Been brutal for real-estate stocks plunging from overhyped or meme-stock valuations amid thick losses, lots of debt, and a frozen housing market: Compass, Redfin, Anywhere Real Estate, eXp, and Douglas Elliman.

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

The stocks of residential real-estate brokerages imploded in recent years, amid thick losses, lots of debt, a still frozen housing market, and overhyped or meme-stock valuations, and those imploded shares got then bought out by other real-estate brokerages whose shares had also imploded, or, in the case of Redfin, by the largest mortgage lender, Rocket. Today there’s another announcement of a real-estate broker with an imploded stock getting bought out by a real-estate broker with an imploded stock.

The two companies, REMAX and Real Brokerage – ticker symbols RMAX and REAX – announced the deal jointly this morning: REMAX, whose shares had imploded by 90% from the peak in October 2017 through Thursday, before trading on deal rumors started, is being acquired by Real, whose shares had imploded by 60% through Thursday. Friday on deal rumors, and today on the announcement, shares of REMAX spiked, and shares of Real plunged further.

On Friday and today combined, REMAX soared by 51% to $9.94, which leaves the stock down by 85% from their all-time high. It has been in our pantheon of Imploded Stocks since late 2023, for which the minimum requirement is a drop of 70% from the all-time high.

Shares of Real Brokerage [REAX] plunged by 23% on Friday and today combined, to $2.02; the stock has now imploded by 70% from its all-time high in August 2024, and thereby made it into our pantheon of Imploded Stocks.

Real, a “technology-powered real estate brokerage” platform, had gone public in 2020 in Canada via merger with a blank-check company – a Capital Pool Company called up there, similar to a SPAC in the US. At first, the shares traded on the TSXV in Canada and over the counter in the US. In June 2021, the stock started trading on the Nasdaq.

Re/MAX Holdings franchises real-estate brokerages in 120 countries under the REMAX brand and mortgage brokerages in the US under the Motto Mortgage brand. REMAX was founded in 1973, and Motto Mortgage was launched in 2016.

Shareholders of Re/MAX Holdings can choose to get paid for each of their shares either $13.80 in cash, or 5.15 shares of the combined company, “Real REMAX Group.”

But, but, but… At today’s price of $9.94, RMAX traded at a big discount to the announced valuation of $13.80 because there’s a limitation to the cash price due there not being enough cash available. According to the deal announcement, the cash payment is “… subject to proration such that the aggregate cash proceeds to RE/MAX Holdings shareholders in the transaction will be no less than $60 million and no greater than $80 million.”

This $80 million cap – limited by available cash – means, if I understand this limitation correctly, that if all shareholders want cash, each one of them is only going to get about a quarter of their shares paid in cash, and the rest in shares of the combined company Real REMAX Group.

Imploded stocks of other real-estate brokerages:

Compass Inc. [COMP] acquired Anywhere Real Estate Inc. The acquisition closed in early 2026. Anywhere Real included the brands of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, CENTURY 21, Coldwell Banker, Coldwell Banker Commercial, Corcoran, ERA, and Sotheby’s International Realty. It made Compass the largest brokerage in the US.

Compass went public in April 2021. On the first day of trading, shares closed at $20.15 and then plunged by 90% over the next 18 months to $2 a share.

Today, at $8.09, it is still down 60% from its all-time high:

eXp World Holdings [EXPI], which includes the brands of eXp Realty, a cloud-based residential real-estate brokerage; eXp Commercial, a cloud-based commercial real-estate brokerage; Zoocasa, a real estate brokerage and search platform; and some other brands, including brands unrelated to the brokerage business.

The stock had its own meme-stock moment in 2020 and 2021. Since that meme-stock peak in February 2021, shares have imploded by 92%:

Douglas Elliman Inc. [DOUG] was spun off by cigarette maker Vector Group in late 2021 and the shares then traded at around $10. Since then, they have plunged by 81%

Imploded stocks of real-estate brokerages that got bought out.

Redfin was acquired in 2025 by Rocket Companies the largest mortgage lender in the US. Redfin shares had peaked in 2021 at $98.44 a share. By 2022, it traded in below $4, having collapsed by about 95%. Rocket bought the company in a deal valued at $12.50 a share, paid in Rocket shares. By the time the deal closed, Redfin shares traded at around $11.

Anywhere Real Estate was acquired by Compass in early 2026, as noted above. It had rebranded in 2022, from its previous name Realogy, trying to stop the plunge. Its shares had peaked at $55 a share in April 2013, and then zigzagged lower. In February 2020, the stock hit $2.09. In 2025, before deal rumors began swirling, it was trading at around and sometimes below $3 a share, down by 95% from the peak. The deal with Compass was valued at about $13.00 a share.

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