HousingWire recently sat down with Kelly to discuss all the changes at HomeServices over the past year and what’s in store for 2026.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Brooklee Han: It has been about eight months since you took over at HomeServices. Can you tell me a little about how these first eight months went?
Chris Kelly: It went very well and I think there are two main reasons. One is that I have been part of the organization since 2007, so I didn’t have to be comfortable with a new company or new people. I have had the opportunity to work with and get to know so many of our employees over the past 18 years. [so] there is a degree and familiarity and comfort with each of them. That certainly helped make the transition much easier.
The second is that we took quick action to establish a team. I have always found that having a team is critical because there is only so much one person can do. It’s always about the team.
What this has meant in practice is that we have seen a number of people move into new or expanded roles within our management team and that has enabled us to [move] to quickly talk about our goals by getting everyone in place within a few months of my appointment as CEO.
BRA: You certainly moved quickly with those appointments. I think most were announced in mid-June. What are some things you and the team wanted to accomplish this year?
Kelly: This year we were able to begin the transition from past initiatives and goals to where we think the industry is going and where we at HomeServices should be positioned for the future.
In May, we brought our entire team together in person to go over where we were and where we needed to go. How do you turn the page after three or four years of what felt like a crisis situation that we as a company and the industry found ourselves in? We stayed in that mode for too long and it caused burnout. We never really moved forward because we were just reacting to everything at the time.
In November we met again in person to discuss all the work we had done on a number of important initiatives. It was good to see that we worked from the ground up. We have put together numerous working groups consisting of leaders from our operating companies, business segment leaders, IT and HR, and we are working together to identify where we can move forward with HomeServices and where we need [focus].
We also discovered that we need clarity about our objectives and that we need to do less, but better. We can’t chase every cent. [We must] determine what we think are the most important things for our business and our model, and then lean on that.
As a result, we have created several ongoing initiatives that we will implement in 2026 to really position ourselves for great success in the future.
BRA: With these initiatives in mind, looking ahead to 2026, what are some of your big focus areas?
Kelly: One of the first things is something I said initially when I became CEO and that is that we really need to get back to the DNA of HomeServices. That is a full-service model and what we call internally: the complete real estate experience. I think the industry is diverging in two different ways right now.
There will be a model for certain types of agents and consumers that is based on low costs – so virtual, cheap, cloud-based – and then another direction will emerge, which is the full-service model that focuses on creating ecosystems where the consumer and the agent can get everything they need to complete a home transaction in one place. That’s what we were founded on and we’ve had those capabilities since our founding in 1998, but we need to bring them into the digital age.
It’s about taking that next step forward, having a mortgage, title and insurance that is owned by our company and staffed by real employees on our team, and now making sure that all of these different components can work together more closely.
An example of this is that our mortgage, title, insurance and broker segments were very well aligned in mission and culture, but when a consumer came through one channel, that data did not automatically transfer to another channel, even if they worked with both a HomeServices loan officer and a real estate agent. We’re creating a mechanism where we can introduce all these other services to a consumer in the HomeServices ecosystem at the right time during the transaction.
BRA: There has been a lot of focus on end-to-end transaction platforms this year, especially beyond Rocket‘S acquisition by Redfin. What is your view on competition within this space?
Kelly: I think on the one hand you have HomeServices and other similar companies and then you take Rocket-Redfin and Zillow on another. Everyone’s trying to get to the same point, [an] incredibly seamless, intuitive ecosystem that allows consumers to buy and sell real estate.
The reason I put them on different ends of the spectrum is that we look at them from a different point of view. Their starting point was technology first – a lot of digital and not a lot of human interaction. We’re starting where we already have an incredible team of real people and now we’re layering the technology side of things to make their jobs easier and to meet agents and consumers in the digital space they so often find themselves in today.
When I choose which side of the spectrum I want to be on. I’d much rather be on our side, because ultimately I believe that the human relationship – personal – still absolutely matters in the real estate transaction. If you haven’t already deployed that human capital across the field, I think it’s going to be a barrier to getting where you want to go.
BRA: As you said, the industry has been in something of a state of crisis in recent years and there is still a lot of noise and talk today. How do you try to eliminate some of that noise and focus on what you need for future growth?
Kelly: On some level you just can’t ignore it. I think it’s our job for our agents and the consumers to pay attention to some of that background noise to make sure we don’t fall victim to the idea that something will never become a reality.
What we talk to our agents about is making sure that our communications and messaging to consumers doesn’t amplify things that are unlikely to be of interest to them. What I’ve realized, even with people in my own family, is that they just want to know how to buy and sell a house. Together with our agents, we look at how they can serve consumers better.
One of the biggest pitfalls we can fall into is that we only continue to look for opportunities to improve within our own sector. I think the best companies will always be those that benchmark not just against their peers, but against a broader group. We believe we need to raise the bar, so we look at companies in any industry that offer the best customer experience.
BRA: Speaking of all the noise this year, what were the main storylines you followed?
Kelly: I think a lot of the things that consumers care about could be less important, and a lot of that this year was all mergers and acquisitions.
M&A offers great opportunities for growth, but when a lot of it happens, a level playing field begins to emerge in the industry. There is a real opportunity for every company to look internally and say, ‘How can we be different from this homogenous sameness that is spreading across our industry through all these mega-acquisitions?’ It’s an opportunity to be different and stay different, so we want that too [avoid] follow that same course.
BRA: Another big storyline this year is the discussion surrounding it Clear collaboration and private listing networks. What are your thoughts on this?
Kelly: When it comes to the lawsuits and the legal battles between them Compass And ZillowI’m a little jaded because I’m a recovering lawyer. I have rarely seen a lawsuit like this turn into something positive. Instead, it’s a drain on resources and ultimately distracts you from some of your broader goals. I understand on both sides why these fights are happening, but I don’t think it will actually result in anything beneficial to the parties involved.
Specifically on exclusive listings, our position remains the same, which is that we believe we don’t need regulation to tell us to do the right thing. There are certain cases where an exclusive or a private off-market listing makes sense, but in the vast majority of cases it doesn’t make sense. The fact that we need regulations from both the state and local MLS levels to tell us to do the right thing is disturbing and concerning to me.
If enough companies decide to go the exclusive route, everyone will and now as a consumer I will have to go to 10 to 15 different websites or brokers to find out what is actually for sale.
We always worry about the stickiness between the consumer and the agent, but I think that would be one of the things that actually starts to separate the agent from the consumer because now it’s no longer easy to work with an agent because you have to work with several to see what’s out there.
I hope everyone is smart about this and not looking at the short-term gain of potentially double-closing more deals, and how this could change things ten years into the future.
BRA: Looking at the big picture in 2026, is there anything for the industry in general that you’re really paying attention to?
Kelly: With our agents, we are focused on not perpetuating this false belief among consumers that they should do nothing until interest rates reach a certain level. Rates appear to have stabilized within that 6% range, which, if you look at the average over the last 30 years, is about where things should be.
We expect interest rates to remain at the same level in the coming years unless something major happens. So we don’t want to be caught making big arguments about every little change or decline.
We know that the vast majority of home purchases are not just financial decisions, they are life-based, they are purposeful, and there are many ways to achieve consumer desires to be a homeowner or sell a home, regardless of what the market does.
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