Real Brokerage Is Buying RE/MAX: Three Market Signals From May 2026

As of May 2026, three things happened at once in Canadian real estate: the technology brokerage Real agreed to buy RE/MAX Holdings, the Canadian Real Estate Association forecast a flat market for at least two more years, and BMO reported that the jobs gap between western and eastern Canada is widening.

I am Moe Asgarian, a Principal Real Estate Broker with RE/MAX in Toronto, ranked 47th worldwide in the company, and this spring marks my tenth year with the brand. Here is what each of those three stories looked like in May 2026, and what I told my own clients about them.

What the Real and RE/MAX deal actually is

Real Brokerage announced it is acquiring RE/MAX Holdings. Once the deal closes, the combined business operates as Real RE/MAX Group. At the time of the announcement in May 2026, RE/MAX was active in 120 countries and territories with roughly 180,000 agents. The merged company would cover more than 180,000 real estate professionals and about 8,500 franchises, with more than 100,000 of those agents working in the United States and Canada. Both companies estimated that, had the group existed in its current form during 2025, it could have produced about $2.3 billion in annual revenue. Real said it expects to close in the second half of 2026.

Leadership is settled too. After closing, Real's chief executive is set to become chief executive and chair of the board of the new company. The head office stays in Miami, while a significant part of operations continues in the Denver area. That matters: RE/MAX is not dissolving into the buyer, it keeps part of its operational identity.

Why a technology company buying a brokerage matters

RE/MAX needs no introduction. Real is the newer name: a modern brokerage built around technology and artificial intelligence. What Real did not have was a large global network, and that is exactly what it just bought. What RE/MAX did not have was the newer toolset, and its own conclusion was that an old brand and a wide network are no longer enough to compete.

The wider pattern is plain. In North America especially, the property business is moving toward technology faster than it ever has. Traditional brokerage models are giving ground to platforms built on artificial intelligence, automation, data analysis and digital tools. This deal shows that even a brand the size of RE/MAX has worked out that the future of this market does not run on the traditional model alone.

This spring is my tenth year with RE/MAX, and my honest read is that the merger is good news for clients on both sides of a transaction. If agents get faster access to current market data through these tools, buyers and sellers get better service out of it. That is the standard I will judge it by.

CREA sees a flat Canadian market for at least two years

The second story was quieter and probably matters more to anyone buying this year. In its May 2026 outlook, the Canadian Real Estate Association said the Canadian housing market is not expected to make a serious move for at least two years. No significant price growth, no significant drop, no surge or collapse in sales volume.

The specific numbers: home sales in 2026 rising by about 1%, which works out to roughly 474,000 transactions across Canada, a figure below what the association itself had forecast a few months earlier. For 2026, the average Canadian home price was projected to rise about 1.5%, reaching roughly $689,000. For Ontario, the read is that housing gets neither much more expensive nor much cheaper. Through the end of that year, it is a still market.

The east west jobs gap and what it means for Toronto

The third story came from BMO, and it is about jobs, which drives property more directly than most people assume. The bank reported that the gap between the east and the west of the country is deepening. Labour markets in western Canada, Alberta and Saskatchewan in particular, are getting stronger, while the east, and southern Ontario most of all, has entered a weak phase.

In that ranking, Calgary came first, Saskatoon second, Edmonton third and Regina fourth. The reason is not mysterious. Resource economies, oil and energy above all, are creating jobs again. Employment in Alberta grew about 4%, while employment growth in Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec was effectively negative as of that May 2026 report. The weakest labour markets in the country were concentrated in Ontario, and Toronto was one of them.

Western Canada is pulling workers with energy, natural resources and a lower cost of living. Southern Ontario, which leaned for years on housing, debt and population growth, is under pressure. The single biggest reason is the tariff war with the United States. The result is that cities like Toronto, once the engine of the Canadian economy, are handing part of their workforce and part of their growth to the west.

What I tell clients in a still market

Put the three together and May 2026 looks like this: the industry is consolidating around technology, the national market is forecast to sit still for at least two years, and the Ontario job market is the soft spot.

A still market is not the same thing as a bad market. When CREA's May 2026 forecast for a full year of price growth is about 1.5%, nobody is bidding against a clock. That is the kind of market where seeing a property a second time costs you nothing.

What I watch more closely than price right now is employment, because that BMO report put Toronto among the weakest job markets in the country and pointed at the tariff war as the cause. If your own income sits in a sector exposed to tariffs, put that in your budget before you stretch on a mortgage. And on the merger itself, as someone in his tenth year with RE/MAX, I think better data in an agent's hands shows up as better service for buyers and sellers.

If you want my read on your own situation, fill out the form at the bottom of this page or book a free consultation. Stay well and take care.