AS FEATURED IN: Inman News | HousingWire | RISMedia | Real Estate News | The Wall Street Journal | NBC | CBS | Fox | ABC | CW | iHeart Radio | Yahoo! News
2026
Recruiting Insight Report: Agent Mobility Surges in Q1 2026 as Brokerage Competition Intensifies
RISMedia covers Recruiting Insight’s Q1 2026 Agent Migration and Brokerage Model Performance Report — released in partnership with Lone Wolf Technologies and MyBFF Social. The report tracked 3,742 brand changes in Q1 representing $16 billion in annualized production, projecting approximately 50,000 agent moves nationally in 2026. High-velocity “raid zones” were led by Dallas ($1.05B in motion), San Diego ($734M), and Tampa ($600M). Internal movers outperformed external recruits by 28%, averaging $5.47M in annualized production.
“The ‘wait-and-see’ era is officially over. The market is running a fever, driven primarily by mid-tier producers who sat still in 2025 and are now actively seeking new brokerage models.”
— Mark D. Johnson, Managing Partner, Recruiting Insight
Brokers Can No Longer ‘Wait and See’ as Agent Moves Grow 25%
Inman covers Recruiting Insight’s Q1 2026 findings, including the firm’s Efficiency Ratio metric — showing top-performing brokerages gained $2 in incoming production for every $1 lost. External agent moves grew 25% quarter over quarter, while internal office-to-office transfers rose 38% year over year.
“Strong recruiting is not just about bringing agents in. It’s about keeping high performers inside your ecosystem when the market shifts.”
— Ben Hess, Managing Partner, Recruiting Insight
Real estate agent personas guide targets brokerage recruiting
HousingWire covers Recruiting Insight’s “Real Estate Personas and Avatars” strategic guide, organizing agents into 11 core personas with a quantitative Ideal Agent Scorecard (1–35 scale) evaluating candidates across production fit, coachability, tech alignment, cultural pillars, and friction level.
“Recruiting is not about convincing people; it is about diagnosing them. Most recruiters fail because they sell the brokerage instead of solving the agent’s specific ‘3 a.m. nightmare.'”
— Mark Johnson, Managing Partner, Recruiting Insight
Recruiting Insight adds automation and analytics with HiringCenter Pro
HousingWire covers the launch of HiringCenter Pro, Recruiting Insight’s AI-enabled recruiting platform that centralizes outreach, automates follow-up workflows, and provides analytics showing which channels produce the highest-producing agent hires.
“An agent’s recruiting experience is their first customer service interaction with a brokerage. If a firm is slow to respond now, an agent assumes they’ll be slow to support them during a complex closing later.”
— Mark Johnson, Managing Partner, Recruiting Insight
Real estate agent movement flat, but $15.7B in volume quietly changes hands
HousingWire covers Recruiting Insight’s 2025 Annual Agent Migration Report, tracking $15.72 billion in transaction volume that migrated between brokerages. Annual agent turnover reached 6.8%, with internal transfers delivering 24% higher productivity and 89% twelve-month retention versus 76% for external hires. The report also flagged succession risk, with 21% of agents with 25+ years of experience looking for an exit strategy.
“Succession is no longer a long-term planning exercise. It’s an immediate operating requirement. Firms that delay addressing legacy transitions are leaving themselves exposed to abrupt capital flight.”
— Ben Hess, Managing Partner, Recruiting Insight
2025
Mark Johnson and Ben Hess named 2025 Real Estate Newsmakers
RISMedia recognized Mark Johnson and Ben Hess as 2025 Real Estate Newsmakers for their work helping brokerages recruit top-producing agents, reduce failed hires, and focus on sustainable growth. In 2024, Johnson and Hess spearheaded the acquisition of TalentScout — a recruiting call center — placing more than 1,200 agents with 100 brokerages. Recruiting Insight also appears in RISMedia’s 2025 Newsmakers Directory alongside other leading industry companies.
Consolidation, mobility shape real estate agent recruiting in Q2
HousingWire covers Recruiting Insight’s Q2 2025 Agent Migration Report, based on verified data from more than 100,000 agents across four major MLS regions. The report found 2.96% of productive agents switched firms — a 6% increase over Q1 — and found that tech-enabled brokerages attracted the highest-producing incoming agents.
“The importance of leadership and seven levels of communication has never been clearer. For the innovative and driven, this market has hope and opportunity. Lead or bleed.”
— Mark Johnson, Managing Partner, Recruiting Insight
Recruiting Insight and BoldTrail partner on Agent Migration and Brokerage Model Performance Report
RISMedia covers the landmark collaboration between Recruiting Insight and BoldTrail showing 13% of active business operators — representing 129,000+ transactions — changed brokerages in 2024. The report draws on data from four major MLSs representing 31% of all U.S.-based agents, and finds that execution, not brokerage model, is the primary driver of long-term success.
“This report puts the facts on the table — agents are on the move, and you must have a clear plan to attract and retain top talent. In today’s market, a strong talent acquisition program is no longer an option; it’s survival.”
— Mark Johnson, Managing Partner, Recruiting Insight
8 recruiting strategies for brokerages ‘serious about growth’
Real Estate News builds eight actionable brokerage recruiting strategies from Recruiting Insight’s Agent Migration Report findings. The report found that while the average agent who moved in 2024 had $7.8M in total sales volume, the median agent brought in $3M — underscoring the outsized financial impact of top-producer churn. Tech-enabled brokerages were the only model category to avoid net agent loss in 2024.
2024
Mark Johnson: The mistakes brokers are making with recruiting and retention — RealTrending Podcast
HousingWire’s RealTrending podcast features Mark Johnson discussing the critical difference between simply recruiting agents and building a true talent attraction strategy — and why an authentic brokerage culture is the key differentiator in today’s competitive market. Johnson also addresses the growing role of AI in recruiting and the importance of focusing on agent productivity over raw headcount.
2023
7 steps to improve your talent attraction game
Mark Johnson authors a contributed column on HousingWire addressing the challenges of talent attraction in a shifting market — noting that the average real estate agent’s income was down 28% year over year nationally. Johnson outlines seven strategic steps for broker-owners to sharpen their talent attraction efforts and protect their most productive agents during market downturns.
Tech Bytes: Recruiting Insight and Talent Scout unite
Real Estate News covers the strategic partnership between Recruiting Insight and Talent Scout, with Recruiting Insight adding Talent Scout’s experienced agent appointment-setting product to its existing suite of ThirdPool (new agent recruiting) and CoRecruit (experienced agent coaching). Rhonda Deloge and Adam Lerman joined the company as part of the Talent Scout team.
“Talent Scout makes the calls you don’t want to make and does it consistently on your behalf — designed to achieve a remarkable, industry-leading appointment show rate with experienced agents.”
— Mark Johnson, Managing Partner, Recruiting Insight
Earlier industry recognition
Prior to co-founding Recruiting Insight, Mark Johnson was a frequently sought voice on the U.S. housing market, appearing on national and regional television, radio, and print outlets across the country.
U.S. Home Sales on Track for Biggest Year in 15 Years
The Wall Street Journal quoted Mark Johnson — then CEO of Texas-based brokerage JPAR Real Estate — in its coverage of the 2021 housing market, which was on pace for its strongest sales year in 15 years. Johnson spoke to the central tension driving the market: surging buyer demand colliding with a historic shortage of inventory, as potential sellers held back out of uncertainty about where they would go next. At the time, the typical home was selling in just 18 days, with only a 2.4-month supply of homes available nationally.
“The problem is, many folks don’t want to sell because they don’t know where they’re going to move.”
— Mark Johnson, Chief Executive, JPAR Real Estate, as quoted in The Wall Street Journal
Is the Hot Housing Market Showing Signs of Cooling Down? — NewsNation / KRON San Francisco
Mark Johnson appeared on NewsNation and KRON San Francisco to discuss whether the red-hot housing market was beginning to cool — reaching over 426,000 households across 29 broadcasts on Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS, and CW affiliates in markets including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Houston, Dallas, Raleigh, Buffalo, and Greenville.
How the Federal Reserve Rate Hike Could Impact North Texans — NBC DFW
Mark Johnson appeared on NBC DFW to discuss the impact of Federal Reserve rate hikes on North Texas homebuyers and sellers. The segment reached over 120,000 households.
Rising Mortgage Rates Could Be Increasing Home Buying — ABC Augusta, Georgia
Mark Johnson appeared on ABC Augusta to discuss how rising mortgage rates were paradoxically accelerating home-buying decisions. The segment aired three times and reached over 31,000 households.
Do National Housing Market Trends Signal a Possible Idaho Slowdown? — CBS
Mark Johnson was featured in CBS coverage examining whether national housing market trends were beginning to signal a regional slowdown in markets like Idaho.
National Talk Radio Appearances
Mark Johnson was a regular guest on major talk radio stations across the country, discussing housing market trends, interest rates, and real estate conditions with audiences in major U.S. markets.
- KRLD Dallas/Fort Worth — What does the future hold for homeowners, home buyers, and home builders?
- KGNW Seattle — How rising interest rates affect the housing market
- KTRH Houston (iHeart) — Houston’s housing market likely to remain hot as other cities cool
- KTRH Houston (iHeart) — Real estate reckoning: economists warn of housing bubble
- KTRH Houston (iHeart) — Infrastructure plan may compound soaring construction costs
- KTRH Houston (iHeart) — Baby boomers and millennials are competing for homes: who’s winning?
- WLW Cincinnati (iHeart) — Are housing prices in America taking a dip?
- 700 WLW Cincinnati — Is the real estate market starting to cool down?
- Fox News Radio — January 2021 · Syndicated to KBIZ Ottumwa, KPEL Lafayette, WERC Birmingham
Print & Digital Press Coverage
Mark Johnson was quoted and featured in regional and national print and digital outlets covering the housing market during one of the most active real estate cycles in U.S. history.
- Yahoo! News — Public and private efforts seek to tackle bias in home buying and selling
- Dallas Business Journal — Dallas home sales record returns (February 1, 2021)
- Dallas Business Journal / WFAA — DFW home market is ‘out of whack,’ experts say (January 22, 2021)
