Above, from left, Matt Widdows, founder and CEO, HomeSmart, Anthony Lamacchia, broker/owner and CEO, Lamacchia Realty, Inc., DeAnn Golden, president and CEO, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Georgia Properties and Tracy Hutton, CEO and owner, CENTURY 21 Scheetz. Photo by AJ Canarla.
News coverage—both from mainstream media and real estate organizations—tends to focus on national trends. But the old adage of real estate as a deeply local industry requires focus and expertise by leaders in their individual geographic kingdoms.
At RISMedia’s CEO & Leadership Exchange, a panel moderated by RISMedia Founder and CEO John Featherston discussed specific, local challenges and how each leader has rolled with the punches in what has (mostly been) a less-than-stellar market.
The panel included Lamacchia Realty Owner/Broker/CEO Anthony Lamacchia; Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Georgia Properties President and CEO DeAnn Golden; Century 21 Scheetz CEO and Owner Tracy Hutton; and HomeSmart Founder and CEO Matt Widdows.
Kicking off the panel, Featherston asked participants how they are seeing national trends playing out in their local marketplaces.
Regional landscape
Lamacchia—who’s firm spans across several states including Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Florida—said the market has been a “slow couple of weeks” across the MLS.
“The rates went up to seven and a half percent,” he said. “We noticed that it has been much slower with pendings, inventory’s going up, listings sitting… Now people are learning the realities of real estate.”
In response to the elevated inflation and global tensions pushing prices higher, the Federal Reserve recently voted to increase rates by a quarter of a percentage point. Concerns surrounding gas and energy prices, tariffs and creeping mortgage rates have led many of the panelists to agree that 2026 has been a difficult year for real estate.
“Obviously this year didn’t turn out the way that it was shaping up to be in the beginning of the year,” Lamacchia continued. “Four million home sales is what we’re on track for this year. We’ve had that the last three years. I’m hoping we can be a little better than that, but either way, we can live and we can do a lot of business off of four million home sales nationally. So I feel very grateful to be in a business that never stops. It may slow down, but our business never stops.”
Moving to warmer climates, Golden said that the state is following alongside national trends, but is settling into a comfortable pace.
“We’re going to see another year where we’re about 50,000 sales under the peak of 2021 across Georgia,” she said. “But for the first time, we are finally getting back to that steady equilibrium. I say we’re pulling back on the velocity and that’s a good thing. We’re going back to a sustainable and healthy market.”
Hutton—who’s company serves Indiana and primarily Indianapolis—noted that the Midwest feels economic repercussions slower than other regions.
“We get to watch what a lot of you are experiencing in other parts of the country before it ever hits our marketplace,” she said. “I know you suffer first and you suffer longer than we do in the Midwest, which is a gift for us. We don’t experience extreme highs or extreme lows. So we have seen a bit of normalization just over the past 60 days. We’re not seeing things drastically change.”
Looking at a much bigger picture, Widdows stated that HomeSmart operates in 49 states, and can feel economic headwinds from all directions.
“The market sucks. Let’s be realistic. It’s the worst we’ve seen in years,” Widdows noted. “And now with rates above seven and a half, it’s a little bit more challenging, but successful people and successful enterprises find successful ways to compete and to continue going forward.”
Culture above all else
To combat high rates and a market being squeezed by economic uncertainty, each panelist agreed that company culture, drive and relational emphasis keeps them afloat during rough storms (similar to the nor’easter last week).
Golden emphasized the fact that her firm “had the privilege of bringing home over 4,600, not just people, but opportunities.”
We’ve had a strategy of growing based on culture—and that’s something you can buy market share, but you can’t buy belonging. You have to build it,” she continued. “You have to be able to show it every day when you’re not in the room. What are people saying right now when I’m here? What’s happening with the fabric of our people that rise every day to support our agents and make them successful and build sustainable businesses for them?”
Hutton also focuses on culture and how leaders must lead their teams to success. When describing strong leadership, Hutton mentioned Curt Cignetti’s influence on Indiana University’s football team as their head coach. She likened hiring agents to drafting a D1 football team.
“(Curt Cignetti) completely changed (IU Athletics) culture… we have to constantly be looking at how we are attracting talent to our organizations, not just bodies to our organization,” she said. “This industry, to be honest, has been about how do we attract just bodies? And we’ve got to set—like Curt Cignetti did—what is the standard.”
She goes further and describes a culture of quality of quantity. “We have to clearly be articulating that because people either contribute to the energy, forward thinking and success, or they steal and waste our time. We have to protect the resources that we put in place in our brokerage from that.”
Instilling an efficient company culture does not stop at just human elements. Widdows pointed out that having a strong operational structure is the backbone of any nation-wide firm.
“I hate to say it, but AI is a big part of it. The things that we can do today utilizing AI and MCPs and all the other things that go with it are things that we couldn’t even begin to do without a ton of resources two years ago or a year ago even. It’s changing dynamically right now. And if you’re not changing with it, you’re probably going to be left behind.”
Future challenges
Moving forward, Widdows noted that he’s seeing a lot of consolidation taking place because of how costly new technologies are.
“It takes money, size and scale to be able to adopt those things and to implement them. I think that’s the challenge going forward for smaller entities that aren’t part of something larger as well,” he said.
Hutton saw demographic changes as both a challenge and opportunity. In her Midwestern marketplace, Hutton now sees many households of just one to two people, along with “trailing” parents and grandparents who are moving to where their children are.
She also reminisced about her first apartment after graduating, and recalled how housing changes as generations go by.
“I remember my father-in-law saying, ‘I can’t believe you get air conditioning, we didn’t have air conditioning.’ Now we’re saying to our kids, ‘You get granite countertops, you get these golf simulators, you get all this stuff,’” she continued. ”Then when they go to buy their first house on their budget, they don’t want to leave the apartment lifestyle. So, we have that working against us when we talk about encouraging these first-time homebuyers to enter the market. Those are all challenges, but also opportunities.”
Lamacchia, on the other hand, sees challenges as opportunities to learn. One opportunity he mentioned is the higher rates of housing inventory, which now sits at 1.62 million—or a 4.9-month supply of unsold inventory—in the latest data by the National Association of Realtors®.
“In 2008, we would’ve been thrilled to have two showings in a month. That is a big opportunity because whatever problem is going on in the market is a training opportunity and an educational opportunity, which becomes an attractive opportunity,” he stated.
Although 2026 has not made conditions easy for homebuyers, sellers or agents, each of the panelists seemed optimistic about where real estate will go in the upcoming future.
“Today we are bringing incredible complete real estate experiences,” Golden concluded. “Our agents got away from learning how to price properties. They got away from learning how to prepare properties and position properties, the basic tenants of what we’ve done for years. There’s such an opportunity for us to break through by going back.”
Despite hopeful outlooks, Widdows did warn audience members that the future is uncertain.
“We can’t control what’s going to happen. We have to be ready for whatever eventualities may happen. We have to move forward aggressively but be cautious,” Widdows said.
