When you typically think of fast-growing brokerages, firms like eXp Realty, Compass and Real typically come to mind, but the rapid ascension of LPT Realty should not be overlooked.
In 2024, agents at LPT Realty closed 36,369 transaction sides for $13.86 billion in sales volume, earning the just 3-year-old firm the No. 10 and No. 14 ranks for sides and volume, respectively, in the 2025 RealTrends Verified Rankings.
This performance also led LPT to be the fastest growing independent brokerage in both transaction side count and sales volume from 2023 to 2024. CEO Robert Palmer says his firm is on track for an even better performance in 2025.
Driving much of this growth, Palmer said, is the strong performance of many of LPT’s top teams.
For example, the Tampa-based Paramount Home Group closed 645 transaction sides in 2024, according to RealTrends Verified data. So far this year, LPT said the team has closed 845 sides and is on track to close a total of roughly 1,166 sides. Another LPT brokered team SPACE, closed 1,123 sides in 2024 and LPT said it is on track to close double that number of transaction sides this year, with an expected transaction count of 2,278 sides.
Additionally, RealTrends data shows that four of the top-25 mega teams in the country in 2024 were brokered by LPT Realty.
Leaning into teams
As LPT looks to expand further, Palmer said the firm is really leaning into attracting and supporting top teams.
“So much of it is just inspiration, it’s motivation and it’s getting the team leaders to dream bigger,” Palmer said. “If you look back, the idea of a 1,000-unit team seemed really big and now there are 20 of them on RealTrends.”
Palmer said LPT’s next big goal is helping some of its largest teams achieve $1 billion in sales volume in a year.
“There are currently five of those on RealTrends, and we think we have who will be the sixth,” Palmer said.
Team work makes the dream work
LPT is far from the only firm leaning into teams to help fuel growth.
“The number of and average size of teams has been growing very fast,” Steve Murray, the co-founder of RTC Consulting, said. “So if you are Real, eXp, Compass or LPT and you want to grow quickly, one of the primary ways to do this is by recruiting teams because it adds sales volume, transaction side count and gross top line revenue a lot faster than recruiting agents one at a time.”
The growth in popularity of these mega teams is seen in the RealTrends Verified rankings. In 2020, the rankings had just 315 mega teams nationwide, with the largest share (112 teams) belonging to Keller Williams.
By 2022, 459 mega teams were ranked in the RealTrends Verified Rankings, and eXp Realty had the most at 56 teams.
The most recent edition of the rankings boasted 554 mega teams, with 157 belonging to eXp, 49 belonging to Compass and 48 belonging to LPT. This marked the first time LPT cracked the top-three brokers in the mega team category.
Supporting top-performing teams
Some of Palmer’s confidence comes from knowing that former leaders of some of the nation’s top performing mega teams are now at LPT, but the rest comes from the actions his firm is taking to better support and attract top performing teams and agents. While much of this support comes in the form of weekly mastermind calls, in-person events and technology, Palmer feels at the center of it all is the compensation model choices LPT provides to agents.
“We built our model to align with the big teams from the jump, and I think a lot of the other models had to add something in later once teams started to become more prevalent,” Palmer said. “In our model, any agent can have that $5,000 cap plan if they choose, so we are not disincentivized to help our teams grow. If you look at a lot of the legacy models, they don’t want solo agents joining teams because they might go from a $12,500 cap to a $4,000 cap plan.”
In contrast, Palmer said LPT wants agents to join teams if they feel it is the right move for them because they are aligned and not financially disincentivized. In helping their existing teams grow, Palmer said it has helped LPT attract more top-performing teams looking for their own growth, similar to how an agent generates business through word of mouth or referrals.
Beta stage recruiting program
In addition to word of mouth, Palmer said LPT also recruits on behalf of its team leaders, most recently through joinateam.com, which he described as a product in an “early beta” stage.
“We are now in all 50 states, but what we find is the presence of one of our large teams in a market really super charges our solo agent recruiting efforts because we can show them that dual path, and they have the option of joining a team,” Palmer said. “On a corporate level, we really focus our efforts on driving growth in a market once we have a couple of big teams in place, so that we can really maximize the career path opportunities for those agents who join us.”
The next frontier, Palmer said, is helping existing LPT agents build out their own teams from the ground up.
“We’ve started allowing aspirational team leaders to come onto our weekly team growth calls so they can get an idea of what they are in for, but I think it is something we are really trying to figure out,” Palmer said. “How do we identify agents that would be great leaders and help agents decide if that is the right path for them? How do we help people stand up teams? We are just dipping our toe into the water with it right now, but I think it is going to be a big focus moving forward.”
Looking further ahead, Palmer confirmed that LPT is still pursuing an IPO, but said he could not confirm an expected date.
“We are committed to the process. I am a firm believer that a cloud-based brokerage needs to be publicly traded. We are going to New York in November, and we’ll tour both Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange,” Palmer said. “We are continuing to move in that direction, but with timing a lot of it is market-dependent. I think we are really hoping for a scenario where we see home sales start to pick up while the overall stock market stays hot and we think that will create a really good window of time for a real estate company to go public.”
