Rankings FAQ’s

The RealTrends + Tom Ferry The Thousand and America’s Best Real Estate Professionals rankings program is submissions based, and requires that you provide your production information to RealTrends for verification and ranking. RealTrends has partnerships with many of the industry’s largest brands to receive data on your behalf, but we also allow for manual submissions via our portal (hyperlink when we have the portal open). If your brokerage is affiliated with a national brand then we recommend you contact your broker or manager to understand this process for your brokerage. If you are an independent agent or team, then you must submit your data directly to RealTrends via our submission portal.

The Thousand represents the top 500 teams and 500 agents in the country. As such, the threshold to qualify for this designation changes each year but the program always showcases the top 500 teams and 500 agents in the country. The America’s Best is a list of ALL agents and teams that met our minimum threshold to submit their data. The America’s Best is ranked by state, while The Thousand is a national ranking.

There is an annual submission fee of $175 for The Thousand and America’s Best agent and team rankings. One submission fee will cover both rankings.

• To qualify for the RealTrends + Tom Ferry The Thousand and America’s Best Real Estate Professionals you must meet our minimum production thresholds:
  • An Individual Agent must close 50 residential transaction sides OR $20 million in closed sales volume
  • A Team must close 75 residential transaction sides OR $30 million in closed sales volume

We only count residential real estate transactions. We do not count commercial, referrals, land, lots, leases or rentals towards our thresholds.

The RealTrends + Tom Ferry The Thousand and America’s Best Real Estate Professionals rankings submission portal is open every year from mid-January through March.

The RealTrends Agent Rankings reflect the previous calendar year. For example, the 2022 rankings show data from calendar year 2021.

You can provide MLS data, tax returns, or have your CPA/CFO/Broker Owner sign a verification letter. (*Please note that you cannot sign off on your own numbers)

If you can answer ‘yes’ to EITHER of the questions below, you are considered a TEAM for the purposes of our Rankings.

• Do you have more than 1 licensed assistant?
• Does your website identify other agents on your team?

• Small – 2-5 licensed agents
• Medium – 6-10 licensed agents
• Large – 11-20 licensed agents
• Mega – 21+ licensed agents

Yes, RealTrends partners with The Wall Street Journal to publish the results of only The Thousand. Please note that WSJ is not responsible for the production of these rankings, and as such this program should be referred to as “RealTrends + Tom Ferry The Thousand as featured in The Wall Street Journal”

Yes. In this instance we suggest submitting your data to us directly through our portal. You must provide verification for both brokerages/brands for the numbers to be combined.

You must submit for our rankings and provide verification to be included in our rankings. If we do not receive verification information you are omitted from the rankings.

As a reminder, we only count residential rankings so your qualification for the rankings must be in residential transactions. We don’t count commercial, rentals, referrals, leases, land, or lots.

We require that all submissions have accompanying verification documentation. In most cases, brokerages are omitted for not submitting this information or the verification data included prohibited transactions. Please contact Liz Smith for more information.

Unfortunately, once the submission period ends there is no way to be included. We encourage you to subscribe to your BrokerSource newsletter (hyperlink /newsletter) to be reminded next year.

This could be caused by a number of issues including not meeting the residential transaction threshold or switching brand affiliation mid-year (see above). Please contact your broker or manager for resolution with your affiliated brand.

Please email Liz Smith to request changes to how your information is presented.

There are two transaction sides to each transaction, the selling side and the buying side. When you represent both sides of a transaction that is two sides. When you handle only one side, it is obviously only one side. For volume, when you complete both sides of a transaction you should double the sales volume for reporting to us.

Example – If you represented both sides of the transaction of a home that sold for $1 million, then you would count that as two closed transaction sides and count $2 million towards your closed sales volume.

If you are with one of the following national brands, they will submit and pay for all qualifying agents and teams – The Agency, BHGRE, BHHS, CENTURY 21, Corcoran, Coldwell Banker, COMPASS, Douglas Elliman, ENGEL & VÖLKERS, ERA, Exit Realty, HomeSmart, Intero, Keller Williams, Next Home, NRT, RE/MAX or Sotheby’s

The RealTrends 500 and Nation’s Best brokerage rankings programs are submissions based, and require that you provide your production information to RealTrends for verification and ranking. RealTrends has partnerships with many of the industry’s largest brands to receive data on your behalf, but we also allow for manual submissions via our portal (hyperlink when we have the portal open). If your brokerage is affiliated with a national brand then we recommend you contact your representative to understand this process for your brokerage. If you are an independent brokerage, you must submit your data directly to RealTrends via our submission portal.

The 500 represents the top 500 brokerages in the country based on transaction sides. As such, the threshold to qualify for this designation changes each year but the program always showcases the top 500 brokerages in the country. The Nation’s Best is a list of ALL brokerages that met our minimum threshold to qualify of 500 transaction sides in the previous calendar year.

There is no cost to submit your data for consideration in the RealTrends 500 and Nation’s Best Brokerage Rankings.

For the RealTrends 500 and Nation’s Best Brokerage Rankings, your firm must have closed 500 transaction sides in the previous calendar year.

We only count residential real estate transactions. We do not count commercial, referrals, land, lots, leases or rentals towards our thresholds.

The RealTrends 500 and Nation’s Best Brokerage Rankings submission portal is open mid-January through February. You can submit your data directly to RealTrends via our submission portal.

The RealTrends Brokerage Rankings reflect the previous calendar year. For example, the 2022 rankings will show data from calendar year 2021.

• You can supply an auditor’s statement as to the accuracy of the information.
• You can have your outside accounting firm supply us with the residential gross commission income which your firm reported for 2021 tax purposes. This information will be used for analytic purposes only, and will not be shared with anyone outside RealTrends. It will not be published in any manner.
• If you choose to submit verification using this option, the following general wording may be used by your outside accounting firm via email or mail: “The residential gross commission income reported to us by (your firm name) for federal tax purposes for calendar year 2021 was $(amount). This number was not audited by us nor derived except as reported to us by (your firm name).”
• MLS Report(s) [subject to review by RealTrends]
• If your firm is affiliated with RE/MAX, Keller Williams, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, EXIT Realty, HomeSmart, Engel & Volkers, NextHome, or any Realogy Brand your verification has already been provided. If you are affiliated with any other regional or national real estate franchise you may instruct them to release your residential gross commission income or closed sides and volume to us as reported to them for calendar year 2021. Please have them provide this information to us by mail or e-mail.

Yes. In this instance we suggest submitting directly through our portal. You must provide verification for both brokerages/brands for the numbers to be combined.

You must submit for our rankings and provide verification to be included in our rankings. If we do not receive verification information you are omitted from the rankings.

As a reminder, we only count residential rankings so your qualification for the rankings must be in residential transactions. We don’t count commercial, rentals, referrals, leases, land, or lots.

We require that all submissions have accompanying verification documentation. In most cases, brokerages are omitted for not submitting this information or the verification data included prohibited transactions. Please contact Liz Smith for more information.

Unfortunately, once the submission period ends there is no way to be included. We encourage you to subscribe to your BrokerSource newsletter to be reminded next year.

This could be caused by a number of issues including not meeting the residential transaction threshold or switching brand affiliation mid-year (see above). Please contact your representative at your corporate office for resolution.

Please email Liz Smith to request changes to how your brokerage is presented.

You can provide MLS data, tax returns, or have your CPA/CFO/Broker Owner sign a verification letter. (*Please note that you cannot sign off on your own numbers)

If you are with one of the following national brands, they will submit for all qualifying Brokerages – The Agency, BHGRE, BHHS, CENTURY 21, Corcoran, Coldwell Banker, COMPASS, Douglas Elliman, ENGEL & VÖLKERS, ERA, Exit Realty, HomeSmart, Intero, Keller Williams, Next Home, NRT, RE/MAX or Sotheby’s