:03that you're you're only as good as your team.
21:07You know, it doesn't even matter how talented you are.
21:11You know, a great team is going to outperform.
21:14Right. And so how do you put everything you can into getting the best people in the
21:20biggest jobs that you can?
21:22Right. It's a great team.
21:23And at one level, you know, like many people, I kind of knew that lesson from, you know,
21:28you know, high school sports and things like that.
21:31But, you know, in the in the business world, you see so many great, talented people who,
21:37you know, they're so talented.
21:39But the light switch someday has to go off and realize it's the talent of the team that
21:45lets you have that much bigger impact than any one person can have.
21:49And so, you know, that's really been a kind of the foundational thing for the last, you
21:54know, 25 or whatever years of my kind of corporate career, where
22:01just it's all about having the greatest team that you can, you know, and and always
22:07being able to put your best people in bigger jobs.
22:09And that's why, you know, when I came to our company, we had about 300 executives and
22:14now we have about 170 because we put in about about half of those people have come from
22:20outside. So we've had a ton of turnover as we're always trying to get the best people in
22:24bigger jobs and have the best talent we can.
22:28And that's probably been the biggest insight.
22:30And, you know, CEOs, I think, spend their some CEOs spend their time on, you know, with
22:37their customers doing deals on kind of product and strategy and on talent.
22:42And and we all spend time on all four of those.
22:45But I find spending the most time on the talent of those four has the biggest
22:50impact on, you know, kind of the company you're building and the success that you can have.
22:55Yeah, I think that trickles down to the brokerage level as well.
23:00Building your C-suite or your leadership team, you know, is so important.
23:05I've seen I've, you know, been a part of brokerage, just seeing brokerages that fell apart
23:13because the leadership team just wasn't on the same page and rebuilt to build like, you
23:20know, great companies.
23:22So it is always a process, right?
23:24Finding the right person for the right job and then moving people into the right jobs, too,
23:29because you could have someone really great in one position, but like even better in
23:35another. Recognizing that.
23:38And are people looking to the future, right?
23:40I mean, what what it's going to take to win in a generative AI world, even with agents at the
23:47center of the transaction and there still being a big human component to what we do, it's
23:52going to be different than in the past.
23:54Right. And so the people who can embrace and be willing to change and look at new
23:58opportunities are going to have disproportionate success.
24:01And so part of the challenge as a leader and some of the opportunity is, you know, how do you
24:06look ahead to kind of, you know, where your talent not only is today, but where your talent
24:11is going and who's embracing that future and who's struggling with that future and how do you
24:16help that latter group and how do you accelerate that former group?
24:20And so, you know, it's and that's true at the anywhere real estate level.
24:25It's true at the, you know, Century 21, ERA, Better Homes and Gardens real estate level.
24:30It's true at all of our franchisees.
24:32That's kind of a universal challenge.
24:34And I love anything we can do to role model that for our brands and for our franchisees.
24:41Yeah, absolutely.
24:43And so you have your kind of your journey to leading one of the company's largest real
24:49estate or one of the world's largest real estate companies didn't happen overnight.
24:53So looking back, what were some of the defining experiences that you had?
24:59Well, I think the biggest defining one for me was actually going on this journey.
25:04You know, I come from outside the industry.
25:06I've been in the industry for about seven years now, and I still feel, you know, many days
25:11like I'm a rookie, you know, because I'm still every time I talk to an agent or franchisee, I
25:15still learn something new.
25:17Tracy, it's crazy, all the interesting and fascinating things about this industry.
25:22But, you know, for me, it was really just making the leap of this is an industry that's
25:27exciting that I want to work in.
25:29And I really want to do it for two reasons.
25:32One is I loved all the people that I met.
25:36Right. I mean, this is an industry that has two exciting things about it.
25:41One is it's doing something that's just good.
25:44It's helping people get to the next phase of their life, whether it's that growing family,
25:49the downsizing family, even when people have to, you know, you know, sell a cell or the
25:55home of a relative who passed or something like you're really just helping people.
26:00And there's a lot of industries in our in our ecosystem where, you know, it's it's not as
26:05good about helping people.
26:07So this is an industry that's about helping people and the people who work in it tend to be
26:11leaders. Right. You know, they're leaders in their communities.
26:13They're running businesses, whether it's agents running their business or franchisees.
26:18So you're working with this dynamic entrepreneurial group of people who are in a business
26:23that's got just a lot of public good.
26:25And I think that's really, really exciting and attractive.
26:29The other thing was just the opportunities that are there.
26:32Right. You know, this is an industry that had has all the opportunities to operate differently
26:39from a technology standpoint while still having the agent at the center of it.
26:42Right. And while, yes, it is subject to the macro, the ups and the downs.
26:47And you've got to deal with that.
26:50At the end of the day, there is real opportunity in this industry to continually reinvent how
26:55things happen, whether it's the generative AI stuff that we've talked about here, whether it's
27:00the products that we deliver to make agents and franchisees more successful with their
27:04customers. And I found that opportunity exciting.
27:07And so, you know, you put those two things together.
27:09And for me, it was, yeah, let's take this leap of faith, try this and and really commit to
27:15it. And and, you know, it's a wild ride, especially on that macro side.
27:20But I really love the the team at Anywhere Real Estate and the scale that we've got in the
27:26brands and the opportunities.
27:28And, you know, I'm excited to come into the office every single morning.
27:32I wake up with that positive energy.
27:35Great. Any mentors in the industry or outside of the industry or authors, anybody that you
27:42recommend to other leaders?
27:45Well, you know, what I what I actually have found in this industry is that the best mentors
27:50are our agents and franchisees.
27:52And I mentioned it earlier.
27:53I literally learn something from every conversation that I have with an agent and
27:58franchisee. And I've got the blessing of we have so many great agents and franchisees
28:04across our 2000 plus franchisees and our 200,000 plus agents.
28:09But, you know, I went to a dinner with our top 100 agents in late November and you just
28:16hearing the stories of how they do business and what makes them so successful just gives
28:20me, you know, 10 ideas to share with all 200,000 agents of how we should do things.
28:25You know, sitting down with one of our top New Jersey agents for a coffee recently and
28:30learning how he was approaching all the industry changes, you know, gave me two ideas
28:36that I went out and then told, you know, our team, hey, we should be looking at like
28:39training everybody on this kind of thing.
28:44And so there's always a ton to learn in this in this industry.
28:47And I felt found that the especially the most successful agents and franchisees on the
28:53front lines actually have the most to teach leaders, especially at bigger and bigger
29:00companies. Yeah, I would agree just being in the business as long as I have as a
29:06journalist. I I love it because I love the different stories I hear from leaders and
29:12agents and team leaders daily.
29:15You do learn something new.
29:17I I just feel like it's an exciting industry.
29:21And the stories of even their personal stories are fascinating.
29:24So definitely very inspiring.
29:29Absolutely. Yeah.
29:31So my last question is just what's next for anywhere in the next couple of years?
29:36Well, look, you know, a couple of things I would say.
29:39One is, as I mentioned, our earnings call.
29:41I do think we are in a consolidating industry and there's going to be more M&A.
29:45There was even an M&A deal announced this morning.
29:48Yes. And, you know, we're excited to be participants in that and grow our business
29:54through M&A.
29:55It's got to be a good economic deal, though.
29:57Let's be very clear. It's got to be done for the bottom line, not the top line.
30:01But we're very excited about that opportunity as the industry consolidates.
30:04So there's going to be a lot of benefits to scale players like ourselves.
30:08We're very excited about that.
30:10Second, very excited about generative AI and the journey.
30:13Not that we're just already on, but where we're going to go.
30:16You know, we want to be at the forefront of how that plays out in every part of our
30:21company, learning from companies outside of our industry especially.
30:26And, you know, use that to both run our company faster, deliver better experiences
30:33to our customers and be more and more efficient so we can put more money even back
30:38into growing our business like our strategic luxury business that I mentioned.
30:42Finally, there's a lot of debate right now on this clear cooperation topic out there.
30:49You know, and what I actually think is I think consumers being able to see all the
30:54listings is good.
30:56Right. I just do.
30:57I think it's good for the consumer to see all the listings.
30:59I also think it's good for a seller to have as many people looking at your listing as
31:04possible. So we actually, you know, think that is an important thing.
31:10But we live in a competitive world that if our world goes in a way that's a little bit
31:14more of kind of curated gardens or people keeping listings behind some walls.
31:19Well, we have the capability to do that, too.
31:21And across our brand, we have more listings than anybody.
31:25So, you know, we are prepared to go down that path and reap the benefits that could
31:30exist if that happens.
31:32Even if in our hearts, you know, we don't want we want to do what's best for the end
31:36consumer. And we do think that is to have more listing availability for consumers to
31:43see and for sellers have their homes seen by the greatest number of people.
31:47Yeah, it is an interesting debate, that's for sure.
31:50So I am looking forward to seeing how that all rolls out.
31:54So definitely.
31:57Well, Ryan, thank you so much for joining the podcast today.
32:00I appreciate all of your insights about the industry and what's going on with
32:04Anywhere. Well, thank you so much for having me.
32:07Hope you have a great rest of the month of March and very excited for this year for
32:11Anywhere and for our industry.
32:13Great.