RISMedia: Four Decades as Real Estate's News and Information Service
RISMedia is an independent real estate media company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, that publishes news, research and business intelligence for residential real estate professionals in the United States. Through its flagship Real Estate magazine, its daily online news service at rismedia.com, its newsletters, its annual Power Broker Report and a calendar of industry events, RISMedia supplies brokers, agents and industry leaders with the market information and strategy coverage they use to run their businesses. It also licenses content to brokerages, agents and multiple listing services for use on their own websites, blogs and newsletters.
The company describes itself as the residential real estate industry's definitive source for news and information, a positioning it has held since its founding. In a fragmented trade media market, that longevity is the story: RISMedia has covered the housing industry continuously since 1980, through booms, the financial crisis housing collapse, the pandemic-era surge and the commission and settlement changes that reshaped brokerage economics in the mid-2020s.
Overview
RISMedia's audience is professional rather than consumer. Its readers are the owners, brokers, managers, top-producing agents and service providers who run residential brokerage businesses, together with the associations and technology companies that serve them. Its coverage therefore concentrates on brokerage leadership, business strategy, market trends, technology, regulation and the economics of buying and selling homes, rather than on property listings for the public.
The company operates a multi-platform model. Print and digital editions of Real Estate magazine carry leadership and strategy features. The website publishes daily news and a searchable archive of thousands of articles. Email newsletters deliver breaking coverage to a large subscriber base. Research products, led by the Power Broker Report, benchmark the largest brokerages in the country. Events and awards programmes, including the CEO and Leadership Exchange and the Real Estate Newsmakers honours, turn that readership into a professional community that meets, and is recognised, in person.
History and Founding
RISMedia was founded in 1980 by John E. Featherston, who remains its chief executive and publisher and is also described by the company as its founder and president. The company's own history states that Featherston created RISMedia as the definitive news and information source for real estate's most profitable and productive professionals, and for those seeking a competitive edge. That founding focus on the top of the market, the brokers and high-performing agents who set industry direction, still defines its editorial and commercial identity.
Over more than four decades the company expanded from its publishing base into research, events and content services. Its history page lists the products that accumulated around the magazine: the online news service, the daily email news broadcast, the annual Power Broker Report and Survey, a monthly Power Broker newsletter, and customised content solutions for brokerages and MLSs. Later additions included the Housecall blog, the premium RISMedia Premier membership, virtual events such as Real Estate's Rocking in the New Year and the Newsmakers awards programme launched in 2018. Each addition followed the same logic: package trusted industry information in the format a segment of the professional audience wanted next.
Ownership and Leadership
RISMedia presents itself as a leading independent media company, and its leadership is inseparable from its founder. John Featherston has been the public face of the business throughout its history: he is quoted as chief executive in its national announcements, hosts and addresses its events, and personally frames the findings of its research, including his assessment of broker sentiment in the 2025 Power Broker release. Few American trade publishers have kept the same founder-publisher in place for more than forty years, and that continuity is part of the brand's authority with brokerage leaders.
Executive editor and events leadership appear in the company's coverage through figures such as Maria Patterson, photographed presenting at the 2026 Awards Gala alongside Featherston, but the company's public materials consistently centre ownership and editorial direction on Featherston himself. For researchers, the verified picture is of an independent, founder-led company headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut, serving a national professional market.
Publications, News and Services
Real Estate magazine is RISMedia's flagship publication, issued monthly in print and digital editions and covering brokerage leadership, business strategies and industry trends, with current and archived issues maintained by the publisher. Online, rismedia.com publishes daily real estate news and market updates and maintains a searchable archive of thousands of articles. The company's Daily e-News newsletter broadcasts breaking industry news each day to more than 250,000 subscribers, according to its company history, making email one of its largest distribution channels.
Beyond its own titles, RISMedia sells content as a service. Its Customized Content Solutions, described in its history materials as content platforms for broker-owners, agents and MLSs, supply articles for client websites, blogs and newsletters and can be used as an agent-facing marketing platform, a recruiting tool and a way for a brokerage to differentiate itself to consumers. Its premium tier, RISMedia Premier, offers members exclusive research, in-depth analysis, educational resources and on-demand webinars, including full access to flagship research such as the complete Power Broker rankings. That licensing and membership business is why RISMedia fits an agencies and information services directory as well as a magazine directory: other businesses publish its content under their own brands.
The Power Broker Report
The Power Broker Report and Survey is RISMedia's best-known research product, described by the company as the industry's most comprehensive report ranking the top 1,000 or more United States brokerages by transaction sides and sales volume. The 2025 edition was the 37th annual report, based on the company's longstanding survey of leading firms and ranking companies primarily by 2024 sales volume and secondarily by transactions. RISMedia reported that the top 1,000 firms collectively increased sales volume by more than 100 billion dollars year over year despite recording more than 23,000 fewer transactions, a pattern it read as evidence of rising prices and scarce inventory.
The report functions as both journalism and industry infrastructure. Brokerages use their rankings in marketing and recruiting, the full list and year-over-year statistics are a headline benefit of Premier membership, a monthly Power Broker e-newsletter advises top brokers on business building and wealth management, and the ranked firms are honoured at RISMedia's Annual Awards Gala held with the CEO and Leadership Exchange. Featherston's commentary on the 2025 results, noting broker optimism tempered by uncertainty after a year of historic industry change, shows the publisher acting as an interpreter of its own data for the profession.
Events and the Newsmakers Programme
Events are a major RISMedia service line. Its calendar has included the CEO and Leadership Exchange, the Power Broker Forum, the Newsmakers Reception and Dinner and Annual Awards Gala, the virtual Real Estate's Rocking in the New Year and Spring Into Action. The CEO and Leadership Exchange is the flagship gathering: its 38th annual edition was scheduled for 30 September to 2 October 2026 at the Fairmont Georgetown in Washington, D.C., with the Awards Gala held during it. The Power Broker Forum has traditionally been staged alongside the National Association of REALTORS legislative meetings, putting RISMedia's broker discussions inside the industry's policy calendar.
The Real Estate Newsmakers programme, launched with an inaugural awards dinner in 2018 at the National Press Club in Washington, honours individuals making headline contributions to the industry. Honourees are nominated by readers and editors and organised into categories that have included Influencers, Trailblazers, Futurists, Achievers, Crusaders, Inspirations, Luminaries and Trendsetters. A select Hall of Fame recognises long-standing icons. The 2026 programme, the ninth annual showcase, honoured more than 300 individuals announced on 3 February 2026, with Hall of Fame inductees Richard Haggerty of OneKey MLS, Mike Hickman of Seven Gables Real Estate, Emmett Laffey of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Laffey International Realty, Marki Lemons Ryhal of ReMarkiTable and Steve Morris of EXIT Realty, inducted at the October 2026 gala.
Coverage Areas and Audience
RISMedia's coverage is national in scope and residential in focus. It reports on brokerage business across the United States, from national policy, mortgage and settlement developments that affect every market to the strategies of regional and national firms. Its daily news service addresses the full professional chain, brokers, agents, team leaders, MLS executives, association leaders and the technology and service providers around them, and its stated purpose is to help those professionals stay competitive, adapt to market shifts and find growth opportunities.
Distribution reach is anchored by the daily newsletter's more than 250,000 subscribers, the magazine's professional circulation, the website's news audience and the hundreds of brokerage leaders who attend its events and appear in its rankings and awards. Because its licensed content is republished on brokerage and agent websites and newsletters nationwide, RISMedia copy reaches consumers indirectly as well, far beyond its own subscriber counts.
Digital Platforms
RISMedia's digital operation centres on rismedia.com, which combines daily news, the magazine's content, research products, event information and the Newsmakers showcase directories. The 2026 Newsmakers, for example, are presented in an online directory on the site as well as in the spring issue of Real Estate magazine. Email remains a first-class platform through the Daily e-News and the monthly Power Broker newsletter, while Premier delivers members research, analysis and on-demand webinars digitally and virtual events such as Rocking in the New Year extend the events business online.
The Housecall blog, cited in the company's earlier descriptions of its online offer, illustrates its consumer-adjacent digital content: material written so that agents can share it with clients and prospects. That blend, professional news for the trade and shareable content agents can pass on, is the digital expression of the company's dual role as publisher and content supplier.
Recent Developments
RISMedia's recent record shows a business still expanding its franchises. The 37th Power Broker Report in 2025 documented a market working through historic structural change while top firms grew volume, and its findings were released to national wire distribution. The Newsmakers programme continued to grow, with the 2026 class exceeding 300 honourees and a new Hall of Fame group inducted at the 38th CEO and Leadership Exchange in Washington in the autumn of 2026. Planning for the following cycle was already visible in company materials explaining the 2027 Hall of Fame and gala arrangements.
Founded in Norwalk in 1980, RISMedia remains what its founder set out to build: an independent, professional information service for the people who run America's residential real estate businesses. Its combination of a monthly magazine, daily news, benchmark research, licensed content, premium membership and national events makes it one of the longest-lived specialist media companies in the housing industry, and a reference point for how that industry measures and celebrates itself.
