Leigh Thomas Brown, a small independent broker, examines how big real estate firms like Compass and RE/MAX are consolidating local markets and controlling MLS data access in rural areas. She draws on her experience in North Carolina to show how consolidation threatens consumer choice and local representation, and calls for public comment on dual-agency rules at ncrec.gov.
Chapters
Okay, so I'm live and I probably should have a little countdown clock. I don't have one of those yet. I'm gonna close the door here since I could still have traffic coming through my office. And hello to anybody who starts logging in for our little chat today based on my Substack that I dropped last week. I think I should be like Coach Collin and go Whoop whoop! Make sure the sound is working. Let's see if it worked. Or I could be like Baron Coleman and say, welcome in, welcome in. Because for the record, if you're the person who watches Baron Coleman, Coach Collin, Candace Owens, you're my people. And if you don't watch any of those people, I highly recommend that you become more curious. But welcome to another Leigh Thomas Brown Live. And I see that I did have 7 viewers. Now I'm down to 1. So that's awesome. Whoever you are, one person. Today I want to talk about the urban-rural divide going on in real estate and what I'm seeing as a small independent broker in a metro market and where my concerns are for the consumer as we look at where things are going. And I'll say this, as you watch this video, whenever you watch it, whether you're going to be watching it live with me here shortly, maybe somebody will log in. If not, I'll talk to myself. It's fine. I'm good at that. Let me know in the comments where you're located and if you're in a small or a large market, because when we look at what's happening in residential real estate, and I'm going to leave commercial out, if you're a commercial realtor, y'all were very smart to set your system up to be somewhat protected when it comes to data, because that's what determines how consumers find things, how companies find things, and where the information is located. Although I'll say this, When I do commercial deals, it's almost impossible to get a commercial broker on the phone. In fact, it's a miracle when I do because there's such a desire to keep the information private that it's very hard when you're representing a buyer or a tenant to get information on what's available in the marketplace. And I look at what's happened on the commercial side, that makes it harder on the residential side. And I think that's where we're going to go as we look at the changes to real estate. I will start by telling you all that in my Substack this past week, I was talking about the town of Murphy, North Carolina. And of course, North Carolina is a very wide state, and a lot of people think we're small just because they've never driven across the state. But in North Carolina, there's a phrase that talks about from Murphy to Manteo, so from the furthest west point up in the mountains to the furthest east point out over the Atlantic at the graveyard of the Atlantic in the Outer Banks. It's a long, long drive. And the Raleigh capital market sits ish towards the middle. And of course, it's still not the middle of the state. Well, Murphy, by virtue of being way out in the mountains, is closer to 7 other state capitals than it is to Raleigh. And if you want to know where we saw that matter, if you look at the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which hit September 27th, 2024, We saw Raleigh not give a damn about the people of western North Carolina. We saw the government response anemic at best, and in the way was the better way to describe it. Those of us that did the grassroots work had to go around agencies to get to the people who needed help. If you ever wondered why Raleigh doesn't give a rip about the mountains, it's because the mountains are so far away and also so sparsely populated that it doesn't represent a whole lot of voters or tax revenue. So the western part of North Carolina has always been very fiercely independent. In fact, now that we're in America 250, if you ever look up where a lot of the patriots were, they were coming out of the western North Carolina areas where you had so many Scotch-Irish that were out there in the hills, in the mountains, protecting their own stuff because nobody else was going to look after them. So when I look at the town of Murphy, it's got its own Real Estate Association. And of course, because Murphy's In The Pointe, you have a lot of members there that are licensed in Tennessee and they're licensed in Georgia. So in any state that's got state lines close by, you see multi-state licensure. I'm licensed in South Carolina, for example, because Concord, where my office is, sits in the Charlotte metro market, although we ain't Charlotte, we'd like to be very clear about that. But when I have relocating people come, they want to check both sides of the state line. So when I look at the market here, of course Charlotte is its own beast, but because of what's happened in real estate with the roll-ups that have been going on for over 20 years, we've watched the Charlotte Regional Realtor Association turn into Canopy, and they have merged and acquired boards in an outbound radius, including the Land of the Sky Realtors up in Asheville finally merged in with Charlotte, although they still have their own offices and their own Identity, their MLS merged in with Canopy. So now the data here goes out ours. Well, when you start looking at the reality of what that means, it looks good on paper. And if you're an accountant person, looks like it reduced cost to have the different REALTORS® all under one giant umbrella. And no, Deacon Bean Cooter, you never do leave very positive comments. You're an interesting troll and I don't care for an AI REALTOR® and I can tell you why. It's because houses are not commodities, neither are realtors. Now, they're not all equal, so I will say that an AI realtor might be more consistent, but they would never do what I can do. They might be better than some of the crap ones though, so I'll give you that. But when you're looking at where Murphy is located, the policy decisions that are made for that county and for that town are made in Raleigh, which is so many hours away that Raleigh doesn't even care when there's a natural disaster. And I look at that and wonder how they feel about policies that come down the legislative pike, and their representation is pretty slim too because of the population scarcity in the western part of the state. That to me was a natural parallel to what's happening in real estate because there is this move toward bigger and bigger, and I am against big anything. I don't like Big Pharma. And my dislike for Big Pharma was exacerbated during, of course, the COVID scam. I think I'm supposed to call it C-19 so YouTube doesn't block me. And we realized we were being fed a whole bunch of garbage, and it was covered up by politicians who protected pharmaceutical companies who had immunity from anything they did wrong, which has carried forward. I don't like Big Ag. I grew up on a family farm. We had 400 acres. My family farm was cotton for a long time, moved into cattle and soybeans as crops have changed and the numbers moved. But when we were looking at our farm, it was the numbers that we could generate from our crops. And while we changed crops, that you look at AgNow, and there's been this huge roll-up to where family farmers are basically in debt servitude all the time. And so they have to have relationships with subsidies and with big pesticide and seed companies in order to stay in business. And that's killing us because our small family farms are, of course, where you get the best livestock, the best meat, the best vegetables, the best everything. So when I look at real estate and what we're seeing is the movement towards bigger, and I'm watching it on two fronts. The one, of course, is the brands that are merging and becoming bigger, and Compass started it by buying Anywhere. Now, if you're not in real estate, Deacon Bean Cooter, then you should know that Compass is hedge fund money designed to create this technology-friendly real estate firm. They say they are, but they're not a firm. They're a big giant corporation. They purchased Anywhere Brands, which is Coldwell Banker, C21, Better Homes and Gardens, Sotheby's, and I'm sure I've missed one in their brand coverage. So the venture capital-backed company purchased the traditional brick-and-mortar company that had most signs in the ground and a lot of agents. And that's fine. Big is fine. A lot of great agents are in that brand. However, they've been throwing their weight around a lot with this idea that they can take their data out of the Multiple Listing Service so that only certain agents can find it, which means only certain buyers and sellers can find it. So they're trying to really fragment the market. And you also see that with RE/MAX and Real who merged. And of course, RE/MAX had a debt load and that was a good financial decision for their shareholders. We don't really know how that's going to look over time. Of course, you have agents that are excited and agents that are nervous and franchise owners that are excited and those that are nervous. And of course, that's every real estate company ever. eXp and NextHome, we haven't heard a ton about that one. And my respect for James Dwyer at NextHome is probably higher than it is for anybody else in the profession. So I'm curious to see how that happens, but they do it for size and heft. And then we saw the other version this past week where Berkshire Hathaway purchases Taylor Morrison. So they bought a big production home builder in an effort to now have some sway in the new construction side of things. Of course, the supply side of real estate, whereas on the residential side, we primarily deal in the demand side. Now you look at those big companies, those big firms, they do have offices in small markets. However, when you look at it, there's not going to be a big move to take care of the small markets because that's not where the dollars are. And when I look at the fights over data, we also have to consider there's going to be big fights over agent count. So you might think that there will be AI realtors, but I don't know that that's necessarily true, particularly in a small market, a rural market where of course people are going to use AI on their phones and such. But real estate for so long has been done by relationships simply because The AI's information is not always accurate. And when you're buying and selling real estate, you want to know the material facts. You want to understand the planning and zoning and the DOT things that are going on. And what's going to happen with the big data center that's coming in nearby? I'm pretty sure AI is not going to give us the full story on what's going to happen to property values because of mega data centers coming into markets anywhere, particularly in rural markets. So the buyers and sellers will say, "You know what, let's just go ahead and talk to the person on the ground that understands things." Well, in that small market, you will see that there are people from big cities who, because they need a deal, will go all the way over to the small market and try to grab one buyer, one seller, because they need to get paid. So now you've got the big company sending somebody into the small market to try to grab a deal, where in the small market, the primary function of the real estate agent is to put together the person who has a need with the person who has a need. And that's going to oftentimes come from relationships. So anyway, oh, by the way, the retro stove, yes, this is from the Betty Feaser set. I should probably tell you all about my little studio here. I'll take a little break and tell you that because this video is going to get interrupted by a commercial. And the dust, apparently I can feel the dust. Huh. Betty Feaser was on WBTV. TV here in the Charlotte market, first female syndicated show. She came on the air in the '50s with a cooking show where she would show you how to make good recipes and show you some sewing tips and some cleaning tips. So she was Pinterest before Pinterest became a thing. And she was on the air until the '70s at 1 o'clock Monday through Friday. And those of us that are from Charlotte, we all know this because the world stopped at 1 o'clock when Betty Feeser came on. This was her actual set. So I'm very fortunate to have the Betty Feeser Memorial Studio here in Concord. Where we always welcome visitors who would like to come and bring their Sunday school class to have a look at it, which is a very North Carolina thing, and why I'm very zealous about protecting things that are all North Carolina. So anyway, when you look at the roll-ups of giant big real estate firms, of course there's a concern of those of us that are small independent brokerages about how we compete in a world of giant and big. And there are people that will want to use a small local independent, just like I look for small restaurants. I love to support Two Gals Kitchen in downtown Concord because I know the two gals and they're wonderful and their food's amazing. And so I'd much rather spend my money there, but it's hard for them to compete because they don't have a giant footprint to negotiate better lease prices on space and to have big massive discounts on their ingredients from big food food distributors, because everything seems to be going bigger and bigger and bigger. And now it's hitting real estate. So when I think about what changes, if you're in an urban market, you'll probably still have some independents here and there because they'll, they'll have their relationships and they can do enough to stay afloat. And of course, my dad talked about this for a long time, that you would see big mega firms and very tiny independents, and the boutiques in the middle would go away. And I think He was right 20 years early. And of course, he's retired after over 40 years in real estate. And to watch all of this happen, there's good and bad about big and tiny. But I, in specific, get concerned about rural areas and small towns where a big company is going to look at that area as not worthy of their coverage and not worthy of an office because they can't make enough money there. Frankly, it's a problem with money being the primary decision driver on everything. Well, when I look at Murphy, of course, when I'm a member of the Canopy Association, which is regional, they would love to acquire all of the small associations. And if you want to know why, because maybe you're not in organized real estate, it's because REALTORS® are members of their associations, which means they pay dues, which means these organizations have revenue. And of course, the bigger something gets, the more revenue it wants because it could consolidate the back end and be more efficient. However, that efficiency comes at a cost, and the cost doesn't come to the Charlotte market, which is going to do what it's going to do. The cost comes to the smaller rural market that won't have a voice. And when I'm thinking about where our voices are really important in real estate, it's not just about what happens with buyers and sellers, it's what happens with communities. I am very wound up about data centers right now. And before you start calling me a Chinese communist plant or any of the other C-words that I have been called here lately, simply because I am against what's happening with data centers, which of course tells me they're from a bot farm. You gotta realize that it's often realtors that are the ones who see the long-range impacts of big decisions. And data centers can come in by right in North Carolina on any industrial zoned parcel without having a public hearing. Without having anybody to push back on what they are or are not going to do. So for example, a data center can have closed-loop cooling and circulation, so they don't necessarily have to pull fresh potable water all the time, but only 25% of them are built that way because that's a more expensive way to build it. If you are looking at a data center in your community that's by right and nobody's gonna tell them they have to do it the more expensive way, you know what they're gonna do. Big corporations do things less expensive expensively because it benefits the bottom line, which they say benefits the shareholder, which by its nature isn't necessarily going to help the surrounding community. Well, the reason I bring that up is because realtors are in these small communities, often the ones that do raise their hand. I was talking to a realtor yesterday in Polk County, which is where Rufton is, and she is working on a situation where she's having to be the one loud voice because it's a sparsely populated area and she's wildly educated on it. That's a service that realtors provide to their local market, and it's not necessarily going to come from a big company that doesn't have an office there and wants to wipe out the independents that are there. So if I'm— oh yeah, Festus was mentioned in my article about data centers. The only problem with Festus is that you guys amazingly got rid of everybody that voted for the data center, but it was after the data center got approved. So we got to figure out how to get people up to speed faster, and it's still very important that we express ourselves at the ballot box as long as we can. Although I don't know that we can vote our way out of the problems that we have right now, except that then I remember half of the population doesn't bother. So maybe if we all joined a third party that Candace Owens starts and Tucker Carlson and Thomas Massie become our candidates, maybe then we'll do something that's going to make some real changes on behalf of Americans. So anyway, the urban versus rural divide, we're seeing it show up in terms of the expanding association and the expanding firms. So what is the solution? Well, if you look back at the history of real estate, a Board of Realtors came into being so that Realtors could collaborate and has nothing to do with antitrust, price fixing, or any of that. It's along the lines of, hey, a friend of mine is selling a house and you've got a friend buying a house. Let's matchmake these people. The Boards of Realtors said, let's work together so that we can be matchmakers, we can share information and make sure that buyers have access to the full market and sellers have access to full buyer information. It's the best thing it could possibly be. And then these boards of REALTORS® decided to implement a code of ethics, and that code of ethics told us that we were going to make sure that this was going to be above board, that you wouldn't be selling any oceanfront property in Arizona and we wouldn't be selling any Brooklyn Bridges in Missouri. So you start realizing that the boards came into being for a very noble purpose, but those very boards are being rolled up because of money. And then the big companies may or may not care about the code of ethics because all they care about is money. And right now, as I was getting to earlier before I got distracted, and you should hit like right now if you happen to be watching this, because we need the algorithm to know that this is a very important and weedy real estate conversation. It's going to point that out. But when you look at the fact that money becomes our primary driver on everything, The public needs to understand this. A lot of these really good real estate agents are going to land with a big firm like a Compass and Anywhere conglomerate because they need to have access to the data that Compass and Anywhere have. So this may or may not be about the dual agent angle, which a lot of commentators have talked about, that those companies do want to capture the buyer side commission and the listing side commission. I think it's more likely that they would like to capture more agents under their umbrella so that they would have more of the one buyer here, one seller there activity and keep their split of the commission because agents do— if you didn't know this, public— anytime an agent is paid a commission, a portion goes to the broker. How much depends on the broker and the negotiation they have with that 1099. And the broker gets paid because they carry the liability and the errors and omissions insurance. So you've got all these ways that the money gets divvied up. Well, a big company wants to keep as much of that divvied up pot as they can. Now I look at that. And so I started asking myself, all right, so where have we seen this play out before? I want y'all to pay attention to what's happened in your own medical systems. If you've never met me, then you might not know that I have two kids and my youngest who turns 20 this month had some birth defects and he's gone through every specialist on the planet. And in working with specialists, you find out very quickly that they either have deals with one hospital group or the other one, not both. Because if you want to work with both of the big hospital systems in the Charlotte area, you have to be an independent. Well, if you're an independent, you make a lot less money and there's very specific rules that apply to you. So for example, when he was in PICU back in 2017, his nephrologist had to be an independent because he was the only nephrologist left in Charlotte. All right. So we're the third biggest medical market in the country, although that might be changing since Atrium's been sold to Advocate Health Care Systems, which is hilarious that they call themselves Advocate, but I digress. So you have two big medical systems, and of those two big medical systems, there's one pediatric nephrologist. If he were to affiliate with this one or with this one, he can no longer serve the whole marketplace. The only way for him to serve the whole marketplace is to stay independent and drive a minivan that is a rattletrap because I've seen it. And he made that choice because he doesn't do pediatric nephrology for himself. He does it because he has a burning desire to help young people who have nephro— nephrological situations. And I love that man. He's amazing. And I totally believe he saved our son's life. Now, that's what's happening in real estate. So if you're an agent and you're at this firm, you may or may not have access to what this firm has, which means the person you're serving only gets to see part of the marketplace, and you as an agent now can't serve the rest of your marketplace. That's what's happening. And so when I look at what happens in big medicine as a consumer of healthcare who who frankly prefers naturopathic red light and apple cider vinegar. I'll just lay that out there. If I have to go to a doctor, my insurance is gonna tell me which one I can go to. Now, the best option might not be at that doctor, but that's the one I have. And so real estate's gonna have to make some really big decisions here. And if you happen to see this video and you're with Compass, Anywhere, RE/MAX, Real, eXp, NextHome, I hope that you'll express to your leadership that they need to make sure They're not closing the doors to anybody outside the firm because our goal has to be consumer choice and consumer protection. We cannot let money be the primary driver. The Bible tells us very quickly that money's actually not the evil thing, it's the love of money. And I think that's where these bad decisions come from, is the love of money above all else. Hello, Red Mercury Blues Band. Oh, you just, you just telling me, hey, You gave me a purple crown. I don't even know what that means because I'm still new to this whole livestream thing, but it's good to meet you too. And I'm glad that I was glad to share my onboarding process with you and how I schedule with buyers because they deserve a professional experience, which is kind of what I'm worried about here. I'm worried that as we see fragmentation in the business, that it's the consumer who's going to get hurt. And the reality is this, it won't really be visible until lawyers get involved. And I'm kind of tired of lawyers being involved in everything. And I blame that lady who spilled coffee on her lap, who won that lawsuit against McDonald's because her coffee was hot. I blame her because if that had not happened, we wouldn't see this constant battle for more and more lawsuits. And frankly, if you have any access to your elected officials, we need tort reform to stop all the frivolous lawsuits. But that being said, it's going to take some lawsuits from buyers who don't have access to the full market and who are told they can't use their agent of choice before anything starts to change in real estate. And the saddest thing about that is that when we do want to see legislative change and we want to see regulatory change, they're going to listen to dollars and they're going to listen to voters. And sadly, that comes out of urban markets nowadays. That's where you see a state like North Carolina. It is called a purple state. We are not a purple state. We are a red state with blueberries, and the blueberries, those urban centers, have voters and they have money, and so they have an outsized voice when it comes to making decisions. So that's where I'm seeing real estate going, where you're going to have what looks like something that's egalitarian, but it's not because I watched it happen, y'all. I mean, I try to stay all professional and calm and cool here, but I really get wound up when I see what happened in western North Carolina. The government didn't care about the people of western North Carolina because there weren't enough of them to care about. They weren't putting money into the coffers in the way that the cities do, and frankly, the media moved on really quickly. And then you looked at what happened with FEMA discriminating against what signs were in yards for who these voters supported, when I know as a grassroots person who was providing disaster relief, Nobody in my team cared about political affiliation, and nobody cared who was receiving it. We didn't ask, like, you need water, you need diapers, what y'all need? And we took care of things. It was the government that decided there was going to be conflict and division. And that's what I'm concerned about with real estate, that we're going to see the big ones start to wave their strength around and harm the consumer because they say it's the best. Well, I don't care what you think is the best. I care what's best for the consumer. And who gets to decide that? The consumer does, which leads me to why I am not in favor of eliminating dual agency in North Carolina, because I do think that the impact it has is more prevalent in a rural market, because I was teaching a class on Tuesday in a rural county, and there was an agent, and I asked her what her market was. It's an area that's got like total of 4,000 people. Then how many realtors are in that 4,000? Of course, some other lady in the room said, I'm there. So there's 2. I said, how many else? How many other licensees do we have? None. All right. So if this agent has a listing and she's the best agent, there's 2 agents in this market, but that's her bestie. And the bestie doesn't want to talk to anybody but her because real estate is a trust factor. So the AI realtor is never going to have trust factor because you can't even trust it with scripture. Can I point that out? Have y'all noticed that if you ask your AI bot of choice for a scripture about any specific topic, like, I don't know, sympathy or whatever, it will make up chapter and verse? Mm-hmm. And that's why AI realtors, probably not the best way to spend the biggest amount of money most consumers will ever spend. So anyway, if she has a seller who trusts her completely and she lists that property, and let's just say it's a $19,000 lot, so it's not a lot of money., but she's going to do it because it's somebody she knows and loves and trusts, and it's right there in her community. Well, the buyer that wants to buy it knows her from Sunday school and says, I want to buy this $19,000 lot. If North Carolina eliminates solo agent dual agency, that means this agent has to say to the buyer, the trustor, I'm sorry, baby, I can't help you with this $19,000 lot unless you come in unrepresented and know that I'll do my best and give you material facts, and I owe you honesty and material facts, and that's about it, but I can't be your agent. I can only just do these things for you. Well, that person now has one other agent in town they can call. What if they don't want to? That consumer's been told they don't have a choice by the North Carolina Real Estate Commission, which is wrong, I think. Now, are there agents who violate the law on dual agency? Yes. Have I railed against it for years? Absolutely I have. But I'll also say this, I don't practice it, but I don't want the government telling us how we can and can't practice it because the consumer should have a choice. And then by the way, if it's a $19,000 lot, I hate to tell y'all this, but agents don't make very much money on that. And so for those of you that think agents make too much money, you should know that sometimes we represent things that are very, very small and we're delighted to help people with that because we want them to have good decision-making. But if this agent is not allowed to help the buyer and says, I can't be your agent, that buyer says, But I want an agent. So they have to start calling around. Do you know how many agents they'll have to call before they find somebody that will rep a $19,000 lot? It's going to be a lot of them because there are agents who may want to help, don't have the bandwidth, don't have the knowledge, or just not going to fool with something that small. And that's what the loss of dual agency does. Now, would the loss of dual agency be felt here in Concord? Probably not, because everybody here knows a whole handful of REALTORS® from church and the ball field and the grocery store and your friend's friend and your ex-wife's ex-brother-in-law. I mean, everybody knows a handful. So the urban markets that have a great crush of REALTORS® won't have the same impact as a rural market. And I say all of this because if you add up what's happening in North Carolina with the dual agency conversation, by the way, public comment closes next week, maybe it's closing very soon. You can make public comment at ncrec.gov and they do welcome your comments on either side of the issue. That was Leigh Thomas Brown's opinion. Give your opinion because The commissioners are reading these comments as they come in, and they do send you a response back, and it's not cut and pasted. You also will see that urban-rural divide that hits the association, where we're losing our small associations to the big roll-ups. And we also have to see it with the companies that are getting so big that they're big enough, they don't have to care about a rural market where the price points are lower, the agent count is lower. And they're just not going to exhibit the same amount of interest that they would exhibit in a big market that has billions of dollars in sales. Now, I want to mention one other thing when I talk about the roll-up of associations. Realtors in general have been the best voice on private property right policy. Now, I haven't agreed with every policy we've done, and I think we've missed the mark on some things we should have been talking about, but You will find that when the REALTORS® get involved, many policymakers do listen because there's been so many of us and we do participate in the political process. If you have a big area like Charlotte's MLS and Charlotte's REALTOR® Association, so they're known as CANOPY, if they have taken over associations in far-reaching markets, they may or may not have the voice of that marketplace. Because let's just be honest, if you are in Rowan County, which is where Salisbury is located, there's very few people in Rowan County that want to hear what Charlotte thinks about their politics. We see it here in Cabarrus County, and we're right next to Charlotte. We don't want to be Charlotte. In fact, Charlotte keeps trying to turn us into Charlotte. We don't want that here. And so if the Realtor Association that has the membership and the dollars and the voice is trying to speak for other areas, now you're going to run into that divide that comes from, we don't want to be some big city, we don't want your big city politics here, you've caused enough problems already. And we've seen this in other markets around the country. This is, of course, just the one I'm most intimate with. And my personal, like my office here, this beautiful office with this stove I need to dust here, this is in Concord. I'm in historic downtown. I bought this building to be a part of the revitalization of downtown Concord because I love being from Cabarrus County. And yes, America 250. And yes, I'm one of those statistical people with all four branches of my tree were patriots in the American Revolution. So yes, I'm a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. So I totally think I have a bigger stake here than other people, just saying. So when I look at how Cabarrus County operates, where my house is located is in the county, but we're in the ETJ, the extraterritorial jurisdiction, which I do hope the North Carolina legislature will get rid of the ETJ. But that's a different video, different day. In my ETJ, my address is Harrisburg, but I don't have a vote on Harrisburg Town Council or for mayor because I'm in the ETJ, which means I am taxation without rep— not really taxation without representation. I'm just told certain things without representation but not taxed for it. So anyway, we had a very interesting race for the leadership in the town last year because of course it runs in all cycles., and there were suggestions made from the Charlotte Realtors about our races in Harrisburg that burned me up because it was the wrong choices. Not just me thinking that, I talked to a whole bunch of people, I conducted my own personal poll. They were just wrong. And so when I reached out, I said, who did they talk to in Harrisburg to make these decisions? They did not. They just went off of what they had and made declarations amongst voters from the Realtor Association without talking to the people. And that's why I don't want to see more roll-ups. So when I read that article about how there needed to be more elimination of tiny associations, we could all just have one big giant blob. I'm totally over the giant blobs. I want small, I want local, I want areas that understand the people, the communities, and the neighbors, because that's the best thing about this country and it's the best thing about real estate. And we're about to lose it to Wall Street and we're losing it to dollars and big numbers over anything else. So I'd love to know in the comments at some point, whenever you roll up in here to watch this later, hit, hit subscribe, hit notifications. I'm trying to go live more often because I was told I needed to. Hit the like, share this with a friend. And if you have things you need me to talk about, you can totally reach out and tell me, and I may or may not listen because as y'all know, if you read my Substack this week, it was about this long because I had way too much to say. And this topic is very big and weedy if you're not in organized real estate. But I will just say this, even if you're not involved in organized real estate, you are, because if you're a dues-paying member and if you serve the public when they want to buy and sell real estate, you've got to figure out how to pay attention to what's happening to our structure, whether it happens on the brokerage side or on the association side, because it's going to impact the town that you serve, the county that you serve, and the people that you serve. And if you don't speak up right now, we're about to turn into big ag, big pharma, big government, all the big things that have lost sight of the people they serve. And when you lose sight of the people you serve, you stop doing things the American way. So time to take our country back, take our association back, and take our profession back. And that's the Leigh Thomas Brown take on things for today. Thank y'all for tuning in. And make sure that you— let's see— like, subscribe, hit the bell, send me a note, and do something nice for somebody else today. And be ready to celebrate America 250 because— oh, you know what? Flag Day is coming up too. So let's celebrate the flag, the country, and do great things. See ya!
