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A 184-page demand for arbitration filed by John Davis is “redundant, immaterial, impertinent, and scandalous” and will be stricken from the record, a magistrate judge ruled Thursday in a long-running fraud case between the former Keller Williams CEO and the Texas-based residential brokerage.

Magistrate Judge Hal R. Ray, Jr. stopped short of holding Davis in contempt, as Keller Williams had requested, in a case that originated after sexual misconduct accusations were leveled against the former chief executive in 2022, several years after he’d left the brokerage. 

Those allegations were settled a year ago, only to be followed with a second suit from Davis accusing Keller Williams Executive Chairman Gary Keller and others of inflating key profitability metrics, such as company sales and profits, to convince individuals to purchase Keller Williams Regions and Market Centers, according to legal filings.

“[The] plaintiffs’ Demand for Arbitration is not only redundant, since the Court appointed an arbitrator for this matter, but it also is impertinent and contains immaterial and scandalous allegations,” Ray wrote in his May 8 ruling. “Defendants have repeatedly requested that Plaintiffs withdraw this pleading, and after a failed agreement, the undersigned strikes the Demand sua sponte,” meaning “of one’s own accord.”

The May 8 order was a legal rebuke that struck some of Davis’s allegations from the court record in a case the former CEO filed targeting Keller, former KW President Josh Team and others over alleged fraud.

In his order, Ray ruled that Davis’s “Demand for Arbitration is not only redundant, since the Court appointed an arbitrator for this matter, but it also is impertinent and contains immaterial and scandalous allegations.”

Ray didn’t specify which claims he viewed as scandalous. But the filing that was stricken alleged that a Keller Mortgage employee was fired after reporting sexual misconduct by John Keller, KW’s executive vice chairman and Gary Keller’s son. According to that filing, the allegations were allegedly covered up by general counsel Stacie Herron and Gary Keller paid off the accuser with $1 million of his own money, while he gave Herron a $1 million bonus and a promotion to interim COO for her work in the alleged cover-up.

The updates are part of an ongoing and years-long legal tit-for-tat between Davis, other past Keller Williams executives and the franchisor.

At issue of late has been whether either side in the case has been wrongfully delaying a court-ordered arbitration process.

Andrew Miltenberg, Davis’s attorney, said the order was a win for Davis.

“Perhaps most important is what Judge Hal R. Ray, Jr. did not say — he did not say that the case was false or lacked merit, or was otherwise without basis,” Miltenberg said. “Indeed, the Court’s Order did not dismiss or alter Davis’ claims in any manner. As such, the arbitration will move forward on all of the issues upon which Mr. Davis has sought justice.”

Keller Williams declined to comment on the order.

Keller Williams asked the court to hold Davis in contempt, remove the filing containing the alleged attacks from the public docket and order Davis to pay their attorneys’ fees and expenses.

The request came in response to Davis’s allegations that his former employer was trying to “bully and intimidate” him through the courts.

After the filing was made public, Keller Williams characterized Davis’s allegations as “untrue personal attacks,” “baseless and false claims,” and a continuation of “his public smear campaign against Keller Williams and its leadership.”

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Home insurance prices in California are expected to rise for the next two decades, and all Californians should be prepared to share the burden of higher costs, according to an expert panel that met last month in Sacramento.

In the wake of one of the most costly natural disasters in U.S. history, the recent LA-area wildfires, the panel said the impacts on real estate will continue to grow, and access to homeowners insurance is now a top concern among buyers.

The experts said that in order for insurance to become widely available again, the state would have to attract capital back to the market. The burden of higher insurance premiums must also be shared among all residents, even those in low-risk areas, according to David Russell, director of the CSU Northridge Center for Risk Management and Insurance.

“In high-risk areas, to be able to afford to insure, they’re going to have to raise the premium on someone else. We have a cost-sharing issue,” Russell said. “I’ve seen huge rate increases in my own policy, even though I’m in a low-risk area, and I [have] filed no claims, ever. So, these risks are being socialized, and there are California citizens who don’t want to pay a part of the premium that someone else has imposed on the system.”

Over 55 percent of agents who were recently surveyed by the California Association of Realtors said access to homeowners insurance was their No. 1 concern, more than double from last year.

Agents also said that insurance availability was nearly tied as a top concern with affordability as the greatest challenge facing the industry this year, outpacing inventory and interest rates.

“Most of our Realtors are having to address the insurance problem up front,” said Sanjay Wagle, senior vice president of governmental affairs for CAR. “Traditionally, it’s just been the mortgage, taxes, insurance, and now, that insurance component is really affecting affordability depending on the area you live in…[it has] become a high priority.”

The panel noted that construction workers are being pulled toward Los Angeles, where there is high demand after the fires, and where they can earn more than in other areas of California.

Panelists encouraged homeowners to check to make sure they aren’t underinsured, which they noted was becoming more common, particularly among those who lost homes in the Southern California wildfires earlier this year.

“Altadena families underinsured by millions are losing generational wealth,” said Emily Rogan, senior program officer at United Policyholders. “Purchase as much additional replacement cost insurance as you can.”     

The panel said that both the state and individual homeowners needed to do more than simply buy insurance to mitigate the risk of natural disasters. 

“We cannot insure our way out of this problem,” said Michael Wara, director of the Stanford University Climate & Energy Policy Program. “The thing that is not happening enough is actual physical risk reduction. We need to reduce risk so there is less risk to transfer, and so we can afford that risk transfer.”

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The Real Brokerage lifted its agent count in the first quarter of 2025 and slashed net losses amid a decline in closed sides, according to an earnings call Thursday that positioned artificial intelligence as the answer to a sluggish market.

In the first quarter, The Real Brokerage continued its efforts to leverage technology, commission splits and other tools to attract more agents to the cloud-based brokerage. Real’s agent count jumped 11 percent between the end of December and the end of March, and the firm now boasts over 27,000 agents, according to the earnings data. 

“The housing market has kicked off 2025 on a slow note, with existing-home sale units down about 2 percent year-over-year during the first quarter,” Real President Sharran Srivatsaa said while unveiling the results on Thursday. He attributed the slowdown to “ongoing affordability pressures that have weighed on the market.”

A voice that sounded similar to Real CEO Tamir Poleg announced during the call that over 800 agents had already joined the brokerage since the end of the first quarter. To highlight the power of Leo, The Real Brokerage’s artificial intelligence service, Poleg unveiled that his statements were actually made by Leo.

“My prepared remarks today, including this section, were read entirely by LeoAI,” the AI service said. “That’s not a gimmick. It’s a reflection of how far we’ve come, and a hint at where we’re going.”

The “real” Poleg later added, “At this time, Leo is able to have real-time voice conversations, and we are planning to test these capabilities with our agents in the coming weeks.”

The company’s sides fell for the third straight quarter, with Real agents closing 33,617 sides in the quarter. Agents closed 35,832 sides in the third quarter of 2024 and 35,370 in the fourth quarter. 

Nonetheless, closed sides clocked in 76 percent higher in the quarter than the same time a year ago.

The brokerage posted a $5.1 million net loss in the quarter as it continued to scale debt-free. That was down from $16 million in the same quarter a year earlier. 

Total revenue grew to $353.9 million in the quarter, up from $200.7 million a year earlier. Its median home sale price remained flat at $380,000.

Srivatsaa used the call with investors to differentiate Real from other brokerages that are leading conversations around private listings and other key policy issues facing the real estate industry.

Real has so far not created its own private listings network, as Compass, Douglas Elliman, The Corcoran Group and others have done. But it could.

“As a top 10 brokerage, we have the scale to launch a massive exclusive listing network if we believed it was in the best interest of agents and their clients,” he said. 

In the meantime, Srivatsaa said, Real would continue to focus on training its agents and offering them tools and tech to succeed through a sluggish market.

“While the industry debates, we stay focused,” he said. “It’s important to understand that at Real, we don’t chase headlines.”

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EXp reported an ongoing drop in agent count and an uptick in revenue during the first three months of this year, as the firm saw home sales slow amid a down market.

The virtual brokerage reported pulling in $954.9 million in revenue from 89,643 homes sold in the quarter. The company ended last year with $1.1 billion in total revenue for the fourth quarter, and $943 million during the first quarter of last year.

Net losses ticked up from the fourth quarter, as eXp reported losing $11 million in the first three months of the year compared to $9.5 million in the fourth quarter. The firm trimmed its losses compared to the first quarter of 2024, when eXp reported losing $15.6 million.

EXp leadership highlighted the company’s values as it remained engaged in some of the industry’s most heated policy debates.

“The real estate industry is at a pivotal crossroads, and eXp is proudly leading the charge to protect transparency, consumer choice and healthy competition — values that have defined our marketplace for decades,” eXp CEO Leo Pareja said in a statement. “EXp was built by agents, for agents, and we continue to raise the bar.”

EXp reported $38.6 billion in total sales volume in the quarter, up 4 percent from a year earlier, despite its agents selling 2 percent fewer homes in the quarter compared to a year earlier.

The company reported having 81,904 agents at the end of the first quarter amid an ongoing slide in headcount. At the end of the first quarter of 2024, eXp reported having 85,780 agents. By the end of the year, the total had slid to 82,980 agents — a 5 percent drop compared to the previous year.

The company said most of the agents who left were low producers, with 77 percent of agents who left in the quarter selling 0-2 homes over the past 12 months. Two percent of those who left had sold 21 homes or more over the past 12 months, the company said.

“We continue to retain our most productive agents, which is the metric I’m most focused on,” Pareja said during a call with investors.

EXp CFO Jesse Hill said the company planned to focus on efficiencies to close out the year.

“We as a leadership team are building a plan to have more efficient operations in the back half of 2025,” Hill said.

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After a year-long battle with plaintiffs, and eventually with the judge presiding over the case, Hanna Holdings announced in a legal filing on Friday that it had reached an agreement to settle a commission lawsuit.

The legal filing in the case known as Gibson didn’t spell out the terms of the settlement agreement, including how much the Pennsylvania-based independent brokerage agreed to pay in damages.

But for Hanna Holdings, the legal filing signaled an end to the court battles that have engulfed the real estate industry.

“The Parties have reached an agreement in principle to settle all claims asserted against Hanna Holdings in this action as part of a proposed nationwide class settlement,” the brief legal filing reads.

The agreement is subject to final approval by Judge Stephen Bough, who is presiding over the case.

Bough himself became the subject of Hanna Holdings’ legal strategy in the Gibson case, as the brokerage’s attorneys requested to move the case out of Missouri federal court to a court in the firm’s home state.

Hanna Holdings also demanded that Bough recuse himself from the case, saying that political donations made by plaintiffs’ attorneys to Bough’s wife, who is a city councilwoman, were a disqualifying conflict of interest.

Hanna Holdings was joined in the recusal request by two other firms that are still engaged in legal battle: Berkshire Hathaway Energy and Crye-Leike. Bough denied the request.

Crye-Leike and Berkshire Hathaway Energy also requested that Bough transfer the case to courts in their home states. Bough has yet to rule on those requests.

But shortly after the filing by Hanna Holdings on Friday, Bough denied the firm’s request to transfer the case, saying the request was moot after Hanna Holdings settled the case.

In a text message, lead plaintiffs attorney Michael Ketchmark called on the remaining defendants to reach settlement agreements, as well.

“We are glad that Hanna Holdings has agreed to the practice changes and the other settlement terms,”  Ketchmark said. “We encourage Berkshire Hathaway Energy Company and the remaining holdouts to do the same.”

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