Grateful for the Recognition — And for What It Took to Get Here

I got some good news this month:  I've been named 2026 RealTrends Verified, ranked 40th among individual producers in the state of Florida and 2nd in the city of Jacksonville.

I want to be honest about what that number means to me, because I don't think a ranking is worth much without the story behind it.

I've been a licensed real estate agent in Jacksonville since 2004 when I started selling homes for Pulte Homes.  Before that badge existed, before any of the rankings, there were a lot of ordinary days that didn't feel like they were building toward anything — showings that led nowhere, deals that fell apart at the inspection, contracts I rewrote at midnight because something changed at the last minute. Real estate rewards people who keep showing up on the days nobody's watching, and I've tried to be that person for over two decades now.

RealTrends Verified isn't a popularity contest or a marketing badge you can buy your way into.  It's built off actual closed transaction data - MLS records, title company reports, brokerage filings - all verified against real production. That's part of why it means something to me. It's not a story I told about myself. It's a reflection of the work, checked against the record.

I also want to be straightforward about something, because I think it matters more than the ranking itself: this number isn't 40 or 75 individual families who each sat across the table from me negotiating their next chapter, one at a time, though plenty of those transactions are exactly that, and those are the ones I think about most. Like most agents who do meaningful volume, my business is a mix — individual buyers and sellers I've worked with directly, repeat clients who've trusted me more than once, referrals from people who vouched for me to someone they cared about, and longer-term professional relationships that make up a meaningful part of the count too. I'd rather tell you that plainly than let a number imply something that isn't quite the full picture. The families I've sat with, negotiated for, and helped move into the next season of their lives — those are still the relationships this whole business is built on for me, and they're the ones I care about protecting.

What I'm actually proud of isn't the rank. It's what building toward it required. It required getting comfortable being uncomfortable — cold outreach when I had no idea if anyone would answer, systems I built and rebuilt when the old ones stopped working, and enough humility to keep learning this business even after a decade in it. Jacksonville's market has changed more than once since 2004, and staying relevant meant I had to change with it instead of getting attached to how things used to work.  That ain't always easy!

None of this happened alone, either. My family has absorbed a lot of the odd hours and late-night contract calls that come with this job, and I don't take that for granted. The people at RE/MAX, the lenders, title agents, inspectors, and contractors I lean on to get deals across the finish line — every one of them is part of this number, even though only my name is on the ranking.

If you're a client of mine reading this, past or present: thank you for trusting me with something as significant as your home, whether that was the first house you ever bought or a waterfront property you'd been dreaming about for years. If you referred someone to me, thank you for putting your own name behind mine. That's not something I take lightly.

Where I'm headed next is more specific than "keep doing what I'm doing." I've been narrowing my focus toward Northeast Florida's waterfront market — the neighborhoods, the inventory, and the buyers and sellers who live for the water the same way I do (or want to do). This recognition is a nice marker of where the business has been. What I actually care about is building something that keeps earning it, one relationship at a time, for a long time to come.

Thank you for being part of the story so far.

— Brad