The rise of the real estate team is an industry trend that’s here to stay.

According to REAL Trends’ 2016 Real Estate Teams Playbook, there are currently 35,000 to 50,000 real estate teams in the U.S., and the number of teams is increasing at a “rapid rate.”

A recent survey conducted by REAL Trends and dotloop, Boom Town, and ERA Real Estate revealed that 41 percent of teams have four to nine team members. Two-to-three team members came in at a close second (39 percent).

The same survey also examined the average age of today’s real estate teams, and found that the largest share of those surveyed are only one to three years old. But the teams that tended to handle the most transactions per year had been around for longer: REAL Trends found that teams that are at least 10 years old handle an average 187 leads per year, compared to the average of 139 leads for teams four to seven years old and 89 leads handled by teams one to three years old.

As the prospect of strength in numbers appeals to more and more agents, they will need to get a sense for the politics of playing on a team, the different ways that real estate teams can be structured, and the pros and cons of each.