Bernice Ross
Private listings, “coming soon” strategies, the portal wars, syndication rules, the never-ending lawsuits – the trench warfare in today’s real estate industry is loud and endless.
The industry keeps fighting over platforms, policies and control while agents struggle to do more transactions. Yet traditional real estate is overlooking hundreds of thousands of potential buyers and sellers hiding in plain sight.
The reason? We’ve lost our North Star upon which true, lasting success is built. The agents and firms that commit to finding it will crush their competitors.
The North Star We’ve Lost
I joined the Jon Douglas Co. back in 1980, first as an agent and later as executive director of training. By 1997 when the company was acquired by Apollo, we had 60 offices, 4,000 agents, and we were doing $1 billion per month in sales. Our market share in our region’s luxury real estate market consistently ranged between 50 to 70 percent.
Our company treated real estate brokerage as a serious, full-time career. Real estate services were our only focus. Our culture was built around superior service, total integrity, ongoing drive for excellence and technical expertise that made innovation a state of mind. Training emphasized professionalism, deep market knowledge and contribution to our local communities.
Now compare that to where we are today. The industry’s conversation is dominated by discussions about platforms, policies, commissions, portal wars and who has the right to market our listing information. While these issues certainly impact our business, they are not the business, itself.
Our North Star has never moved. We just stopped looking at it.
Boomers Own the Listing Market
Who are we really preparing agents to serve? That answer looks very different today than it did even five years ago. To return to our North Star, we must address the clients and market opportunities traditional real estate continues to overlook.
The National Association of Realtors’ 2026 Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends reports Baby Boomers make up 55 percent of all sellers and 42 percent of all buyers. Many are sitting on decades of equity and facing complicated life decisions around medical issues, downsizing, relocation, estate planning, adult children and retirement.
As someone who is recently widowed, I see a major gap in the services we provide.
Surviving spouses and adult children must navigate complex housing decisions both before and after a death. Moreover, probate, memory care, incapacity, serious illness, mobility loss and shrinking finances all affect real estate decisions. Sadly, few agents receive meaningful training on how to handle these situations.
The harder question is what happens when someone no longer chooses their next home, but must leave because illness, reduced mobility or money leaves no other option.
Who Serves Underserved Buyers and Sellers?
According to NAR, 21 percent of transactions involve single or unmarried women. Today there are a record 20 million single female homeowners in the U.S. Many are widowed, divorced or never married.
When they decide to list or sell, they need clear guidance, straight talk and genuine competence coupled with caution about risks they often face alone.
Quite frankly, I can’t recall seeing any training that addresses the needs of this group or helps them navigate today’s marketplace as homeowners, buyers, sellers or potential real estate investors.
Hispanic households now drive the U.S. homeownership story. The result? Long-term demand that should increase even more as these buyers move through their 30s and beyond.
Hispanic clients were an important part of my business from the beginning in California. Almost of them wanted to buy duplexes or triplexes.
That pattern still holds true today – according to NAR’s March 2026 Existing-Home Sales report, individual investors and second-home buyers accounted for 18 percent of the transactions, up from 15 percent from a year ago – and likely extends to many immigrant communities in your area.
But who is making sure today’s agents have the cross-cultural and language skills to serve them?
We Need a New Type of Market Literacy
As the industry fights about things like English-only listings on the portals, traditional real estate is failing to meet the needs of these buyers and sellers.
Real estate has always been about helping people make safe, sound decisions in transactions that affect their wealth, family, security and future. Client-first, excellence-obsessed culture was once our North Star. It should still guide us today.
The firms and agents who rebuild their marketing, training, and customer focus around that standard will not only win more business, they will own it.
Bernice Ross is a nationally syndicated columnist, author, trainer and speaker on real estate topics. She can be reached at bernice@realestatecoach.com.
