The CEO of eXp Just Saved $8 Million. Here's the Exact Homework He Gave Us.

By Tim, Julie, Dan, Chris, Kacie and Orlando · May 29, 2026

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We had Leo Pareja, CEO of eXp Realty, on the show this week. And at one point in the conversation, he gave every agent in this audience a homework assignment that costs nothing and could save you thousands of dollars by the end of the month.

Open your favorite AI — Claude, ChatGPT, whatever you use — and type this:

Agents who've done this assignment have come back reporting they went from 10 subscriptions to 2. eXp ran this exercise on their own company 12 months ago. They've eliminated Slack ($1.4M annually), Trello ($400K), and Workplace ($1.5–1.6M). Their internal developer, Glenn, rebuilt Workplace from scratch and called it The Hub. Current savings: $8 million and counting. Target: $20 million.

That was just one of four segments. Here's what else you missed.

The headline: agents at a certain brokerage were posting that in Chicago, you can only see listings on their website because Zillow got cut off. True or just noise?

True — but the story behind the story matters more than the headline. On Tuesday, EMRA (the Chicago-area MLS) gave formal notice to Zillow and terminated their IDX feed effective Wednesday morning. The trigger: when EMRA decided to go national, nine properties from outside the Chicagoland area — from Florida, Georgia, and California — were input into the database out of compliance. Those nine listings were the technical basis for cutting off Zillow's entire feed. Zillow filed a complaint.

All other national portals — Realtor.com, Homes.com, Redfin — had zero interruption. eXp had a direct feed plumbed into Zillow in all 50 states for the last two years and was completely unaffected. KW, Remax, Berkshire Hathaway, Real Broker, United, and others moved to direct feeds within 24 hours.

The real casualties: the thousands of small and mid-size independent brokerages in the Chicago area — the 5–10 person family-owned shops that have served their communities for 25 years and simply don't have the technology to build a direct feed. They got caught in the middle of a power struggle between two giants.

Leo's concern, stated plainly:

The vote: Chewy short-term, Hooey long-term.

Julie: AI will route around any paywall.

Dan: the agent and brokerage tools being built now will surpass the portals in importance anyway.

Tim's silver lining for eXp agents in Chicago: if your competition is relying on Zillow right now, you already know what your USP is.

The headline: "A record share of sellers cut their price last spring. A third of all listings now take a price cut after they list." In Austin, it's 45%.

Unanimous Hooey. Dan: in a normal market, roughly a third of listings have a price adjustment. That same period also saw 20–25% of listings go to bidding wars and escalate above ask. It's not a crash signal — it's a market normalizing after years of artificial tightening. Leo was just in Westchester, New York: one month of inventory, 16 offers. He was also in Coral Springs, Florida: 11% year-over-year price declines. Same week. Same country. Different local story.

Tim's broader question: why has real estate media been dystopian for 15 years? The answer was simple and unanimous: if it bleeds, it leads. The brain reacts to fear faster than joy. The media gives the audience what keeps them engaged. Kacie’s take for agents: stop fearing the headline. Use it as a tool to help sellers price realistically and help buyers make smart aggressive offers.

The number: average buyer agent commission has climbed to 2.82%. Post-settlement predictions said fees would crater to 1%. Instead, they went up. Unanimous Hooey.

Leo's historical framing that reframes the whole conversation: in 2011, with 18–24 months of inventory, the government was offering 4–5% on the buy side for Fannie and Freddie-owned homes. Buyer commissions are correlated with demand and inventory — always have been, always will be. As days on market increases, buyer compensation increases. It happened again right after the settlement.

His sharper point: the real problem was never the commission itself — it was how the industry talked about it. The phrase "don't worry about it, the seller takes care of that" was what actually invited litigation. Now agents have to have the conversation, they set their own fee, and the disclosure creates clarity. Leo would have been happy to testify to that exact point.

Julie — Claude as a to-do list incinerator. Two to three weeks in, and she describes the experience as a game. The old framework was do it, delegate it, or ditch it. The new one: what on your list do I still have to do? — then give it to Claude. The Real Estate Treasure Map (a 161-page fill-in-the-blank business and life plan, now rebuilt as a fully interactive website with AI assistance) is live and free for newsletter subscribers.

Kacie — Claude + Canva, and Grok for images. She uses Claude to build timestamped agendas for her Monday team trainings — down to the minute, with built-in room for questions and banter. For listing photos and marketing images: Grok. Her reasoning: unlike other AI image platforms, Grok doesn't distort or inadvertently change other elements in the photo when you edit one thing. Her whole team uses it.

Dan — Shilo for call coaching. If you lead a team with ISAs or buyer agents making calls, this is the tool to evaluate. Shilo listens to calls live, records them, scores them, and then lets any team member role-play against that exact same call — stepping into the conversation as if they were back in that moment. Dan's been running it for three months. The skill ceiling for ISA training just moved significantly.

Leo — the SaaS audit (already covered above, but worth repeating). He won the segment. He also previewed Carlo, eXp's internal AI compliance tool. Agents drag and drop a social post, mailer, or advertisement, and Carlo runs it against state DRE regulations before it ever goes out. Built with the former lead investigator for California's DRE — 22 years of real complaint data trained into the model. Live in 5 states today. Target: all 50 states within 60 days.

The underlying philosophy:

Tim's Jevons Paradox observation: as AI handles the administrative and compliance layer of the broker-agent relationship, brokers won't be replaced — they'll be freed up to do what agents actually want from them. Not "you're missing a signature" — but "how can I support your business?" Brokerages that try to eliminate the human relationship entirely will be the first to go down.

AI Hot Seat — one tool every agent should use by Monday:

The fee isn't set by the MLS anymore. It's set by your mouth in the buyer consultation. Here are the four objections handled live — with real answers:

Julie goes straight to the Ethical Real Estate Professional buyer presentation. Her point: if you've delivered the presentation properly, this objection never comes up. It's already been answered before the buyer thinks to ask it. Her one-sentence version: "Because I'm going to protect you on many different levels, represent you, search in places beyond just the portals, and guarantee you'll be happy at the end with my love-it-or-leave-it guarantee."

The EREP (Ethical Real Estate Professional) designation is normally $10,000. It's free for agents who join eXp through the Libertas group. It includes the buyer presentation, seller presentation, pre-listing package, buyer package, and all the guarantees built in — showing guarantee, communication guarantee, service guarantee — delivered to the client before the meeting, so the objections are handled before they're spoken.

Kacie just lived this. A $2.8M listing in Lighthouse Point, competing against the seller's wife's sister — whose office was four doors down from Kacie's. Her answer, distilled:

Tim's story to steal:

He was in a listing presentation with a woman in her late 80s. They were almost through the paperwork when she mentioned a lifelong friend down the street who was also an agent — someone she'd known forever, went to church with every Sunday. Tim backed off, assuming she didn't realize what she'd been signing. He asked if she was planning to list with her friend instead.

She stood up. Pushed her glasses to the edge of her nose. Leaned over the table.

That's the real reason to separate family and business: accountability. You can't hold a family member to the standard a business relationship demands. Most clients know this — they just need permission to say it.

Leo's take: this rule change was the single best byproduct of the settlement. It forced buyer agents to do something listing agents have always done — have a presentation.

The pre-litigation version of "don't worry about it, the seller covers that" was exactly what invited litigation in the first place.

Dan adds the closing tool that removes the fear from signing: the cancellation guarantee with 3-day notice.

The one carve-out: homes you've already been shown are excluded from the cancellation, so neither party has a loophole to work around already-spent representation.

Leo's script — and nothing else needs to be added:

Then listen. Most buyers have not thought it through. The listing agent is working for the seller. Once the buyer verbalizes that out loud, the objection usually dissolves on its own.

97% of people read reviews before choosing anyone local. They check an average of six different sources. Your next seller is on their couch right now, typing your name — or asking their AI — and deciding whether you get the call or the agent below you does.

Leo's test — do this right now. Go to Claude and type: "Recommend the best real estate agent in [your specific market]." If you're not in the results, immediately ask: "What do I need to do over the next 30, 60, and 90 days to start showing up in those results?" LLM optimization is the single most important digital activity for agents in 2026. Not Google SEO. Not Instagram followers. LLM optimization.

Dan on source data. When you ask an AI for an agent recommendation and follow up with "what were your sources?" the answer is consistently unsexy — Reddit threads, blog posts, community Q&A forums. The agents who dominate AI recommendations are answering real questions in real places online. It's also winner-take-all: the top 3–4 agents in any local market capture nearly all the AI recommendations. Getting in early matters.

Julie on what's actually working. Coaching clients who are already booking listing appointments from AI searches share two traits: detailed client reviews and hyper-specific local content. Not "Austin real estate agent" — Georgetown. Not "Alabama Gulf Coast agent" — specific communities, specific neighborhoods, specific price points. The more specific the content, the more specifically the AI surfaces you to the right client.

Kacie's review system — the full process:

▶️ Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/alyacQj6WAg?si=kwLOAZM59LSirR5N

— Tim, Julie, Dan, Chris, Kacie and Orlando
Hosts, Power House Talk

whylibertas.com/harris
whylibertas.com/dan
whylibertas.com/heller
whylibertas.com/kacie-anderson
whylibertas.com/orlando-montiel

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