Above, right, eXp Realty CEO Leo Pareja with RISMedia Founder and CEO John Featherston at RISMedia’s 37th Annual CEO & Leadership Exchange Sept. 4.
Kicking off day two of RISMedia’s 37th Annual CEO & Leadership Exchange in Washington, D.C., eXp Realty CEO Leo Pareja outlined where he sees the real estate industry headed, from listing policies to AI-driven change, while reminding brokers and agents to keep their focus on consumers.
Touching on the heated debate around private listings, Pareja pointed to his own experience as an agent and broker. Though he fully believes in consumer choice, along with privacy concerns, Pareja said there’s always been a way to address those concerns.
“Maybe five times in the 4,000 homes I sold did somebody say ‘You can’t put it on the MLS—and by the way, it’s because I’m a federal judge,’” he explains. “But the concept of ‘it’s private, but then I’m going to show it on the website’ is bull****. So it’s private until it’s not. Just give it to everybody on the same day.”
Also clarifying his stance on aligning with Zillow on listing standards, Pareja emphasized that the issue is about consumer choice rather than platform loyalty.
“I’ll give the same data to Redfin and Homes.com, Realtor.com and everybody else who wants it,” he told the audience.
But after a brief reference to the Clear Cooperation debate—which he noted kicked off in earnest almost exactly a year ago at RISMedia’s 2024 CEO & Leadership Exchange, where Compass CEO Robert Reffkin called for a repeal or major changes to the policy —Pareja moved on to discuss his own company and the current market.
On company direction, Pareja noted that there is one rule Glenn Sanford—CEO of eXp World Holdings—told him that he always goes back to: Building the most agent-centric company on the planet.
“The agent is the center of my world. I’m not a franchise owner. I’m not the best fit for broker-owners. I’m the best fit for practitioners, and all my systems are obsessing over delivering that experience.”
When it comes to the housing market, Parjea acknowledged the shifting expectations.
“In Q4 of 2024, I said I was cautiously optimistic that (in 2025) we would beat 2024 by 10%. I’ve revised that to hopefully, we end up where we were last year,” he told the packed audience Thursday morning.
He noted how big a win it is to be “flat in a year where everyone’s actually sliding.”
Moving on to technology and artificial intelligence, Pareja urged agents to embrace these new tools rather than fear them.
“Every technology I’ve experienced is overhyped in the short term, so what you’re hearing about AI is a lot of hype—but most things that are underhyped in the long term,” he said. “We’re probably in one of the most interesting tech revolutions I’ve seen in 20 years. Just stay in curiosity, and don’t do it from…fear of being replaced.”
