'Unfiltered': Agents, the worst is behind us — here’s what to do now 

Editor's note: The Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered podcast explores the people and forces that shape the real estate industry. Check out our top takeaways and this episode from NextHome CEO James Dwiggins and Keith Robinson, NextHome's chief strategic officer.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in the Real Estate Insiders podcast belong solely to the podcast creators and guests.

Chris Heller describes himself as driven, and he has the resume to back it up. He got his real estate license as a sophomore in college in 1983, found success as an agent, started a team "before the concept of teams existed," climbed the ladder at Keller Williams and launched the brand all over the world before becoming CEO in 2015.

Now Heller is president at OJO, a growing home search and agent solutions company recently rebranded as Movoto  — and he's still driven. 

"When I work, I work, and when I play, I play," Heller said. "If I'm on vacation, I'm not laying by the pool but that doesn't mean I'm not having fun — I'm hiking or I'm out in the water or doing stuff. I have a need to feel like I'm being productive."

On this episode of Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered, he talks about how the real estate business looks from other parts of the world, what 2025 may bring after two "brutal" years, and what it takes to win, no matter what the market is doing.

Making inroads outside the US: Heller was tapped to launch and lead KW Worldwide in 2008, but he didn't know anything about international franchising at the time. He spent the next two years doing research before becoming KWW president in 2010.

What did that research look like? Heller would cold-call U.S. franchise brand offices in other countries, saying, "I sell real estate in the U.S. I'm thinking about maybe doing it there — how would it work? I would just make calls, you know, all night long and all day long to different countries talking to different people … It naturally progressed into, 'Why did you do this? And what do you like about it?' And I started to hear all the things they wished they had or what they thought they were going to get or what they weren't getting."

He not only "learned about how real estate was done" in other parts of the world, he "found the right leaders to sell a master franchise agreement to" — eventually launching KW franchises across the globe.

Real estate pros outside the US want what we have: While some leaders in the U.S. are pushing to eliminate Clear Cooperation and keep more listings off the MLS, leaders elsewhere want the opposite, said Heller. "In every country I went to, they wished they had what we had — 'If we only had an MLS, if we only had cooperation' … because they don't. It's backwards."

2023 and 2024 were brutal — what about 2025? "I don't believe 2025 is going to be a dramatically better year," said Heller, but he's optimistic. 

"I may regret saying this. … (but) I have the sense that from a market standpoint, the worst is behind us now. We could get something out of left field and just whack us, you know? There's a fair chance that that will happen in the world today. But as long as I can see what's going on and see how the game is changing, I'll know what I need to adjust to."

'Change and opportunity are intertwined': "The more chaos, the more upheaval, the bigger the opportunities are," Heller said. "The challenge is being able to see and focus on them versus the fear and the anger and everything else that we've been experiencing."

Two things agents should be doing right now: As agents map out 2025, "they have to operate with more urgency," Heller said. "Urgency could be focus. It could be how fast they're doing things. Operate like if you knew you were going on a week's vacation in three days, what would the next three days look like? You would be massively productive. You'd get everything done. Every lead would be followed up. Everything would be put in order so that you could go on vacation — operate every day like that."

What else? "Turn up the intensity. We're more intensely following our schedule, more intensely practicing and role playing and modifying our processes and our systems so that we can do more."

"Time is the great equalizer. We all have the same amount of time. But if we can become more effective or more efficient or hopefully both, that's the thing that can take us from here to here or, you know, have us, you know, beat the competition."

OK, make that three things: "Simply do more. Make one more call, send one more handwritten note, do one more follow up. Do more because the rest of the world is going to be doing the opposite."