In this episode of Lykken on Lending, David Lykken sits down with real estate industry veteran and visionary leader Chris Heller. From his early days selling timeshares to leading Keller Williams’ global expansion and now driving innovation at Movoto (powered by Lower), Chris shares lessons on leadership, growth, timing, and the critical intersection of people and technology. This candid conversation explores what it really takes to scale businesses, build powerful agent–lender relationships, and reimagine the homebuying journey for today’s consumer.
[David] Listeners, we’re in for a real treat. Today. We ‘re talking to a visionary leader. How many of you aspire to be a visionary leader? We’re gonna get to talk to one, one who has actually done it and doing it. I’m really excited to have Chris Heller joining me. He has 35 years of experience in the real estate industry.He’s got an extensive background. In fact, we’re just gonna let him tell us all about it. Chris, good to have you on the microphone and on the podcast.
[Chris] David, thank you and I don’t think I ever aspired to be a visionary leader. But I guess sometimes those things just kinda happen.
[David] They do kinda happen and you are though when you sit and look at it, and that’s what I want to get into. So people understand just how much of a visionary leader you are. I really wanna get into that. So let’s first of all talk about the journey. Let’s talk about where you started to, where you got to where you’re at today. If you could cover that for us.
[Chris] Yeah. I was a sophomore in college and my dad called me one day and said, you’re gonna get your real estate license and come up to Lake Tahoe and sell timeshares for the summer. I said, okay. And I did that and then he, later that summer, he got an opportunity to move to San Diego to manage a resort. I went down there and that summer job turned into three years of selling timeshares and learned a lot. I was 20 years old and learned how to sell and learned how to close and learned how to present. Along the way, I met a real estate broker, and for three years that broker kept recruiting me and sending me handwritten notes and calling me, and every time I saw him and just to make a longer story shorter one day he caught me at a weak moment and I said, alright, I’ll give it a try. I’ll do this real estate thing. And my first year I was rookie of the year, I went on to spend 16 years at that company.
[David] What company was that? We give him a shout out.
[Chris] His name is John Leperdink and in San Diego, and the company was Prudential California Realty.
[David] Oh, yeah. Remember that? Yeah. I had a mortgage company, two mortgage companies that I was friend of the CEO in San Diego. I remember John.
[Chris] Yeah. We were part of the Prudential Network at the time. They were nationwide, 37,000 agents. I was. I think I was number eight in the country.
[David] Eight, and then Wow! Outta 37,000. Wow. That’s an achievement.
[Chris] And then I made a change in 2004. I left them and joined Keller Williams and at the time, Keller Williams didn’t really have a presence in San Diego. In fact, I had never heard of the company at that point. And because they just weren’t in our market, I vaguely remember them being like some Texas company. Anyways, joined them. I was 2004. By 2009, I was the number one Keller Williams agent in North America, a nd the next year I took an executive role with the company and they wanted to, at that point, start expanding globally because they were only in North America and all the other brands, Century 21 and Coldwell Banker, Remax were all in Nationwide for decades. I was hired to figure out how to do that. And I did, I figured out how to do that and over the next five years opened up Keller Williams in over 20 different countries around the world.
[David] Countries. Wow.
[Chris] By that point it was the current CEO was ready to make a transition and I was the obvious choice to become the next CEO. So in 2015, became the CEO of Keller Williams Realty. I was there for a little over two years in that role. In those two years, we doubled the profits of the company in those two years. We also, in the seven years that I was on the executive team, we doubled the size of the company. So Learned a lot. Learned a lot about growing building.
[David] Oh gosh. Yeah. What do you attribute to that the success that you had? Market conditions contribute to that, I’m sure, but the reality is others were not growing at that rate. So what was it the reason, Chris, that you were, that you attribute the success to?
[Chris] Yeah, look, it was a couple things. So as far from the growth, it was a maniacal focus on growth, that was our one thing. We had one goal. Our one goal was the number of agents we had in the company and then we very systematically got our franchisees to all start marching in the same direction to the same tune and created a program to help all of our franchisees grow and when we did that we started to see some significant growth numbers in terms of the profitability, like in those two years. There was a combination of things that happened. Number one, I was able to go in and cut a lot of expenses. And there wasn’t necessarily lot of jobs. In fact, the very few jobs got cut, but there were a lot of legacy programs, a lot of legacy technology and a lot of legacy technology expenses that were able to modernize and reduce the cost of. And then the growth is what fueled the rest of the profitability. Just really focused and executed. We moved fast. We failed fast, but we always failed forward.
[David] And that’s a good important concept. Yes.
[Chris] And we were, able to accomplish a lot. I, after, let’s see, 13 and a half years there I left and didn’t really. Didn’t have, didn’t decide. I wasn’t gonna figure out what I was gonna do next. I was gonna just see what happened. What happened was I met Anthony Shea, the founder of Loan Depot, and after six one-on-one meetings. He’s okay, how can we be in business? I want you to, what will it take? And ultimately I joined him, became the CEO of this sister company that created called Mellow Home, where we were, bridging the gap between mortgage and real estate and other home services and all along this to back up, I’ve been involved with the technology side of our industry for a long time back. As early as the late nineties and early two thousands, I had guys building, programs for me and platforms and created a platform myself was very very connected to that and always looking at ways to change and improve things. Excuse me. The so I was also advising and on the board of several technology companies at the time, one of the companies with a company out of Austin, Texas called Ojo Labs.
[David] Oh yes, absolutely.
[Chris] And they in 2000, the middle of 2019. They said, Hey, we could really use you full time. Now I was a very active board member. I was advising and calls each week, but said, Hey, we could really use you full time. And at the time, the mortgage industry, as you remember, like second half of 2018, in the middle of 2019, really hit the doldrums, significant margin compression. At Loan Depot, we went from almost 8,000 employees down to just under 5,000 in 90 days. The and a lot of the things that I went there to do, we just couldn’t do them because we had to focus on the core business, I didn’t feel like I was contributing the way I like to contribute to things and building the way I like to build. So I made the move and met with Anthony.
[David] Great move too. Ojo is, one of the innovators.
[Chris] Yeah, it was. It’s been fun. The next year we bought movoto.com, which was the fifth largest portal at the time. And so for the last five years we were competing with, realtor and Zillow and homes and Redfin. And then just recently we were acquired by Lower Mortgage. So now now I’m back in the working for a mortgage company.
[David] Yeah it’s such an amazing history and there’s so many parts of that. I’d love to get back to some of it, but, I really wanna focus on what you’re doing now because I think it’s forward looking. There’s a lot to we can learn from your journey that I think we probably wanna get you back on and record some of that to see why that was successful. I have another podcast called Lykken on Leadership, and I think that’s where we’re gonna feature some of that, Chris, some of your historical background. We’ll get you on that and get that and the purpose of that podcast is to record significant leader examples of leaders sign record leaders who have significant examples of success over different timeframes. And I think, that old Santiago, the philosopher, Spanish philosopher said what we failed to learn from history we’re doing to repeat. And I think that’s one of the things I have that podcast up and running for because I really, I’m interested in recording those and have them out there for pre posterity to live on. But, so that’s another conversation we’ll be having soon. But let’s talk about what is the acquisition by Lower give us a little reason why this is something, did they just offer you such a great price? Was it something that you think is a real strategic move? Lower had some not such good press lately in some of the things they’ve had lost, some leaders and what’s, what’s going on there and what draws you in there? Are they got you now. So I think we’re gonna see profits go up and everything else.
[Chris] Yeah. Look, we as a company. We do some things really well. We meet consumers at scale.
[David] When you say we as a company you…
[Chris] Ojo, Movoto.
[David] Yeah. That, I wanna make sure we’re clarifying that.
[Chris] Yeah. Yeah. We have 70 million unique visitors a year that come to our site. We take those visitors, we connect them, we partner with top real estate agents and teams all over the country. Make those introductions and we also generate a lot of mortgage leads. And those mortgage leads have been fueling some of the largest real estate, some of the largest mortgage companies in the country. We always knew that the best partner for what we were was a mortgage company. We had consumers, we had the real estate connection. The only piece we’re missing was the mortgage piece. Now there’s a lot of mortgage counties out there and a lot of great counties. And we had meetings with lots of them. It was a when we acquired Movoto, it was at a time where it was the only time we were able to do that, and it was because it was in the early days of the pandemic and no one was doing anything. If it was at any other time, there’s no way we could have acquired that company. realer.com, Zillow, one of them would’ve bought them in a heartbeat. And they were shocked when they found out that we bought them. Now again, this closed in June of 2020, right? People had just only been home out of their offices for three months and no one was thinking about raising tens of millions of dollars million and making big acquisitions. People are more concerned about are they gonna survive? So it was an opportunity purchase for us. In the last several months in the mortgage industry, it’s been the same way. But the leadership at Lower decided to like, Hey, here’s an opportunity and no one else is doing these type of things right now. And we’re going to take a big swing and do this. Now, as we were going through the process with them, Rocket acquired Redfin and they acquired Mr. Cooper and, we were deep in the process. Here’s what we liked about Lower. We wanted to find a company that number one had the ability to really focus on retail because real estate teams and real estate agents just work better with retail loan officers than they do. But that also had the desire to build a direct to consumer piece of the business because we do have those, all those mortgage leads that we generate, that we can take to those teams and Lower and Dan and his leadership team definitely have that vision and do that. And that was really important is important. We had to have that cultural fit and then the vision to take something that’s, not one of the biggest and build it into one of the biggest. And that’s the opportunity that we see and why we’re excited.
[David] Yeah. When you look at the previous attempts to do why do you think this one’s gonna succeed over those previous attempts? You touched on it, but I wanna go a little deeper on that.
[Chris] Yeah. Look at there’s always two things that are required. One is timing and Right. You have some of the best ideas don’t work because it’s not the right time. We believe. We believe this is a great time and we believe it’s a great time because we’re in this period where it’s really challenging right now. And if we can build the foundation of what we’re doing now and then when the market starts to turn and change, be able to ride that with the momentum that we’ll be creating, that, that becomes a really powerful force. So timing we feel really good about. The second is it takes the right team and the right talent. And the right expertise and the right focus. We believe that when we bring consumers and real estate agents and real estate team relationships to a mortgage company, that becomes a very compelling offering for a mortgage company. If I’m running a branch and I can say wait a minute. This company over here, they can introduce me to top real estate teams and top agents and not just introduce Hey, David meet Joe. It’s no, wait. We’re going to introduce a consumer to this real estate agent that’s been matched with this loan officer and together you’re gonna work with this. Now I know what everyone’s thinking. What you’re probably thinking Chris, every real estate agent and real estate team has relationships with loan options. Of course they do. Of course they do. But when the mortgage company is the one paying for and acquiring that consumer and says, Hey, on these consumers, we’re gonna match them with the real estate agent and a mortgage professional. And we’re gonna introduce you guys before so you can meet each other and make sure you can work well together and know how each other work and how to support each other and together everyone’s going to do more business, people understand that. Agents understand that. Teams understand that.
[David] You’re touching on something here, which is really what it’s all about, is focusing on the consumer. We wanna make sure we have a benefit that’s going to the consumer. We have a benefits and all the business aspects of it are important, but you really touch on this when we were talking previously, and this acquisition is good for consumers and I’d like to have you explain why. Yeah. And why is it now that you touched on timing. So there’s, they’ve tried this before, the timing aspect of that as well.
[Chris] Yeah. So if you talk to any consumer who bought a home and went through a transaction and got a mortgage and ask them how their experience was. Their experience will be equal to the level of expertise of the individuals they worked with, right?
[David] That’s right. True.
[Chris] So if you have a great real estate agent. And a great loan officer helping the consumer nine times outta ten, that consumer’s gonna say, this is a great experience. They, we felt like we were their only client. They, they, they did what they said they were gonna do, and then some they, made us feel special. All those things, right? They communicated proactively. The challenge is that most consumers don’t end up with a great real estate agent and may not have a great loan officer, and things don’t get done and there’s fault, there’s spotty communication and people don’t follow through and the consumer’s having to, Hey, what’s going on? or when’s this happening or shouldn’t I be packing it? Or, like all those things and it’s like a very stressful. For most consumers having to go through that, but that’s a function of who they were dealing with. So when we can align with the best of the best, the best teams, the top agents. Top LOs really know how to work together. And those and top agents and top LOs know how to work together, right? They, that’s what they do. That’s how they be part of how they became, very good in their respective fields. Then the consumer benefits from that. They just have a better experience when a consumer’s online and they end up on our site for whatever reason. And they find a property, they’re interested and they click on it and they wanna see that property. And we call them and find out how we can help them, if we can connect them, and if they want to be connected to a top loan professional and a top real estate agent to help them see that property and find out what they qualify for, and explore different loan options. That makes it really easy for a consumer, right? It’s you. They’re not having to…
[David] I t’s a combination of tech and people, you can’t minimize the importance of tech in this process, but you can’t minimize the importance of a relationship. And really it just to give you, have you get a little bit deeper in how you have been able to integrate those or how you’re in the planning to integrate those and make those so successful in this new found partnership.
[Chris] You’re right, it is this, it is tech people and operations, right? that make it more seamless for the consumer. And that’s the case in just about everything. But certainly in our industry, that’s important. And the people component is super important because this is a big, it’s a big transaction for someone, right? borrowing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Making that emotional decision to make a move. Yep. And people need the support. They need the guidance, they need the handholding, they need the advice. So it’s really simple. Like I said, consumers are online, right? They’re online shopping. They’re on our site, they’re on other sites. They see a property that, that has interests them. They click on a button that says, I want to tour this home. They provide their information. We call them, we find out how we can help them if we can help them. Sometimes we can’t, sometimes it doesn’t make sense to connect them to anyone. But if they are looking to buy versus rent, and they aren’t under a contract with another agent, and they would, and if they say, yes, I’d like to be connected to an experienced agent or team that could help me with that home or others like it, and we bring that agent on the line and make that introduction. Now as part of a mortgage company, it’s just a natural for us to also be able to ask that consumer, Hey, if you do, when you find the home that you fall in love with and buy, will you be paying cash or financing? And if they’re paying financing, be able to say, would you like to be connected to one of our loan specialists that could help you figure out, what you qualify for, or potentially save you time, money, or hassle? If they say yes, then we can make that introduction. The key is. The relationship between the agent and the loan officer. The key is that having, establishing those relationships ahead of time versus just a blind date where you’re, so true. Connecting these three people that have never met or communicated before.
[David] Yeah, and I think that’s where so many of these failed. You sit and look at the success ratio. Adoption, where they’ve actually transferred over. It’ll be real interesting to see how Rocket bridges that they’ve got so many changes now, and now you guys are doing the same thing. It’s interesting you were in the process of doing this and they got out there with the headlines just before this got done, but I think I would rather measure twice and cut once and make sure I get it done right. Let’s talk a little bit, when, about the technology part of it? I believe technology should be doing a lot of the tactical the task oriented stuff and freeing up the people to work on the relationship, how do you guys accomplish that? Or what’s your views on that, Chris?
[Chris] Yeah, no and I agree, right? I’m always looking at, you know what, we can automate what we can augment with technology to make the process simpler, easier, quicker, it starts with the site and the portal and the consumer experience on there. Having a site that’s very fast, it’s very clean, that isn’t spamming them with a bunch of information that allows a consumer just to do what they wanna do, which is find homes or see what their home is worth or find the property that they drove by. And then be able to get all the information that, that they think is important to them versus what we think might be important to them. And be able to do it in a very simple way. And then if they want help, be able to have them be able to click on a button and say, Hey, I have a, I want to message the agent, or I wanna see this property, or I wanna find out what my home’s worth, or, I want to get a cash offer, or whatever the call to action is that it provides them. The technology to run that is something we’ve invested a lot in. Then it’s when they do click on that button, building a seamless way for us to communicate with them very quickly while we’re communicating with them, notify multiple agents in that service, that zip code, that we have a live consumer on the phone, and for an agent to hit a button and let us know, yes I’m available and I wanna help them. And for us then to bring them on the line. And, in that live introduction and say, Hey David, we have the Joneses on the line. They’re interested in the property at 1, 2, 3, anywhere street. We told them they’d be in great hands with you and that you could help them see that property and others like it. And you come on the line and say, Hey, Mr. And Mrs. Jones, see you’re interested in the property at 1, 2, 3, anywhere street. It’s exciting. Would you like to take a look at that on Friday or Saturday? And just give them what they want, which is to go see the property. Yeah.
[David] And again, the more we can let technology do the workforce and let us focus on the relationship and that’s the part of this that really works. We’re in an industry that right now has been fraught with a lot of lawsuits, market changes, affordability issues seem to continue to plague us in light of this new administration’s initiatives and some of the things that they’re proposing. Love to get your perspective in how you see this acquisition really taking us into the next chapter of the real estate finance industry or real, the whole mortgage transaction, the whole finance, real estate transaction.
[Chris] Yeah. Look, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of change happening. There’s a lot of changes to come. No, no doubt about that. But one thing that doesn’t change is relationships. It’s as if I put on my real estate hat. I need a great mortgage relationship to be successful in helping my clients buy homes if I put on my mortgage hat or my loan officer hat, I need great relationships with top agents and top teams who can connect me with their clients so I can help them and do what I do and so that doesn’t change. What we have is the ability to create a lot of those relationships very quickly and then be able to introduce consumers into those relationships so that they can be served and regardless of what happens with the administration, what happens with the GSEs, what happens with Fannie and Freddie and all the other things happening. People still are going to buy homes. People still are gonna sell homes, and they still need professionals to help them do those things.
[David] It’s so true. We’re not seeing the real estate market. The American dream isn’t going away. So the more we can find a way to make that process less painful, less friction in it, I think better off. Sounds like you guys are well on your way. One of the things I’m looking at as we get ready to wrap this up is understanding the importance of this deal and what it means. Is there anything that we’ve overlooked in what about this transaction or how we’re viewing the industry? Yeah. They’re talking about us as an industry at large.
[Chris] Yeah. I think I don’t know. The only people that are overlooking it are the ones that aren’t paying attention, with Rocket, there’s things happening all at the same time. Zillow is doubling and tripling down on Zillow home loans, and they, and the relationships they have with their Zillow flex teams, Rocket buying Redfin. Lower acquiring us. That means that at the top of the funnel, the very beginning of the process, when consumers are shopping online, on Zillow, on Redfin, on the. That they are now able to be connected with an agent and a loan officer. So the people that might be overlooking things are the ones that are saying. Oh, those acquisitions those partnerships don’t mean anything. They kinda do. That means that companies like Lower mortgage are going to meet, be meeting consumers before they maybe walk into that open house, before they go to LendingTree to check rates. That means that we’re gonna be connecting them with great agents and great loan officers at the beginning of their journey which means that there’s fewer consumers that’ll filter their way down through the traditional ways and that’s happening and that’s going to continue to happen. And the reason you believe you’re gonna be more successful than the Rocket Redfin and the Zillow mortgage, what’s your secret sauce do you think?
[Chris] Think we have one inherent advantage. And that is we are small and we are nimble, and we’re able to move fast. When you take two, large companies like, Rocket and who by the way, did two very large acquisitions at the same time. That’s all encompassing. Even for small companies like us, integrating is wow, there’s a lot of work to do here. But we can move fast and we are moving fast and we can, and we already have the foundation’s already been built, right? We’ve been building it for the last five years. Lower has been working on it for the last several years. So now it’s just coming together at this time where we can really start going, in my mind, I always have the analogy of a, building a skyscraper, right? For months and months before anything, starts going vertical. There’s a lot of foundational work being done.
[David] Ah, stuff goes underneath. Yeah.
[Chris] We’ve already built the foundation, we’ve already done the foundational work. So now we’re just gonna be able to go vertical.
[David] So what do you think AI is gonna, is that gonna play into this in a bigger way? AI showing up everywhere, every, so how do you see that with your technology?
[Chris] Absolutely. It. It’s showing up everywhere and we’re just like, I don’t even know if we’re in the first inning of I don’t know.
[David] I think we, yeah, I don’t think so.
[Chris] And so again, there’s gonna be, there’s gonna be ways that that we’re gonna be utilizing it to help agents improve their skills, improve their improve their pro operations. Same with loan officers, same with the loan process. The mortgage process companies are already doing that. And Yeah. And so that’s gonna continue. And then it’s gonna start to move into how it can help with the consumer and make the process, quicker, more seamless, more transparent for them, I don’t think, I. There’s things we can do that we can hardly even imagine that’ll be happening. But those are all good things.
[David] And that’s you hit on that correctly, in my opinion, because it’s things we can’t even imagine. The only way we’re gonna be able to imagine by getting ourselves, making ourselves available to what’s coming or what is out there working. I recommend anyone reading. Listen to this. I say it in every podcast. Get the book The Coming Way by Mustafa Suleyman. He’s now the president at Microsoft of Everything ai. This guy wrote this book and his. That the coming wave, it’s a must read book. It’s gonna open your eyes to what is coming and the possibilities of it. I don’t think there’s a better book on the topic, Chris, that I’ve seen out there and then you see companies like Angel AI who has, Pavan has built an end to end mortgage operation. It’s just, it’s really exciting. It is coming and I think those that ignore it are the ones gonna get hit. I think also people that ignore these kind of the things which you’re doing at the top of the sales funnel and how you’re integrating it I just wish you all the success of the world Chris, I appreciate you’re up in there. Wi Whitefish, Bon Montana. Montana and joining us. I know you fly all over the country, but joining us today. From there you’re in the, yeah, we always tease Casey Crawford. In fact, you and I met at the HousingWire. Shout out to the housing wire and if you’re not registered to go to the HousingWire gathering you should be there. I wish I could be. I’m. Fortunately, I have some other things happening in my life right at the moment. I’m gonna be unable to attend, but Chris will be there, look him up and find him and understand more what’s happening. But Chris, I wanna say thank you so much. You’re in the Casey Crawford movement territory. He’s up there in the same neighborhood as you, and we were talking about that when we first met. Casey has a high respect for you and is excited about the future of what you’re bringing and what you’re bringing to Lower. So good kudos to you and continued success. Chris.
[Chris] Thank you. Thank you, David. Thanks for having me on.
[David] It’s a joy to have you here and can’t wait to have you back. Gotta get you on the Lykken on Leadership podcast. That’s the next one we’re gonna record. I’m gonna make sure we follow up on that right away. Thank you so much for being here.
Important links:
About the guest:
With over 35 years of experience in the real estate industry, Chris Heller is a visionary leader, a prolific author, and a trusted advisor. As the President of Movoto, he is shaping partner strategies, creating a cohesive structure between real estate professionals and Movoto, and accelerating the adoption of our marketplace powered by our portal, movoto.com. He is also a board member of OJO Labs, the parent company of OJO, where he guides the team’s obsession and focus on building innovative, outcome-focused courses that empower people to thrive in life and succeed at what they do.
Chris Heller has held influential positions for over three decades, from being the Rookie of the Year in 1989 to the number one agent globally for the company and eventually as the CEO of Keller Williams, the largest worldwide real estate franchise. He led the transformation of Keller Williams into a tech-focused company, launched the company’s first regions outside of North America, and grew the company’s productivity and profitability to record levels. He has also served as the CEO of mellohome, where he oversaw cross-functional groups tasked with creating simpler and smarter home buying, financing, and improvement experiences for the American consumer. As an agent leading the Heller The Home Seller team in San Diego, Chris accounted for more than 4000 home sales. Chris Heller is passionate about delivering value, quality, and excellence to the real estate industry and beyond.