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Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices continued shaking up its leadership team by appointing Vince Leisey as president of HSF Affiliates, the group’s parent company announced on Tuesday.

HomeServices of America, the owner of BHHS, noted that Leisey has been with the brand network for nearly three decades before he was tapped to lead the franchisor of the BHHS network.

The announcement came five weeks after Berkshire Hathaway replaced its former CEO Gino Blefari with Chris Kelly. The company also promoted its chief financial officer and named a new executive vice president, among other changes.

“Vince’s passion for the network and our franchisees, coupled with his results-oriented approach, makes him exceptionally well-suited to guide our affiliates through the next chapter [in] our rapidly evolving industry,” Kelly said in a statement. “He brings a rare combination of energy, insight and operational know-how, along with a deep respect for people. He is ideally suited for this role.”

HomeServices of America owns the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices franchise network and is owned by Berkshire Hathaway Energy, a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.

Christy Budnick is the former president and CEO of HSF Affiliates. She stepped down last June, and Blefari took over her role until his retirement in April.

Leisey has served as CEO of BHHS Ambassador Real Estate in Omaha, where he leads an organization of over 1,000 agents transacting nearly $3 billion in annual sales, the company said. He will remain in that role while serving as president of HSF Affiliates.

Leisey is also the founder of the Explosion Real Estate Conference and a contributor to BHHS REthink Council.

“I have so much respect for the leaders across this network, and I look forward to partnering even more closely to drive growth, deliver value, and challenge ourselves to think differently about what’s possible,” Leisey said in a statement. “Together, I believe we can continue to build the most trusted, innovative, and agent-empowered brand in real estate.”

The changes to Berkshire Hathaway’s real estate unit started one month after reports emerged that the company was negotiating to be sold to Compass. HomeServices of America denied that any such negotiation was taking place. 

“The good thing is, we can say there is no contemplated, no pending transaction with Compass or any third party at this point,” Kelly told Inman in April. “We’re hopeful that these management transitions that we’re making are kind of reflective of our parent entity’s complete, full faith in us moving forward.”

Kelly denied at the time that Blefari’s retirement had anything to do with the rumored sale. Instead, he said that Blefari decided to weather the storm the industry and company faced during the past 18 months before retiring.

“It was important to him to help shepherd us through those challenging moments,” Kelly said. “As we’ve come out on the other side and we and the broader industry are kind of turning the page on that chapter of real estate and we’re moving forward under the new rules and everything else that are now put into place, he felt this was the right time to do it.”

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A former eXp agent sued the brokerage and a photographer who worked for one of its agents, saying she was drugged and sexually assaulted after a networking gathering that took place during an eXp event in 2023, and that eXp failed to properly investigate the incident.

Kirsten Childress alleged that she met the photographer, Nicholas B. Moore, at an open bar hosted by an eXp vendor during the eXp Shareholder Summit in May 2023 before the alleged attack took place.

After filing her civil lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida on Monday morning, Childress became the latest woman to sue eXp and allege she was attacked after attending an event affiliated with the brokerage and receiving a laced drink.

Childress said that she attended a networking event with an open bar and food hosted by an eXp vendor during the summit. She recalls drinking 1-2 vodka cranberry cocktails while eating and socializing during the event, her complaint says. 

“The next thing [she] recalls is being raped and strangled by [Moore] in his hotel room,” the complaint says.

Moore hasn’t been charged with a crime. He didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday, the day Childress filed her civil complaint against him and eXp.

In a statement, eXp said that it was “deeply concerned” about the allegations and distanced itself from the event that preceded the alleged attack.

“We are deeply concerned by any report of harm and extend our compassion and support to Ms. Childress,” the brokerage said in a statement. “The alleged incident occurred at a private, non-eXp-sponsored event, and the accused individual is not affiliated with eXp Realty. When the matter was brought to our attention, we immediately responded by offering support to the victim and by taking action to help to ensure the safety of other eXp agents. We want to be clear that eXp does not in any way condone, and had no involvement or control over, the actions of the accused individual.”

The allegations

The New York Times reported on Childress’s lawsuit on Monday. The outlet first reported on the case in an article about similar allegations involving eXp and its agents in December 2023.

The alleged incident happened in a hotel room after a networking event hosted by an unspecified eXp vendor on the Friday night of the event.

The NYT reported that detectives with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office interviewed Moore the morning after the alleged attack, during which he said they had consensual intercourse. 

Neither the hospital nor the Victim Service Center conducted toxicology screenings, according to the complaint. The state attorney’s office later declined to prosecute the case, citing the lack of toxicology testing, the complaint states.

Moore allegedly said that he had no sexual contact with Childress, and that he ordered a rideshare to take her to her hotel after he learned she was married, according to the lawsuit.

“However, DEFENDANT MOORE’s DNA was detected from vaginal swabs collected from the rape kit,” Childress’s lawsuit states.

“DEFENDANT MOORE later admitted to the law enforcement he choked PLAINTIFF during sex but claimed it was consensual,” the complaint says. “This is inconsistent with PLAINTIFF’s statements, memory loss, post-traumatic presentation, and physical evidence.” 

According to the complaint, eXp didn’t conduct an investigation into the alleged conduct, and Moore still worked as a contractor for at least one eXp agent months after the alleged incident.

“DEFENDANT eXp’s failure to investigate is consistent with DEFENDANT eXp’s pattern and practice of turning a blind eye and not investigating the conduct of its top agents, contrary to its own Policies and Procedures.”

In her complaint, Childress accuses Moore of sexual battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. She accuses eXp of negligent misrepresentation and breach of contract.

She is seeking compensatory relief to be determined at trial, punitive damages from Moore and eXp, and an injunction requiring policy reform and reporting transparency at eXp.

Previous lawsuits

In February 2023, four women accused two eXp Realty agents of luring them to industry and company events with the promise of career advancement, only to then drug and sexually assault them.

That complaint ultimately argued that the two men participated in an “ongoing venture to entice women to travel in interstate commerce, recruit enthusiastic real estate agents with the promise of career advancement and coaching, and use their considerable influence in the real estate industry on these other real estate agents behalf, knowing that they would use means of force, fraud or coercion to cause these women to engage in a sex act.”

A fifth eXp agent filed a lawsuit that made similar allegations in December 2023.

Those lawsuits are still in litigation.

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Zillow has settled a lawsuit filed by a New York City broker who alleged the company’s StreetEasy apartment platform was essentially hiding his rental listings despite charging a daily fee to the agent listing the properties.

George T. Spyridakis moved this week to withdraw the lawsuit he filed in February after the two sides reached a settlement agreement, according to a pair of court filings from Tuesday and Wednesday.

“In order to avoid further delay, uncertainty, inconvenience, and expense of continued litigation of the disputed claims, and as a result to of [sic] a mutual desire to settle their disputes, the Parties have reached a full and final settlement agreement,” according to the notice of settlement and motion for dismissal.

The judge overseeing the case approved the dismissal on Wednesday.

StreetEasy declined to comment on the lawsuit and didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment or information about the settlement. The company denied Spyridakis’s claims in court, according to the new court filings.

Spyridakis, an associate broker with eXp, filed his complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle, near Zillow’s headquarters.

He claimed he paid $7 daily for each StreetEasy listing, and that he has listed over 250 properties for rent or for sale on StreetEasy, but that listings on occasion have been “masked” from public view.

In New York, multiple brokers can advertise the same unit, but StreetEasy policies appear to seek to prevent that from happening.

“Only one copy of a rental listing is permitted on StreetEasy,” the company’s listings quality policy says. “We will not approve the same unit to be advertised by more than one brokerage, landlord, or owner.”

He had alleged that the damages exceeded $5 million.

Neither he nor his attorney responded to requests for comment when the complaint was filed nor after the case was settled and withdrawn. The lawsuit was withdrawn with prejudice, meaning it cannot be filed again.

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The two remaining real estate companies still battling lawsuits filed by homesellers lost their latest bids in court on Monday when the judge overseeing the case denied their requests to transfer the suit to their home states.

Judge Stephen R. Bough issued the order denying the requests by Berkshire Hathaway Energy and Crye-Leike to have a commission lawsuit known as Gibson transferred to Iowa and Tennessee, respectively.

“The Court holds that severing this case into multiple duplicative cases does not serve the interest of justice [or] judicial economy,” Bough wrote in his order.

The denial was the latest in a series of court losses for the firms as the number of real estate companies that weren’t covered by the National Association of Realtors settlement last year and haven’t yet reached their own settlements dwindles toward zero.

Berkshire Hathaway Energy and Crye-Leike are the two remaining real estate companies that have yet to strike their own settlement agreements in lawsuits filed by homesellers who targeted the way agents historically had been paid. Monday’s order threw their attempts to defeat the case further into question.

In December, Bough denied the companies’ requests to dismiss the case.

In March, Hanna Holdings demanded that Bough recuse himself over allegations that donations to the city council campaigns of his wife by plaintiffs’ attorneys amounted to disqualifying conflicts of interest. Berkshire Hathaway and Crye-Leike soon joined that effort, which Bough later denied.

In April, Berkshire Hathaway requested that Bough agree to transfer the case to the Southern District of Iowa, where Berkshire Hathaway Energy resides. BHE is the holding company of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices. Its attorneys argued in their transfer request that the holding company had nothing to do with real estate and, as such, has no relation whatsoever with the state of Missouri, where the case was filed.

Crye-Leike sought to transfer the case from Missouri to the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee. 

Earlier this month, Hanna Holdings agreed to settle the Gibson case after losing its attempts for Bough to recuse himself and to have the case transferred to Pennsylvania.

EXp and Weichert Realtors have reached settlement agreements in a separate case known as Hooper. They have yet to receive approval for those settlement agreements, and Gibson plaintiffs have fought to bring them back to the negotiating table with Gibson attorneys, accusing the two companies of cherry-picking their settlements to save money on settlement costs.

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