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In a sign that mergers continue to dominate 2025, Nebraska-based Elite Real Estate Systems (ERS) on Thursday announced that it is merging with a private investment company and partnering with eXp Realty.
Jeff Cohn
The company’s news includes two parts. First, ERS’ subsidiary ERS Real Estate Group — which is home to about 60 agents — will become a part of eXp Realty. In a statement, ERS CEO Jeff Cohn said that partnering with eXp “puts our agents and teams on a national stage, leveraging eXp’s innovative cloud-based brokerage and vast network.” The statement adds that the company went with eXp to “expand its nationwide footprint.”
And second, ERS is merging with Good Life Capital, which the statement describes as a “private investment firm with over $70 million in assets.” The statement adds that the merger will provide “a broader platform and enhanced financial backing for new ventures, including a forthcoming FinTech platform scheduled to launch in fall 2025.”
The companies did not publicly disclose the financial terms of the merger.
The statement goes on to explain that the platform is designed to create an end-to-end real estate experience and will have features handling mortgage, title, transaction management and more. It’ll also include a CRM for industry professionals. The platform’s goal, the statement adds, is to “eliminate the traditional silos in real estate deals, reducing delays and improving transparency.”
The platform will initially be available within the ERS network before a subsequent wider rollout.
Renee Mueller
In a conversation with Inman, Cohn said the genesis of this week’s news occurred after he and ERS President Renee Mueller started a Keller Williams franchise but eventually realized the greater opportunity was in ancillary businesses. That prompted them to focus on scaling mortgage operations and forming a holding company through which they would build real estate tech products.
“The future wasn’t just a real estate brokerage,” Cohn said, “it was a brokerage powered by a mortgage company and a title company.”
News of ERS’s move comes amid an active time for real estate mergers and acquisitions. In early March, for instance, Keller Williams revealed that it had sold a major stake to private equity firm Stone Point Capital.
Days later, mortgage giant Rocket revealed plans to buy Redfin, then followed that announcement with news that it would also buy Mr. Cooper.
Such deals highlight both investors’ appetite for a piece of the real estate pie, as well as a growing emphasis on an all-in-one platform. Such platforms have been widely discussed for many years in real estate, but have so far been elusive or underwhelming in practice. However, deals such as ERS’s merger with a private investment firm or Rocket’s scooping up of companies suggest industry leaders are currently willing to invest serious resources to finally bring the idea to fruition.
In the case of ERS, the company indicated that it anticipates significant growth on the horizon.
“Together,” Mueller said, referring to ERS and Good Life Capital, “we are well-equipped to seize new opportunities and drive innovation in the real estate sectors.”
