Photo by AJ Canaria
RISMedia editors are reporting live this week from the company’s 2026 CEO & Leadership Exchange, taking place September 30 – October 2 at the Georgetown Fairmont Hotel in Washington, D.C. The iconic event gathers the industry’s most influential Power Brokers, franchise executives, MLS leaders, top agent teams and real estate experts to discuss strategies and solutions for successfully moving forward during this period of rapid change and challenge.
The 38th annual production of the iconic event features more than 100 speakers taking part in 30-plus presentations and panel discussions over the course of the two-and-a-half-day conference. Presenters and panelists will cover a wide range of pressing topics, including consolidation, AI, new competition, next threats, listing data, MLS evolution, affordability, recruiting and retention, and brokerage growth to name just a few.
Follow along with us by bookmarking this page to catch the latest live updates from the event, including key speaker sound bites, breaking news, special announcements and more.
Thursday, Oct. 1
2:15 p.m. ET
eXp Realty and NextHome CEOs Discuss the Benefits and Challenges of Acquisition
eXp Realty® CEO Leo Pareja and NextHome President James Dwiggins joined RISMedia’s John Featherston on stage to discuss their recent merger and strategic vision for the future of brokerage growth, agent value and the evolving competitive landscape.
“Our thesis for acquisition is actually human based, so if we like and see really cool, smart, on-brand folks, we try to do business with them,” said Pareja. “So the combination for us solved a really specific pain point.”
11:15 a.m. ET
Setting the Standard: William Raveis President Chris Raveis Inspires Leaders Around Client-First Decisions and the Future of Successful Brokerages
Chris Raveis, president of Connecticut-based William Raveis Real Estate took to the stage this morning with a motivational message for real estate executives: Hold yourself to a higher standard.
“We’ve been through a lot of change in the last 10 years. We’ve had a global pandemic, the NAR settlement. We have historic low inventory, rising interest rates. And there’s been a lot of tough times we as leaders have had to navigate. Decisions that you’ve all made in the past several years have been tough, but they’ve tested you and it’s helped you define the organization that you have today,” he told the audience on day two of RISMedia’s CEO & Leadership Exchange.
He urged real estate leaders as they plan for the future in a still-challenging real estate market with agents’ and their families and their clients’ lives at stake, to base all decision-making around a higher standard.
To support his message, Raveis shared examples of business leaders who’ve made both right and wrong calls amid national news events such as the Martha Stewart SEC insider trading scandal in the early 2000s and the product-tampering scare with Tylenol 1982, as well as his own personal customer service experiences at different airlines with lost luggage. Raveis said cutting corners may be easier and faster but doing the right thing is always ultimately the smart thing in business.
“In every single circumstance, it’s easier to cut corners. But what we do, it defines how people trust us and everyone’s watching. Our agents, our employees, our clients, it all matters. And it’s a long-term play to build the strongest reputation that you can possibly build. And that is what you can really monetize long-term.”
He added: “With all these different headlines back and forth–what model are you going to use? What technique are you going to use to help flank your competitor? Think about building trust. Think about taking that higher road and having a higher standard in the decision-making across your entire organization, and that’s the culture of your company. That builds reputation. The higher standard becomes your ultimate strategy.”
10:40 a.m. ET
The Listing Evolution and What It Means for Brokerage Business
Amid widespread shifts and changes to how listings are shared—and who controls them—some of the biggest names on both the MLS and brokerage side shared some very nuanced perspectives on what is often a polarizing and fear-focused topic.
Chris Kelly, CEO of HomeServices, said explicitly that a national MLS was a bad idea, comparing it to a national homeowners association.
“Think about what a pain in the ass it is to deal with your HOA in your neighborhood, right? Imagine if you had to do that at the federal level,” he said, adding that local MLSs are a “vital” part of the real estate ecosystem.
Richard Haggerty, CEO of New York’s OneKey MLS, went back to MLS mission and mandate, saying that MLSs need to start with just listening to members.
“MLS should not be in the ‘say no’ business,” he argued, but added that products and initiatives needed to be “impactful and meaningful” rather than a cascade of little-used tech.
10:00 a.m. ET
Hoby Hanna Discusses New Blueprint for the Shifting Market
Howard Hanna Real Estate Services CEO Hoby Hanna rallied this morning’s crowd with a call to take charge of residential real estate’s shifting paradigm.
“For most of our careers, we’ve defined ourselves as being in the brokerage business. We sell houses. We take care of our consumer,” he said. “But I don’t think we can think of that as our business anymore. We have to truly think that we’re in the housing business, the housing ecosystem, because that’s what is beginning to change and others are looking at.”
Hanna talked about the array of companies who now have a hand in the many moving parts of the housing world, each with different interests and different levels of skill.
“So the question is no longer whether housing will become more organized. It’s who will shape the future, whose interests it will serve, and where we all as real estate brokers and salespeople sit in that. So either we can decide to organize or we’ll get organized.”
While M&A strategies have been part of the Hanna family growth plan for years, Hanna offered a rational viewpoint on the current consolidation trend.
“The future is not and will not be one company controlling the housing market,” he said. “And I don’t think it’ll be two either (which was said at a recent industry conference). There’ll be a lot of us left. It’s a set of stronger connected housing companies and platforms competing to serve the customer and the race is already underway.”
Wednesday, Sept. 30
2:45 p.m. ETBeyond the Chatbot: “Synthetic Humans” Take the Stage
AI technologists, brokerage leaders and newly unveiled “digital humans” took to the stage for a forward-looking conversation on how Agentic AI is reshaping the industry as we know it—unveiling RISMedia’s new synthetic human, Jackai, alongside HomeServices of America’s AI “synth human” Mae.
“AI is starting to grab a stronghold with everyone,” said Ben Silva, founder, chairman and chief AI officer of AREIA Synthetics. “The beautiful part about the real estate industry is that it’s personal. My relationship with my real estate agent is very personal. That’s why I picked them, because the one that I choose is because you’re a member of my family, you’re helping me move my family. AI is going to help that in every possible way because as a real estate agent, you can’t do everything and be everywhere, but the AI can.”
The live demonstration offered a glimpse into how AI-powered digital colleagues are bridging the gap between what the consumer is wanting to do and what the agent is already doing with AI technology. During the session, Mae and Jack interacted in real time, responding to questions from the panel and audience.
“Our real estate industry as a whole, as well as individual businesses around the world, has the potential to thrive in a form we’ve never seen before if we adopt and leverage the power of Agentic AI,” said RISMedia’s Founder and CEO John Featherston.
– Paige Tepping, Senior Managing Editor
2:00 p.m. ET
The Regional Perspective: Finding a Way to Compete
Following Dan Duffy’s big picture look at the national real estate industry, four regional and national brokers took the stage to share how macro trends are playing out in their regions.
While laments about the market are widespread as interest rates rise, panelists concurred that the silver lining is a return to balance.
“Listings are sitting, and part of me is happy about it,” said Lamacchia Realty CEO Anthony Lamacchia. “How else will we get back to higher inventory unless sellers have a little bit of a gut check. We can do a lot of business off 4 million home sales.”
DeAnne Golden, president and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Georgia Properties reported that her market is returning to “a sustainable and healthy market,” and to be wary of national headlines. “We have to stay focused on controlling the controllables.”
In the Midwest, Tracy Hutton, CEO of Indiana’s CENTURY 21 Scheetz, has witnessed market normalization in the last 60 days. “The Midwest doesn’t see the extreme highs and lows,” she explained, adding that, ultimately, success is independent of market conditions. “We get to determine where we finish and how we start next year.”
HomeSmart Founder & CEO Matt Widdows concurred. “The market sucks, let’s be realistic. Successful agents find ways to be successful regardless of the climate we’re in. Successful enterprises find ways to compete and keep going forward.”
– Maria Patterson, Executive Editor
1:40 p.m.
The State of Real Estate with Dan Duffy, CEO of United Real Estate
Outspoken United CEO Dan Duffy took a notably scientific approach with his keynote address, starting with a quick lesson on thermodynamics. He also took some time to grade the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) on its transparency and turnaround promises, a year after offering pointed criticism of the organization at last year’s event.
Starting with entropy, as described by the second law of thermodynamics, Duffy said that organized systems naturally tend toward disorder and disorganization. This happens to subatomic particles, and also to industries like real estate, Duffy claimed.
Consolidation, plummeting valuations for real estate companies and other recent upheaval are all indications that “we’re in an entropic situation,” something he said he preferred to “stasis” as a business person.
The message to the audience was to use this year of change to “reset (your) strategic statement,” and home in on how real estate businesses can “get a greater share of wallet” as they reexamine all the partnerships, relationships, clients and markets.
Looking at NAR and going back to entropy, Duffy gave the organization failing grades on some of the “asks” brought by the “Pro-Agent Restore Trust in NAR” working group that he is a part of, including transparency, governance and communication.
Duffy also showed anonymized graphs of real estate company valuations over the last five years, saying that entropy would week out “sub-optimized methods” in the industry.
-Jesse Williams, Content Director, Premier
1:30 p.m. ET
The New Era of Real Estate: John Featherston Kicks Off 38th Annual CEO & Leadership Exchange
With foreign dignitaries on site at Washington’s Fairmont Hotel, RISMedia Founder & CEO John Featherston was asked to go old school and open the event using a hand-held, wired mic to avoid interfering with Secret Service comms. The only-in-D.C. moment was a great jumping-off point for Featherston who discussed the four eras of the real estate industry, from the pre-1996, Rolodex and MLS Book era, when agents averaged 1 -6 deals per year, to the current agentic AI and Consolidation era, marked by rapid AI development, intelligent work flows, predictive data and 24/7 client nurturing, with AI working as a “tireless digital workforce,” and transactions reaching 50 – 100 per year for top professionals.
“If we want to successfully move forward, we have to stop looking in the rear view mirror and look forward,” he told the audience during the Opening Session. “Real estate professionals are challenged every day. We’re feeling the squeeze – tighter margins, interest rates, consolidation. We’re facing all of these hurdles and roadblocks…we have to have consistent tech innovation working for us.”
Drawing upon his 49 years in the real estate space, Featherston stressed that brokers and agents must “live in reality” and be the purveyors of accurate information to consumers.
“I wish we could say that interest rates are going down to 3%, but we live in reality,” he said. “We have to let people know that homeownership is an extremely viable, long-term wealth-building tool.”
Featherston also acknowledged the potential of the current consolidation trend. “Consolidation is not a nasty word. You can utilize consolidation to improve your firm. If you have a vision, and you have a plan, and you’re a leader, consolidation is your ally.”
– Maria Patterson, Executive Editor
Stay tuned to this page for ongoing live updates. Watch for more in-depth 2026 CEO & Leadership Exchange coverage in the coming weeks.
