Zillow CEO Rich Barton is the most powerful person in real estate this year, according to the Swanepoel Power 200, an annual ranking by consultants at T3 Sixty.
Barton co-founded Zillow in 2005 and served as its original CEO before stepping aside five years later to let co-founder Spencer Rascoff take the helm. Last year, he returned to the CEO role and began pouring resources into Zillow Offers, a real-estate flipping business.
In interviews last year, Barton spoke of his drive to create a “trade-in” experience for home sellers that eventually will use the website’s Zestimate as a standing offer for real estate.
“Barton ascends to the top of the 2020 list based on his full-force return to lead the company he co-founded,” T3 Sixty said in a statement. “He has brought a bold new vision and direction to Zillow focused on reengineering the real estate transaction around the iBuying business model.”
Gary Keller, co-founder and CEO of Keller Williams, was in the No. 2 spot and No. 3 was Ron Peltier, executive chairman of HomeServices of America, who last year was No. 1.
Realogy CEO Ryan Schneider was No. 4, followed by Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman.
The T3 Sixty report analyzes industry executives and C-suite leaders of all “significant, large and strategically important companies in the residential real estate brokerage industry,” the company said in the report. The process starts with over 3,000 executives and narrows the list down to 200.
Realogy, the largest U.S. residential brokerage, had 29 executives, agents and brokers on the list, the most from one company.
They included John Peyton, CEO of Realogy Franchise Group, Ryan Gorman, CEO of Coldwell Banker, and Sherry Chris, CEO of Realogy Expansion Brands.
