The Ten: The ‘honorable mentions’ you shouldn’t overlook 

Editor's note: In a year of epic mergers — and industry division — a handful of people and themes have emerged as defining forces. Real Estate News has selected the top newsmakers of 2025, based on their industry impact and influence. They are The Ten.

Over the past several weeks, Real Estate News has shared stories of The Ten — the industry players and trends that shaped real estate in 2025.

From Compass CEO Robert Reffkin's pursuit of industry dominance to Rocket CEO Varun Krishna's vision for an end-to-end homebuying experience, established leaders expanded their influence — while NAR battled to regain trust and the debate over private listings intensified.

But plenty of other people and themes had an impact on real estate in 2025. These are the "honorable mentions" worth watching in the year ahead.

iBuyers: The fight for relevance

The future didn't look so bright for iBuyers near the end of 2024 as Opendoor and Offerpad continued to report losses and, in Opendoor's case, mass layoffs. A few months later, their outlooks dimmed further when both companies found themselves at risk of being delisted from Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange due to a run of low share prices.

But over the summer, activist investors stepped in, first giving Opendoor its meme stock moment by deliberately driving its share price up before doing the same with Offerpad a few weeks later. Those stock price surges brought iBuying back into the conversation — and the arguably chaotic leadership overhaul that followed at Opendoor kept the company in the headlines.

Following calls from Opendoor investors to resign, Carrie Wheeler stepped down from her CEO position in mid-August. A month later, the company named a new CEO — former Shopify COO Kaz Nejatian, who aims to make Opendoor "a software and AI company" — and welcomed Co-founders Keith Rabois and Eric Wu back onto its board.

As for the future of iBuying? It's not over yet, according to Nejatian — and at Opendoor, national expansion efforts are already in progress.

The Trump administration: Reshaping housing policy

Though President Donald Trump has promised "aggressive" housing reform in 2026, plenty of change has already occurred — with help from a few key appointees.

Bill Pulte: Shortly after he was confirmed as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), Bill Pulte overhauled the boards at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — and appointed himself chair of each.

Staffing shakeups continued throughout the year. Meanwhile, Pulte pushed for the privatization of both government-sponsored enterprises, oversaw credit score policy shifts and pitched the idea of a 50-year mortgage option.

Scott Turner: Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Scott Turner joined the agency with a promise to flush out bureaucracy — which he has called "the enemy of new home construction" — and major staffing reductions followed.

A vocal critic of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, Turner oversaw the cancellation of $4 million in DEI-related contracts, the gutting of the Property Appraisal and Valuation Equity (PAVE) task force, and the embrace of an "English only" approach to all department business and services.

Russell Vought: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) emerged as one of the Trump administration's consistent targets of 2025. Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought — who also serves as the CFPB's acting director — is leading the fight to eliminate it.

Efforts to shutter the CFPB began in February as bureau activity came to a halt and layoffs began. While legal challenges have kept the CFPB afloat, the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel suggested in November that the bureau's legal funding options had dried up.

A judge has ordered the CFPB to remain funded for now, but its future beyond a February hearing is uncertain.

Commissions: On the rise, despite new rules

Aug. 17, 2024, marked a day of change for real estate as NAR's new rules — which mandated buyer agreements and barred offers of compensation from the MLS — took effect. Some predicted that declines in commission rates would follow — but did anything really change?

While commissions initially fell, a pair of reports released in early 2025 found that agent fees had largely recovered — and by May, the Federal Reserve concluded that buyer agreements did not result in lower commissions.

In fact, one year after the new rules took effect, commissions had actually increased compared to August 2024. 

A Consumer Policy Center (CPC) analysis later found that buyer agents were asking for higher rates in mid-2025 than they were three years earlier, concluding, "it has become increasingly apparent that successful agent work-arounds have greatly limited" opportunities for buyers and sellers to negotiate commissions.

Indie brokerages: Leaders make their voices heard

While 2025 saw the announcement of a major merger that could create the world's biggest brokerage, leaders of large independent firms refused to be pushed aside, choosing instead to speak out on several contentious issues.

Consumer advocates have warned that the uptick in brokerage M&As could eventually result in just a few national mega-players, while others believe larger indies might benefit.

After watching brokerage rivals come and go, Baird & Warner CEO Stephen Baird told Real Estate News in June that he isn't worried about consolidation "because this business is a local business, and the corporations treat everybody in the market the same way and can't deliver service in the way that we can."

On the private listings front, Windermere Co-president OB Jacobi took aim at Compass' business strategy and criticized PLNs, calling them a "wolf in sheep's clothing."

Meanwhile, Howard Hanna Real Estate CEO Hoby Hanna defended his company's decision to pull listings from the IDX — a move made in 2023 aimed at "creating a value proposition" for his brokerage — and fired shots at Zillow, accusing the portal of limiting "innovation and creativity" with its new listing standards.

The podcaster bro: Influencing industry discourse

While trade publications, blogs and social media remain common sources of industry content, real estate pros are increasingly taking to the mic with often-candid podcasts.

The year saw the launch of Playmakers, hosted by RealScout Co-founder Andrew Flachner, and Corr Values with @properties Chief Brokerage Officer Amy Corr — new podcasts that drew a range of guests from NAR CEO Nykia Wright to top executives at Zillow, Redfin and Anywhere Brands.

But they didn't edge out the more established shows, where hot takes and tough questions often took center stage.

Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered's hosts — NextHome Co-CEOs James Dwiggins and Keith Robinson — pushed the envelope in 2025 as they weighed in on industry news and debated contentious topics.

Rob Hahn and Greg Robertson, co-hosts of Industry Relations, also contributed running commentary on litigation developments, major M&As, controversial NAR policies and more.