Real Brokerage aims to trade agents’ other debit cards for its own 

Fast-growing Real Brokerage has been putting tremendous emphasis on a new financial product that company leaders say will not only help agents grow their business, but also bolster the company's coffers. They also call it a first for the industry.

Why the hype? Introduced last November, the Real Wallet is an addition to the brokerage's ReZen agent dashboard. It offers tax planning, lending, a rewards program and a debit card that links to agents' commission and revenue share earnings. Company leaders say that the Real Wallet allows agents to access their commissions on the same day as closing while also providing a business line of credit or cash advance based on an agent's assets and production with Real. 

Business lines and cash advances: The company's Chief Technology Officer, Pritesh Damani, describes the Real Wallet as an "embedded finance concept" and told Real Estate News that Real will do all of its own underwriting and lending from its own balance sheet. He said this is possible since Real already has the data on its agents' transaction activity and other assets like stock and revenue share.

However, due to regulatory limitations, Real is only extending business lines of credit to agents in Canada. In the U.S., agents are being offered advances on their revenue share earnings. "We have people that qualify for a few thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars," he said of the business lines being extended to Canadian agents. Real's banking partner for the debit cards is Thread Bank, he said.

While lending from its own balance sheet potentially represents a major risk, the benefit to Real is that agents will leave their money and other assets on Real's books. There's a convenience factor for both agent and brokerage, Damani explained, like how Starbucks stores $1.77 billion of peoples' money in their app purely out of convenience. Except with other consumer debit cards or apps — and unlike Real's offering — "there's no incentive," Damani said, other than convenience. 

Agent adoption and identifying success: Damani declined to disclose the current agent adoption rate, but described the rollout of the Real Wallet as "the most successful launch and the fastest adopted product we've done at Real," and emphasized the yet-to-come rewards points system that company leaders hope will further encourage the widespread adoption of the product.

The rewards program, which will be launched before the end of March, will provide points for transaction activity and the use of the Real debit card. Agents will be able to redeem their points "to offset fees at Real," whether it's for a brokerage split or other fees. The idea, Damani said, is to "get to a point where if you come to Real brokerage, the brokerage is free."

Adoption of the Real Wallet will be the linchpin. "We will make it so that it will make less and less sense to not use the Real Wallet," he said.