Company: HOUS
Filing Date: 2025-02-25
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001398987-25-000020
Chunk: 55

Company: Anywhere Real Estate Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-25
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 55
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 of America (a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate), Howard Hanna Holdings, Compass, Inc. (which recently acquired @properties), Redfin Corporation, EXP Realty (a subsidiary of eXp World Holdings, Inc.), Weichert Realtors as well as several large franchisors, including RE/MAX International, Inc., Keller Williams Realty, Inc. and HSF Affiliates LLC (operates Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices and Real Living Real Estate). We and affiliated franchisees also compete with leading listing aggregators, such as Zillow, Inc. and Realtor.com® (a listing aggregator held by News Corp.) as well as Homes.com (a listing aggregator held by CoStar Group, Inc.). In addition, we and affiliated franchisees compete for consumer business with several iBuyers, including Opendoor and Offerpad.

Competition for Independent Sales Agents. The successful recruitment and retention of independent sales agents and independent sales agent teams is critical to the business and financial results of traditional brokerages—whether or not they are affiliated with a franchisor. Competition for productive independent sales agents in our industry is high and competition is most intense for highly productive independent sales agents with strong reputations in their respective communities. 

Most of a brokerage's real estate listings are sourced through the sphere of influence of its independent sales agents, notwithstanding the growing influence of internet-generated and other company-generated leads. Many factors impact recruitment and retention efforts, including remuneration (such as sales commission percentage and other financial incentives paid to independent sales agents), other expenses borne by independent sales agents, leads or business opportunities generated for independent sales agents from the brokerage, independent sales agents' perception of the value of the broker's brand affiliation, technology offerings as well as marketing and advertising efforts by the brokerage or franchisor, the quality of the office manager, staff and fellow independent sales agents with whom they collaborate daily, the location and quality of office space, as well as continuing professional education, and other services provided by the brokerage or franchisor. 

We believe that a variety of factors in recent years have negatively impacted the recruitment and retention of independent sales agents in the industry generally and have increasingly impacted our recruitment and retention of top producing agents and put upward pressure on the average share of commissions paid to affiliated independent sales agents. Such factors include increasing competition, increasing levels of commissions paid to agents (including up-front payments and equity), changes in the spending patterns of independent sales agents (as more agents purchase services from third parties outside of their affiliated broker), a heightening focus on leads or business opportunities generated