No Broke Months For Salespeople - The Hidden Story Behind Leo Pareja’s Success, CEO of eXp Realty

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

About Leo ParejaLeo Pareja is the Chief Executive Officer of eXp Realty, one of the largest and fastest-growing real estate brokerages in the world, with more than 85,000 agents globally. A lifelong entrepreneur, Leo got his real estate license at just 19 years old and quickly rose to become one of the top-producing agents in the industry before the age of 30.Over the course of his career, Leo has founded, scaled, and exited multiple successful companies across real estate, lending, and technology, including Remine and Washington Capital Partners, where he helped facilitate billions of dollars in real estate loans. He has also served as National President of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP) and is widely respected for his data-driven, no-nonsense approach to leadership and growth.Today, Leo is known for building platforms, empowering entrepreneurial agents, and redefining what’s possible in modern real estate through technology, culture, and consistency. His leadership philosophy centers on long-term thinking, personal accountability, and helping agents build scalable, sustainable businesses.Connect with Leo ParejaLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leopareja/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leopareja/X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/leoparejaeXp Realty: https://expworldholdings.com/What you’ll learn on this episode:How your thoughts shape your outcomes and sales successThe Self-Coaching Model for breaking negative thought and behavior cyclesWhy visualization, affirmations, and meditation rewire your mindset for better resultsHow reading, mentorship, and strategic learning create massive shifts in your businessWhy the right community and influences are critical for consistent growth To find out more about Dan Rochon and the CPI Community, you can check these links:Website: No Broke MonthsPodcast: No Broke Months for Salespeople PodcastInstagram: @donrochonxFacebook: Dan RochonLinkedIn: Dan RochonTeach to Sell Preorder: Teach to Sell: Why Top Performers Never Sell – And What They Do Instead

You're listening to No Broke Months for Salespeople Podcast. In this episode of the No Broke Months for Salespeople podcast, Dan Rochon sits down with Leo Pereja, CEO of EXP Realty, to unpack what actually separates top-performing agents from everyone else. From starting in real estate at 19 to leading one of the largest brokerages in the world, Leo shares raw lessons on failure, consistency, data-driven, decision making and why most people quit right before success shows up. Welcome to the No Broke Months podcast. My name is Dan Rochon. I help salespeople to have no broke months. And today I'm joined with a really special guest, Leo Perea, who is the

chief executive officer of EXP Realty, which is one of the largest and fastest growing real estate brokerages in the world that operates of more than 20 companies with 85,000 agents and I've known Leo for about 20 or so years and a little bit of like here's what I know about you Leo and I want to jump right into this because I got like one question that is the dying question I've been waiting to ask you for since you've taken on this role of CEO so what I've known is I know you got you get your license when you were 19 years old I know that by the time you were not even 30 you were you know the number one real estate agent with all of Kelo-Israeli and the entire planet.

I know that you founded a couple really amazing companies. I think you sold both of them, remind, as well as Washington Capital Partners. I hope I said that correctly. And I know that you've loaned billions of dollars through that company, through hard money loans. And what I've seen over 20 years was an agent that was becoming the number one in the world with another company. to success after success after success, president of the National Association of Hispanic Realtors. Did I say that correctly?

I think that that wasn't even in my notes. I just knew that about you. Just success about success after success. My question, Leo, how? It's a small question now. So first of all, you just rattled off the highlight reel. of course of course so there is like 10 companies that failed epically uh and investments that went bad right and you know the the first one would have been like you know the first washer and dryer

i had i had to buy because i forgot to check the right boxes on a purchase and sale contract and those like $500 were traumatizing at 19 years old 20 years old but you know all the way to like my first bad loss which was like a hundred grand and then my next bad loss was like 300 grand and then it was like 750 grand on deals that went sideways litigation. If you're in real estate, you just need to do it long enough and you kind of experience some of that stuff. So what I say to both success and failures, I just have more reps, right? I think most people play safe, right?

I don't even like to say the word small because I think that's that has connotation that's not fair, but it's playing it safe. And so I was raised by amazing human beings, and I attribute most of my success to just right place, right time. Like, I'm super grateful to the human beings that raised me, who convinced me I could do anything I wanted to do in the world and supported my crazy dreams at a super young age, not financially, but emotionally. And I've just had this understanding that I'm going to die. and I only get one one pass at the game so why not go for it and now that I've done multiple things a thought process that's very very codified in my head is no one is ready ever I'm not I wasn't ready like to to sell someone a house at 19 I was a child I wasn't ready to become the

youngest broker inside of the kW system at like 21 I wasn't ready to go independent if you remember that little adventure of mine. That was my first bout with litigation. Non-solicitations, not competes are real. The public service announcement. But, you know, I wasn't ready to be NARB's national president and accidentally be in the White House while the CFPB was being created. I wasn't ready to be a dad when they handed me my child. I was 32. It's not like I was a teen dad, but in my mind, I never knew how to raise a child. I wasn't ready to be CEO of a public trade company because I'd never done it. But I think people completely forget that there's always a day one, right?

And so I think I've, in a weird way, I remember a couple of really important day ones, like riding a bicycle. Like I vividly remember going, this is really cool. I went from training wheels to no training wheels. And then I remember super vividly driving stick shit for the first time in Vienna. and going this will be automatic one day and like feeling the zero to one process in my brain and just kind of falling in love with it super early on um and enjoying the process um and then again grateful to be surrounded by super encouraging human beings whether they were related to me or not so if you're in and thank you for sharing that so if we if we're never

ready for day one. We're not, you know, I mean, I say as a real estate agent, if you, to really understand this business, I say you have to do around 100 or so transactions. And the unfortunate reality of that is, is most agents will never even come close to 100 transactions before you can get like, okay, I feel good and comfortable. I'm not going to see everything. I know. I've seen enough. Would you agree with that? I said, I know Kung Fu feeling, right? And from the matrix. Right. Right. Absolutely. A hundred percent agree with you. I tell people. I spoke in Orlando yesterday to about 300 of our agents and a 19-year-old said, what do I need to do?

Like, you got started 19, I'm 19. What do I need? I said, you need a sprint to 30 transactions. Sure. And my exact advice is, go join a team. Like, don't even ask about the split. Do they have leads and a training system and just go get reps, right? Like, do as many transactions as soon as possible.

And again, I don't want to diminish the effect that is someone's livelihood and everything and so. So be on a team, will they hold your hand and give you amazing training? But until you've sold 20 or 30 homes, you don't even know if this business is for you, right? Then you, you know, I think passion is a fascinating thing, and there's so many cliches about find your passion, you'll never work a day in your life. And I don't think it actually works like that. I think we become passionate as we become good at stuff. And so there is just, most people don't try enough things to really appreciate what they

like it life, right? So I think there's too much rigidness in the path, right? Like, you just described my path, and it almost sounds like I did it on purpose. I didn't. It was one idea turned into, like, every one of those companies, you just mentioned, incubated on my last company, right? And it was like, hey, I have this extra capital on flipping houses that I don't need. And I called the investor, me like, I'm going to send it back. And they're like, well, I don't want it back. I like you paying me 12%. I'm like, I think I can lend it to a couple people. You might if I make a couple points on it. They're like,

that seems fair. I was like, cool. Then it was like, I lit two million bucks in a week. I was like, oh, I think I can do this. And then I did 10 loans and then 10 loans became 10 million and then 10 million became like, hey, I need some software to operate this. So I started building software to scratch an itch. And then I wanted data for my operating system in my lending business and said, I need public record data. And then

I found it. And I was like, people like, hey, I want that. like can you put it on a map i was like yeah i think i can and then remine was born right so we and that was before a well AI was around but before AI was developed as it is today as well oh 100 like the crazy thing about the world today is i could build most all things that i just mentioned by myself over the weekend now sure with vibe coding right before it was like v1 of our hard money lending platform was 600 grand out of pocket that's a lot about that that's a big lot of money. And by the way, I was quoted $45,000. Sure. But it's like, it's like a contractor, six more weeks. And have you ever noticed as you say that? It's one of my, one of my witnesses in

business and maybe in life as well, which is anything that I do is going to take 10 times more effort, 10 times more money and 10 times more time than what I anticipate. And maybe that's because I have a, you know, a high degree of confidence or maybe I'm just stupid. I don't know which. So I actually made a piece of content about this the other day where I said success is actually just attrition. When you look at the failure rates of most things, like people who start college to four-year degree, then to a master's, then to a PhD, to real estate license, first year to year five, anything, right? Most people quit after their second or third rep. and then definitely by like you know we're we're coming up on that golden quarter of gym memberships right like shit's going to be crowded January 1 oh yeah and all the people who consistently go are

just like rolling their eyes waiting for March right because nobody gets the day 90 um and what I've learned in most things it's like if you get to day 365 and then you get to like you get to year 10 um all of a sudden you're an expert and I think the reason most people don't get there is because everyone in that cohort who came with you quit. And so succeeding at a high level normally just takes not quitting. It's literally a game of attrition. If you were starting today, 19 years old or 29 years old or whatever age that you were

starting, no contacts, no listings, no reputation, what would your first 30 days look like? yeah and let me let me make sure you frame the question in the way i should answer it in the sense of like because i get the question like if i were starting over today and i didn't have my resources but it's still me versus like 19 years old no no well with the knowledge that you have today so you get the opportunity okay that's see that's that's different because if i was 19 i would say i would just go join it to period but by the way that's what i did the first time if you recall right I went and worked for George. So if, and Bob Andrews, like I was just around, I went and found the biggest teams of KW

and said, I'm going to come hang out at this market center and run through osmosis. So I would still give that advice. That's the thing I did. But if I had, if I lost everything and I couldn't go do what I've done and I would just do it through real estate, I would do it through my strengths. And that's where I think a lot of people in this industry, they'll watch content, they'll go to a conference, they'll get excited, and not really put it through a lens of, is this aligned with my skill sets and my God-given talents? I'll tell you a quick story, and then I'll answer your question. Once upon a time, I wanted to go after probate because I'd been to a conference and they were talking about how great probate was.

And I found the number one probate guy in the country in San Francisco, and I called him and I said, can I come spend the day with you? And he said, I want you to wire me $7,500. But for it, I'll let you shadow me. I have a manuscript of everything, I have your objection handler, list of providers, all the things. Like, I was not the first person to call them.

Probably still the best $7,500 I've ever spent. Because I spent the day with him, Dan, and I, on the plane ride home, said, I have zero interest in doing that business. Because it entailed a lot of cold calling, which is not in my DNA. and more importantly, it was a highly emotionally charged conversation if you got them on the phone. And, you know, there was accusations of ambulance chasing.

Again, I truly don't think like that dude did phenomenal work, right? Like, he's an expert at it. But my high eye could not process that. Like, I would rather play in traffic on 995 on the Beltway than do that. And again, recognizing that is different, right? Like I became really good at REO, but most people can't do what I did, right? Like I can learn a language like UPB, loss severity, you know, net execution, internal IRA on the dollars deployed, like, and I like it. And so where most agents fell apart in the in the metrics, I excelled, right?

And so for me, I've always loved the investment side of residential real estate. because it's not emotional and so it's pragmatic and so I love building interpersonal relationships but if I were starting I would use Remind and I would go into a town wherever I'm at and I would do a search for non-occupant homeowners and I would export the geography zip code county state whatever geography I want to start with if I had absolutely no money I would start with a walkable callable geography and I would find owners with the same common address and I would target owners of less than 10 doors right so because what happens when you look at public record you could see one two three main street

LLC six five seven main street LLC and you don't know it's the same owner unless you find a common mailing address and if you do that then you just you know track them down whether it's through social or through co-calling or door knocking of the common address, right? Don't go knock on the renter's door, knock on the mailing address where the tax bill goes. And if you can get them on the phone, just say, hey, Dan, I noticed you own four or five rental properties in 33143. From time to time, I come across opportunities in that zip code. Are you adding to your portfolio currently? And if you are, would you mind spending 10, 20 minutes with me on a Zoom call or a coffee?

explaining to me your criteria. So if I come across a unique opportunity that falls within your buy box, I can give you a heads up. And by the way, it probably will come with a renter. And, you know, 100% out of 100% investors will take that call. Sure. Like, if you called me in my neighborhood, we own this house, we have the house across the street and I want to buy like two or three more

because we, I want all my relatives nearby. If someone were to find out that we own both, they should call me. And I probably would be a better. buyer. And the cool thing is if you call enough of those people, someone's going to be a grouchy older person who says, I hate all these houses. I want to burn them down. If you call them on the right day, they might sell them to you on the phone, right? Or they like, nope, I'm done. I hate tenants and toilets. And you can say, great. Like, is there a price in your head that you would part with this property tenant occupied and you don't have to think about it anymore? And so if you did that

religiously for you know 90 days before you know it you you're like hey i know so-and-so owns that and they buy that and then all the sudden you can start pairing these two um avatars who play in real estate and so that's what i would do i love it you talk about metrics when you were answering that leo and you've built companies based on data based on behavior what and i know in your role today well i'm assuming but i i'm pretty sure that this is going to be correct that you have a lot of data about real estate agents. I know everything about all the things. I'm obsessed with everything and we break down everything because I think data is agnostic and

non-emotional. So, you know, I always say to people like we can get upset and we're allowed to have feelings and once you process them, then you look at the data and decide if you want to pursue that business. Love it. What does the data tell us about why some agents thrive and other struggle? see and I think that is a question that's pretty hard to answer but like I can tell you when people turn right so for example at our numbers and these are all on our publicly tried to company slides like a magic number for us is if an agent sells more than eight homes I have them basically for life like there is a 91% possibility that you're not leaving if you that's actually the most common thing like when people like oh retention attraction culture service level. My answer to all that is like that's the table stakes. Like you better be the best brokers

on the planet. You better call people back. You better provide forms. You better provide a great tech stack and have an attractive revenue model. Like that's that's the ticket to admission. And from there, you need to understand your cohort. Like so many people are said, I want to do geographic farming. I'm like, okay, cool. Did you analyze that neighborhood before sending the first piece of figuring out if someone already has, like, north of 10% market share. Because if they have north of, like, in the Nova area, like, do not compete if Debbie Dogger and Associates, DDA already owns that neighborhood in Fairfax. Because you'll probably have to spend 5x more money to capture that subdivision versus

going to one next door that has no, no critical mass. And so I think a lot of times, like, in the broker business, people go, I'm going to get people from one to three transactions. Okay, but that's pushing water uphill. Like, I'm like, okay, where are my humans? And like north of eight transactions, you're here. And so north of 21 transactions, we turn at a 1.8% annualized rate. So like almost nothing, like 0.175 on a monthly basis.

So that's like I have multiple avatars I serve, solo producers, team leaders, and between. but I obsess with the avatars that have the highest success rate inside of our company, right? And then if you become the home of a specialist and a certain product type, and again, by the way, interchange these words if we're talking about lending money, building software, running a direct-to-consumer company where I'm selling, you know, sugar-free gummy vitamins, it actually doesn't matter. It's like, do I know who my customer is? can I acquire that customer for a reasonable price with a decent return on investment? Is it scalable? Is it repeatable?

And can I become the best of the world at it? I'm curious, what do you think is the biggest blind spot that you see in salespeople who are ready to scale, but they just can't seem to make it, you know, break it through? I think that game is in between your two years. I think a lot of folks can't get out of their own way. and have limiting beliefs, right? Like, if you're a salesperson today or any day, right, there is, I think there's a production pyramid, if we were to say, at the bottom of the pyramid in residential real estate,

if you would want to tell me a day and you want to sell 50 homes, I'm like, there is 250 ways we can do this. Like, Bob's your uncle, let's throw a dart out at the board. We can do it 50 different ways, 200 ways in super easy, like direct-to-consumer. cold, warm, repeat referral. Now, if you want to sell 1,000 homes in 2026, there's probably four ways to do it. And by the way, it was the same in 2010 when I used to do it.

And in 2010, like if REO and short-so were not part of that, you didn't get to a thousand deals. Okay. And today at 2000 deals, like our top, top teams, like if you look at our top 10 teams with the exception of one, almost all of them do Zilliflex, Realtier, VIP, HomeLight, like some form of success fee. All of them do some form of very expensive direct-to-consumer marketing,

whether it's billboards or digital or social. But like at certain size and scale, maybe there's 10 ways, right? Like some people have mastered the sphere of influence and then they just have a very large team, like 150 agents. And so then it becomes a per-person productivity. Right? Like, again, I know every number in our company.

that we keep track of in 2024 and 2025 PPP is sitting at right 5.4. But if you split that out between solos and team members, it's 4.3 and 7.2. Hold on. Explain that in a different way, a different language. Yeah. Per person productivity. So take the total number of homes in 2024, because 2025 numbers year-to-date are not out yet. or annualized. So 350,000 homes in the U.S. across 67,000 agents, 66,000, whatever the number was.

Comes out to 5.36. But that's a blended number. So about half our agents are on teams, half of them are solo. So the solo agents, on average, sold 1.1 house per quarter. And our solo team, or our team members sold almost two houses per quarter. right? That's taught 250 teams in units sold an average of 11.2 homes per team member. So like one a month, right? So there's a couple, like to sell a thousand homes, you could either have a large army, like 100 agents selling 100 homes, you know, 11 homes a month, a year. Or you could, and that could be a combination of internet leads, success leads, direct to consumer release, right? Then there's other really large teams who've done a really good job of teaching people how to harvest a sphere of influence database. And so they, they, but the value prop is in

the systems and process. So like everyone who's part of the team uploads the database and then does X amount of open houses on a monthly basis, client appreciation parties. You have to do call nights. And, but what I'm telling you is there's not 250 ways to do that and get to a thousand. At, at 50, zero to 50, you and I could probably sit here for an hour and come up with cool ways to get there. Of course. You said success leads. What do you mean by success leads? Success fees. So the ones that you pay a referral fee at closing. First is like when you and I were going to like remember home game, we used to pay like, you know,

800 bucks a month and I got X amount of leads and it was on my on my dime to to monetize them. Got it. Versus now a company gets someone to the, they start at the top of the funnel, get them all the way to the bottom, say, hey, use Dan. and then at closing, you pay a referral fee. Hey, it's Dan Rochon, host of the No Broke Months podcast. If you've ever felt frustrated chasing clients, stuck in the feast or famine cycle, or wondering where your next deal is coming from,

my new book, Teach to Sell, why top performers never sell, and what they do instead is for you. When you pre-order today, you'll also unlock over $10,000 worth of bonus training, coaching, and resources inside the CPI community as a bonus for you. This is your chance to stop selling and start leading. And finally, create consistent and predictable income with no broke months.

Visit www. www.teach tosellbook.com. That's teach to sellbook.com. Teach to sellbook.com right now and grab your copy. Teach to sellbook.com. XP has attracted some of the biggest influencers in the industry, and what do you see in the model that the average agent might overlook that would attract those biggest names? So the interesting thing about business that I see most people get wrong is trying to be

all things to all people. I think the most successful businesses and the ones I've learned to appreciate and love the most are specialists. And so if you look at almost everything is a commoditized product or service. And I'm not confused. I think the brokerage business is a commoditized service. And so what market segment do we serve? Who is the customer we're serving and then just owning it, right?

So I in 2025, December 3rd of 2025 for context, if this is watched years later, the business currently today is probably in three buckets, right? I would call it the brand first, uncapped model, which is mostly the legacy model. But like your Compass, your anywhere brands, your Berkshire Hathaway, your Howard Hanna, as your, you know, Long and Foster before it's part of, because now that falls under Berkshire. But like your traditional brand first, normally comes with Class A office space, multiple locations, branch manager, someone at their front desk. And the value proposition that's, you know, represented is that the brand does quite a bit. it for you. And again, by the way, I mean to not disparage anyone because I just think these are these are the buckets. And so a lot of agents that pick that because, again, folks in our camp

would be like, you're paying how much in splits? Like, this is insane. But that person and that customer has a perceived value. And then on the other extreme, not us is like the flat fee, you know, cost sensitive agent avatar. And I don't think that consumer will, ever go to any other one. It's just like, this is all I want to pay. And because I've had conversations with top producers at those businesses who they would actually pay us less because we cap and they don't. Sure. Yeah. But mentally, like, that's how they make a purchasing decision. And then we're in the middle. And I give flowers to both Leninger and Keller, right? Like Dave Leninger invented it when he competed

with C-21 and Coal Banker. And then Gary improved upon it. I think Glenn perfected it. Right. But philosophically, we can agree that Dave, Gary, and Glenn agree that the agent brand is first and we are secondary, where I think we are different than those as we were built as a platform from day one. And part of it was just technology. Right. So we're distinct to both of those predecessors in the sense that it's one brand, one company. And like we have 2,300 full-time employees supporting agents. And so I think we're in new territory in the sense that We fully believe that this is a brokerage as a service.

And so it is an operating system, right? So if like the first bucket, we're doing a technology, I would say, is an app that, you know, like that actually does the things. I want to be the iOS that empowers Dan's app. And so our avatar is the entrepreneurial agent, meaning, you know, I think a lot of the folks in the other camps might be like a self-employed person who, who, which again, could net. same or more money. So it's not a derogatory thing in that sense, but the folks that are using our system tend to be entrepreneurial who want to build something that's forward facing. And we happen to be, in my opinion, the best value for the stack, the stack of value, right? Not just tech stack, but just like the culture of the tribe, all the intangibles that are hard to put a

price point on. But I think that's why we disproportionately win with that avatar. love it what as we finish up here and wrap up what do you hope that agents learn from your journey um that you can um like you know i think the meanest voice is the one inside of you right i think most of us would have a fist fight externally if someone spoke to us the way we allow that inner monologue does from time to time and my mom's a pha psychology my dad at phton communication so like i was bred to understand this and then hence why i opened with that um like you know and most of that voice came from someone who's supposed to or trying to care for you and it gave you very bad programming and you know you know i've an eight and eleven year old and

like they're both unstoppable still and i consciously try to not extinguish that curiosity that light that that that you know perception that they can do anything because at some point someone craps all over that dream and you kind of resign yourselves to mediocrity. If every agent, my last question for you, Leo, if every agent could master one simple idea that would change their lives forever, what would it be?

I mean, the most basic one to me is consistency in time management. We have the same 24 hours, which is a really overplayed cliche. day. But, you know, just take averages about everything. Open up your phone right now and, you know, don't show it to anybody if you're watching this, but see how much time you spend on social, right? Like, can you, you know, and give yourself grace in the process to get there as well. Like, if you have health goals, it's like, okay, I'm going to eat less and start by walking 10,000 steps. And then it's like, I'll give you a real example. Someone, I was at a mastermind the other day

and someone stood up very excitedly after being in the mastermind, said, I'm going to post 10 times a day for 30 days. And they all clapped. And I was like, I actually jumped out of my chair and ran over in front of 300 people and took the microphone out of his hand. I said, don't do that. I said, in front of everyone, commit to posting once a day for 365 days. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

10 times 30 will break you and alienate your followers. Yeah, yeah. But if you give me one year, once a day, like the mind share you will grow, like what you will learn in that process, you'll actually do it. 10 times a day, I can't do that. I have a team, right? And you'll burn out. And you'll burn out for people watching.

But if you, if you commit to once a day, first of all, in like 60 days, you'll be 10x better. And then in 120 days, like, you'll have learned so much. and yeah and again apply that to anything right like you want to get a good yeah what i heard for you is consistency and what i recommend to agents is one to three hours a day five days a week go find business and the way you go find business would be in your your strength zone and you know you find your strength zone and go do that one to three hours a day five days a week you'll be good time today. I know that you are a busy man and I won't go back to the 24 hour a day cliche, but I appreciate your time as I appreciate all of our guest time. So Leo, thank you for your time

today. And for viewers and listeners, have the best day of your life. Be grateful. Make good choices to help somebody. And God bless you. We'll see you guys. This is Dan Rocheon, host of No Broke months. Do you want consistent and predictable income with No Broke Months? My new book, Teach to Sell, why top performers never sell, and what they do instead is being published early 2006 by Simon & Schuster. You can pre-order now at www.com and unlock over $10,000 of free bonus training. Don't wait, go to www.com and grab your copy today. That's teach to sellbook.com.