At The Real Brokerage, newly appointed Chief Growth Officer Jason Cassity has added a new layer of structure to the firm’s growth strategy: hiring more agents, retaining existing agents and expanding at a sustainable pace.
Cassity, a former San Diego team leader who took on the role just over a week ago, said his focus ultimately rests on one central metric: net agent growth. This means not just hiring talent, but keeping agents productive and engaged once they’re on board.
“I would say my direction is net agent growth. Whether it’s attracting agents or promoting Real on the national stage, it’s probably 80 percent outbound and about 20 percent retention,” Cassity told Inman. “Because obviously net agent growth requires new agents to come in and stick around.”
The move reflects how brokerage firms are establishing growth leadership as competition for representation intensifies, especially among national single-entity cloud-based revenue-sharing companies. It also comes as Real’s stock price has fallen sharply from its all-time high in August last year, with a focus on balancing rapid growth and profitability for the agency.
Build structures that support agent-driven growth
Real’s model has long relied on agents to drive adoption, using a revenue-sharing structure that rewards agents for bringing others into the network. What Cassity does add is tuning and support around its engine.
“Our agents do most of the attracting,” he said. “They become magnets. They attract friends and other great agents to their market or anywhere in the country through social media, and they spark conversations for the growth team.”
Rather than building a traditional in-house recruiting effort, Real is formalizing the way deals are made once interest is generated, further leveraging its network effects. In practice, that often means intervening to close larger opportunities.
“Imagine an individual agent in Boise having a conversation with someone who runs a huge team of 40 people. They might not know how to have the conversation. That’s where the growth team comes in,” Cassity said.
Cassity, who previously worked at Compass, said that experience reinforced his belief that peer-to-peer hiring is the most effective way to scale, but that it works best when combined with supporting systems.
“Agents attracting other agents is probably the most natural way to grow,” he said. “We’ve just created the most attractive Venus flytrap.”
Executive Agent Perspective
Mr. Cassity’s argument is that Real has a number of people in its executive ranks who until recently were field salespeople.
“Literally 10 days ago, I was an agent and I’m still closing pending escrow,” he said. “I would venture to say that I am probably the closest executive in the industry to an actual agent.”
This closeness allows the company to reflect agent needs in product, marketing and operational decisions, he said. For example, when testing new technology, Cassity said he used it with his own customers and relayed feedback directly to management.
“You can say, ‘My agent won’t care about this, let’s do it this way,'” he explained. “To their credit, executives are listening.”
We also look forward to taking on a more visible and hands-on role with agents, including coaching, events, and roundtable discussions.
“It’s a lot of hand-to-hand combat with agents in the trenches,” he said.
Emphasis on productivity while focusing on growth
Cassity said Real aims to continue expanding but is mindful of the risk of growing too quickly.
He said the company added about 7,600 net agents last year, and internally aims to grow that number further, potentially to more than 10,000, while maintaining operational stability. At the beginning of March, Real reported that more than 31,000 agents will end 2025.
“If you grow too fast, your operations can become bogged down,” he said. “We want to make sure we are growing at stable, healthy numbers.”
At the same time, the focus is not only on adding more agents, but also on increasing the productivity of the agents deployed in the system.
“If we can take agents who are doing six deals to 12, they’ll be here forever,” he said.
The current market slowdown may also create new markets. Cassity said more agents, teams and independent brokerages are taking a closer look at business economics as trading volumes decline and margins tighten.
“Agents are going to start evaluating profit and loss more,” he said. “And when they do that, they look at our brokerage business almost centrally.”
This change could potentially lead to a bigger deal for Real beyond a one-off hire.
“I see this as an opportunity to move from one-on-one battles, from just random one-off agents, to bringing in larger independent brokerages, franchises, teams,” Cassity said, adding that continued market trends could lead to more consolidation and movement among brokerages.
“Empires are built on down markets, and I think for many independent brokerages and franchise owners, we’re in the final stages of a down market,” Cassity elaborated. “I think we’re offering something that’s very attractive to them.”
Email AJ LaTrace
