There’s a clear pattern HousingWire and RealTrends have tracked for years — and the 2026 RealTrends Verified rankings reinforce it — the continued rise of fast-growing, cloud-based, low-fee brokerages.
Houston-based Epique Realty fits that mold, but with a twist, building its model around agent benefits first, then layering in compensation, technology and growth.
The cloud-based brokerage has quickly climbed the ranks of RealTrends Verified’s top brokerages by transaction sides, landing at No.15 among brands in 2025 production after a period of rapid national expansion. But behind that growth is a model that raises familiar questions: Is it sustainable? And can it be replicated?
A benefits-first foundation
Epique’s leadership didn’t start with the goal of building a brokerage, according to Sam Rodriguez, who sits on the board of directors and leads national expansion efforts. Instead, the founders set out to find a brokerage that offered more support for agents — and, failing that, built their own.
“They [the founders] were already all in real estate. They went looking for a brokerage that did more,” Rodriguez said. When they couldn’t find it, the founders — Josh Miller, Christopher Miller and Janice Delcid — built it, focusing on a company benefits stack that couldn’t be beat, he said.
Today, Epique offers more than 90 benefits to agents, including health care-related offerings, transaction coordination, marketing support and even pet insurance coverage. “It was always going to be about 100% supporting the agent,” Rodriguez said.
The approach stands in contrast to traditional brokerage models that have leaned heavily on splits and commission structures — and more recently, to “100% commission” models that reduce costs but offer fewer services.
The sustainability question
The obvious challenge is financial viability. Rodriguez said the company’s structure — built around partnerships and shared revenue streams — is what makes the model work. Epique uses strategic partnerships and revenue-sharing initiatives to offset costs, including a newer program that distributes certain company revenues to agents regardless of production or recruiting activity.
“We’re actually trying to find ways [to] share back, treating the agents like real partners by providing them other streams of income,” he said.
That structure also extends to its compensation model, which includes both revenue share and equity components. The company is preparing for a reverse initial public offering (IPO) in 2026, a move Rodriguez said is designed to strengthen its financial position and provide additional value to agents.
A reverse IPO (often called a reverse merger) is when a private company becomes publicly traded by merging with an existing public company — usually a shell company — so it can skip the traditional IPO process. It’s typically faster and less expensive than a standard IPO but can carry higher risk because the public entity may come with hidden liabilities or less regulatory scrutiny upfront. eXp Realty is another firm that chose this path.
“We’re just trying to get to that level as quickly as possible but in a less expensive manner,” Rodriguez said of the reverse IPO strategy.
Still, skepticism persists — both from agents and competing brokerages. “The No. 1 question we get is how it’s sustainable,” Rodriguez said. “Agents all say it’s too good to be true … and then later on they’re like, ‘OK… it’s all real.’”
Growth without a ‘growth department’
Epique’s rise has been fueled in part by agent attraction — a common lever among cloud-based brokerages — but Rodriguez emphasized that early recruiting focused heavily on experienced teams and small, independent brokerages that could bring immediate production.
“Recruiting always solves everything. But recruiting the right type of people makes the world of a difference,” he said.
At the same time, the company has taken an unusual stance: It does not maintain a formal growth division. Instead, it prioritizes retention, even establishing an internal group focused solely on that metric.
“We don’t have a growth committee. We’re not trying to be the fastest growing on the planet,” Rodriguez said.
That philosophy has also influenced recruiting decisions. Rodriguez said the company has turned away high-producing teams when leadership believed they were not a cultural fit.
“We’d rather protect the culture than bring in that volume at the risk of hurting the rest of our growth,” he said.
Culture as the retention play
If benefits drive initial interest, culture appears to drive retention. Rodriguez said agents often “come for the benefits but stay for the culture,” pointing to collaboration, training and a decentralized leadership structure as key differentiators.
One notable feature is the company’s network of more than 300 area leaders who provide local, in-person support in a largely virtual model. “They’re physically located in each marketplace, helping with training, onboarding and keeping that culture piece intact,” Rodriguez said.
That hybrid approach — cloud-based infrastructure with local touch points — attempts to address a long-standing criticism of virtual brokerages: lack of connection.
Technology and the AI push
While benefits dominate the conversation, Epique is also positioning itself as a tech-forward company, with a focus on internally developed systems and artificial intelligence. Rodriguez described the firm as aiming to be “the first AI real estate brokerage,” supported by proprietary back-office tools and ongoing development efforts.
“We’re building a lot of our own internal tech and our proprietary back-office system,” he said. At the same time, the company is open to acquisitions as it builds out its tech stack.
Where it’s growing — and what’s next
Epique’s strongest footprint remains in Texas, where it launched, followed by Michigan, Florida and California.
The brokerage is now active in roughly 40 states, with additional expansion planned in markets like Atlanta, Seattle and parts of California. “There’s still a lot of room for growth. We’re still a very well-kept secret out there,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez expects continued growth in cloud-based brokerage models, particularly those that combine revenue share, equity incentives and expanded agent services. “I don’t believe we’ve hit the stride yet. There’s a ton of room for growth,” he said.
A model to watch — not copy-paste
For independent brokerages evaluating similar strategies, Rodriguez said the biggest misconception is that the model is simply too expensive to execute. “We get stuck in the mindset, ‘It’s too expensive, it’s never been done before,’” he said.
In reality, he added, it requires building the business differently from the outset — particularly around cost structures and vendor relationships. “If you build the company that way from the beginning, it can be possible,” Rodriguez said.
Whether Epique’s approach becomes a broader industry standard remains an open question. Rodriguez hopes it does. “Our goal wasn’t just to revolutionize it for our agents — it was to push the whole industry to do more,” he said.
But even he acknowledges that replication won’t be simple — especially for legacy firms trying to retrofit benefits into existing models. For now, Epique’s growth suggests there is at least a segment of agents willing to trade traditional structures for a different value proposition.
