Topical authority for Real Estate classifieds site.

So I have a classified ads site about real estate in my country. Ranking for top 15-25 for main no branded queries. No matter how much links I build it doesn't move from dead point.

On the other hand there is a site which ranks top 3 without any single quality backlinks. But what I spotted on it is that it has mentioned the brands of old players in this industry (Sites which occupy top 10) on homepage. Without hyperlinking , just like xxxx.com plain text.

Could that be that Google considers the top ranking sites already as SEO ENTITIES , cause they have a significant Brand search and already in this game for several years (one of them has 280 000 Brand searches per months). And that site is benefiting of topical authority . Should I also have a text about those brands on homepage so my Topical authority increases ?

Winning the topical authority is not much as easy as it is considered. In my experience if those brand names are targeted as main keywords on the homepage there become some chances to get the topical authority. Produce more and more but relevant content on those keywords and use them as an anchor text there will become some chances to win the topical authority, however its a time taking process.