Leo Pareja, the new CEO of eXp World Holdings as of announced five minutes ago on stage here at eXp Con. Congratulations. Thanks for being here.
Uh, thank you for the congratulations. Uh, yeah, it's a surreal moment for me.
So, Glenn Sanford, the founder and up till today the CEO of eXp World Holdings, the holding company of eXp Realty, just announced his retirement. What changes for you tomorrow when you are officially, you get your new email address and uh, take over the reins?
This was a very multi-year plan strategy. From the day I joined, he said he's been looking for me. And so, um, it's very much business as usual. I'm very forward-facing with the agents. I think I have a couple new reports starting next week. But other than that, my whole goal is to make sure that we have an asymmetrical opportunity. Meaning, for what agents pay us, we give them a multiple-fold value back with the best-in-class tool, community, collaboration, technology. Uh, so, as far as I'm concerned, it's business as usual, and I'm going to keep doing what I keep doing.
So, it sounds like not much change. Like you're still, you've always been in the day-to-day operations running eXp. And that's still going to be your focus with, again, like you said, a few additional reports. Is there anything else that I'm missing or...
No, but the timing works well. Uh, we just shifted from only being eXp to now being a multi-model, multi-brand platform. So, we now have Next Home. Um, and we, you know, with the market doing what it's doing, you know, you may have heard me say it on earnings calls like we're open to any opportunity that makes sense. Um, if you heard my context speech at uh, the main stage, we're going into a rough season. We're going to probably sell somewhere between 3.9 to 4.1 million transactions for the foreseeable future.
Not just this year. Cuz it's interesting, agents watching this are going to say we're going into a tough season.
It's continued. I know that's the correct framing because every economist keeps hoping and quoting we're going back to normal, right? 5 million, 5 and a half million transactions. This is the third year at 4 million transactions. And so, the message I just shared with everybody is this is the new normal for the foreseeable future. Right? The mix of affordability, supply, demand, and the tough macro, it's why we've seen agent count at the NAR level decrease for the last three years in a row. And what's happening is it's separation season. We have agents doing their absolute best years ever. I was at the military luncheon yesterday and there was a gentleman who retired from uh, the military and did 90 units last year, and he's on pace to do 150 this year. Fayetteville, North Carolina military market. Um, so, there are agents winning, and those are the ones that are putting in the work, focusing on the systems, and making sure that they're serving customers in this confusing time. This is not order-taking market like 2021. You have to advise, weigh out the pros and cons, be creative, whether that's helping the seller offer a credit to buy down rates with a lender that knows how to do that. Making sure you uncover all the opportunities with potential new construction in your market. Um, and so, that's where we're here to support.
You talked on stage about like the psychology of certain headlines, right? NAR releases a survey, they say the new median, the new normal buyer, first-time home buyer is 40-plus, and you mentioned how that could have been a little misleading, that could have been better data, but it had an effect. So, that must have stuck with you because, you know, a 30-year-old buyer thinks, oh, it's not time for me cuz that would be abnormal. If we hit, not to shift it up too much, if we hit 3.9 million, what kind of effect does that have on the psyche of potential buyers that say, 'Oh, nobody's buying right now. It's a terrible time to buy. We're going to wait for the home prices to go...'
I think the psyche at the 3.9 million transactions, the psyche of the agent is more hurt than the homeowners and home buyers, right? I've never spoken to a buyer in my 15 years of selling real estate that said, you know, 'How many homes sold this year to make a buying decision?' At the end of the day, it was always like, 'My wife's pregnant. We're expecting our second child. My kids are out of the house. They just moved out. Me and my husband have this big house. We want to go down to Florida. Or we want to move to Utah to be closer to family.' And that's what drives human condition. That's what drives behavior. So, the conversation I'm having all over the country is, 'Make sure you understand why they need to move and give them the correct information so they can make the best decision for their family.'
And what I heard from you on stage, too, was, you know, a goal you were setting for agents tomorrow or starting Monday. Start posting for 30 days, 90 days, whatever. It sounds like social, uh, being out front, being in public, letting buyers or sellers find you by being proactive about having a strategy of consistently being public, right? Is kind of a focus you said, 'Let's start 2027 strong by doing that.' Is that kind of a playbook that you're hoping to use...
Absolutely. We had Gary Vaynerchuk as our keynote yesterday and he said it probably with a little bit more emphasis than I did.
He was amazing. He was amazing. So, um, to quote my good friend Jared James, 'Visibility trumps ability.' 'Visibility trumps ability.' I think everyone can relate to as an agent of that one agent in your office who probably knows more about the contract than anyone, right? They're an expert. They know every paragraph. But then there's that one agent in your office who's probably only been licensed for 12 months and is crushing it. And they actually are flying by the seat of their pants and they really don't know what they're doing, but they're loud and they're in conversations talking to people. And so, um, by the way, that's what I demonstrate for agents every day. I'm not sure if you follow me on social. I'm very loud on social. It's very tactical. And I can't tell you the amount of team leader solos, independent brokerages who've joined us. And when they meet me they said, 'Hey, you were acting as if you were my CEO before I ever joined the company.' And so, again, that's just what I'm modeling for them. You need to act as you are already their trusted advisor prior to them going on the market or starting the home buying process. And I give them very tactical examples like, for example, every Friday make a commitment or Wednesday or whatever cadence you want where you update your local market, that market you serve, with something. Good example would be like find the best-priced single-family home in your local zip code and just go live from that property every day and go, 'Hey guys, this week this is the deal in 33143.' And by the way, if you DM me, I can show you a down payment assistance program where you can be in this home as a first-time home buyer with maybe a thousand dollars out of pocket. Right? Imagine you do that every single week, 52 weeks a year. What's going to happen is whether they're following you or they have a cousin, a family member who's like, 'Wait, they can afford that. They can actually make that work.' And then that's a whole different thing than, you know, trying to convert someone who's following you to let you sell them a house.
Does eXp do some of this for eXp agents by the way? Cuz I've seen some agents who I follow on social that it's, you know, the deal of the week or the...
Well, no, it's not done for you. Um, it's kind of like having a coach at the gym. You still have to lift the dumbbells. I can't do it for you, Taylor. You have to lift the weights. But like if you heard, we actually in the university interviewed some of top agents and we actually created a calendar for all 365 days with ideas, the hooks, the graphics to use, but I still need them to do it and make it local and make it their own. So, I'll give a shout-out to Sharran. Right? When Sharran took over Real, he was everywhere. And um, I was like, I need to, I can't beat Sharran at being Sharran. I never will. He's got this energy. He's like, we're good friends. But I can beat Sharran at being Leo. And by the way, anyone can beat me at being themselves. And I think that's the message I want to say to agents like find the most authentic version of you, right? You were just telling me you were elk hunting and I told you I like spear fishing. Like, uh, there's an agent in South Florida who is an avid hunter and most of his content is about hunting and fishing. And I think his handle is Florida Man Realtor. Mike Mance, I'll throw him a shout-out.
Yeah. Uh, Mike Mance from the West Coast of Florida. And like a lot of people follow him for that, for the thing that he's passionate about, and he absolutely crushes it as a luxury agent.
I see that a lot. There's almost like there are scripts. You can go out and get them. Maybe some brokers just provide them to their agents, but you know, over time as a scroller on Instagram, you see the format well of people not being themselves. Of people saying, 'Okay, I'm going to do this script. Which neighborhood is which dog breed in Salt Lake City, Utah?' And I'm like, 'Oh, great. Like more slop.'
So, this is what I'll say, Taylor. I think we underestimate ourselves as sophisticated consumers. Right? Anytime an agent corners me and goes, 'Will this work?' I'm like, 'Would it work on you? Will you scroll past it?' Right? This belly feeling, it's always been there. Do you remember fist-fighting your siblings to pick up the phone in the kitchen?
With the, you know, avocado green cable?
Like if someone calls you and they don't know you, it's offensive now. But we used to fight to pick up the phone. Right? And you remember how exciting email was?
Right? When's the last time you like got excited to go in your junk folder?
And social's the same way. Right? When you see a piece of content that the graphic, you know, it's generated by an LLM, or the words, it's the spacing, the hyphens, the emojis. I fundamentally believe, this is just my thesis, the reason we have that human reaction is because we value time above anything. And so, subconsciously, we ascribe value because you put time into it. It is the reason why this feels different than you just watching a YouTube video I made. Right? We're sitting here, you're going to ask me questions. And it goes for every interaction in life.
So, I'll give you a prediction. Like it's, you know, I get to be right or wrong on camera all the time.
