Facing a new set of challenges and confronting a vastly different real estate landscape, eXp Realty is turning to one of its own for leadership, as Chief Strategy Officer Leo Pareja takes the reins as CEO, aiming to push the fast-evolving virtual-focused brokerage into a new era.
The CEO role had previously been occupied by Glenn Sanford, who will be stepping back to continue serving as Founder, Chair and CEO of eXp Holdings, the parent company of eXp Realty. Sanford had previously taken a break from leading the brokerage side of his businesses from 2019 to 2023, while Jason Gesing led eXp Realty.
In an exclusive interview with RISMedia, Pareja says that he is most looking forward to ensuring eXp remains “frictionless” and a “platform for real estate entrepreneurs to build any size dream they want.”
“I’m very excited to have the opportunity to lead. I was born and raised into the industry, I got licensed at 19. This is an industry I love dearly, and I’m excited to be able to give our agents the support they need to get through this shift. I’m ready to go,” Pareja said.
Pareja joined eXp in 2022 after 20 years as an agent—mostly with Keller Williams—and also boasts significant experience in the MLS sector, having founded and led tech vendor Remine, as well as in real estate financing as the founder of Washington Capital Partners, which specializes in refinances and flips.
Pareja also served as president of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP) back in 2017.
Now, faced with a massively evolved market and housing environment, Pareja will be tasked with navigating potentially more fundamental shifts in the industry, as the National Association of REALTORS’® (NAR) recent settlement in commission lawsuits threatens to upend how real estate businesses operate.
Speaking to his status as an “elder millennial” as well as someone with leadership experience in these real estate adjacent businesses, Pareja says a lot of his abilities and skills were built from necessity, formulated around adaptation as he built businesses during the Great Recession.
“I feel that I’ve rounded all the bases in the real estate universe,” he says. “It’s actually very related to this moment, because there are unintended consequences to what’s about to happen with the NAR settlement that we’re not aware of yet.”
He adds that he also understands the weight of this moment, and that agents are going to be looking for “calm, confident leadership.” He says that he received emotional messages in the last few weeks, including from people who showed “very transparent fear.”
“I got messages that said, ‘I’m a single parent, this is how I feed my family and I’m terrified that I’m not going to be able to do that going forward.’ I look at it as a moment to act quickly, calmly and very pragmatically. I don’t want to sound rah rah. I just want to get tactical, and say this is what you need for this new process.”
eXp is rolling out state-specific buyer agency agreements, working with legal counsel and local REALTOR® associations, with Pareja characterizing this as the kind of substantive help agents need right now.
There are other near-term issues for eXp, with the company facing separate lawsuits from current and former agents accusing the company of covering up sexual assaults by recruiters (eXp has denied the allegations, claiming it quickly removed “bad actors” when allegations came to light).
Asked how he will help current and prospective agents feel safe, Pareja again emphasized that the company has “no tolerance” for the kind of behavior alleged in the lawsuits.
“We take it super seriously, have zero tolerance for it. We have set up processes and systems and ways to look and react swiftly. We have absolutely no tolerance for that,” Pareja says.
The long term future of eXp is bright but still uncertain. eXp saw exponential growth during the pandemic, with its virtual environment (agents operate in a metaverse space rather than a physical office) and heavy emphasis on recruitment resulting in the company more than tripling its agent count between 2019 and 2022.
In the years following, executives have mostly said they are doubling down on that business model, investing more in its proprietary virtual reality tech and continuing to build agent growth
Exactly how that translates to a post-pandemic economy will be a complex process, though Pareja offers his own vision and priorities:
“We’re the largest brokerage…by both agent count and transaction count. I’m obsessed with operational excellence,” he says. “I’m obsessed with refining that, and making eXp more simple to use and easy to work with.”
