Brick-and-mortar business has long been the foundation of real estate — figuratively and literally. But as the industry adapts to new technologies and rapidly changing market conditions, new leaders are stepping in to meet unique new challenges.
Each year, Business Insider highlights up-and-coming agents, architects, founders, and other figures making an outsize impact in real estate. The process starts with nominations from CEOs, company presidents, and managing partners. To be considered, nominees must be US-based, under 40, and stand out from their peers. Business Insider's editors make the final selections.
This year's class of rising stars comes from a wide array of backgrounds, with prior expertise in everything from construction and marketing to private equity. From making real estate investing more attainable to developing 500-square-foot homes to fit in your backyard, they're addressing some of the industry's biggest challenges head-on.
Meet Business Insider's 18 Rising Stars of Real Estate for 2025.
Tarek Afifi, 28
Corporate finance and investor relations manager, Better Home & Finance
Tarek Afifi said his secret to success is his deep belief in the American dream.
The 28-year-old, who serves as the corporate finance and investor relations manager at Better Home & Finance, said he gets satisfaction from shaping investors' perception of the online mortgage lender — and helping the company's hard work get reflected in its stock price.
He attributes his success to how deeply he believes in Better's mission, and said the idea of helping Americans buy a home brings him satisfaction.
"Everyone wants to own equity in a home that they can live in, but also, build wealth off of," he said. "What really attracted me to it, I think, is the fact that it really is applicable to all walks of life," he said of buying a home.
Better shares have soared more than 400% since April of last year, around the time Afifi joined the company. That's due to investor optimism on the company's future earnings growth, as well as a surge of interest in the stock after the hedge funder Eric Jackson made a high-profile bet on the company.
Better reported a net loss of $27 million in the second quarter, down from a $40 million net loss in the first quarter. Its funded loan volume for the quarter also rose to $1.2 billion, up 38% for the quarter.
Afifi is optimistic about the direction of the residential real estate market over the next year. He expects refinance and mortgage activity to bloom in 2026 as the Fed continues to cut interest rates.
"Everyone's kind of positioning themselves for the refi rally," he said. "So it's a symbiotic relationship and I think that it's something we're all looking forward to seeing."
Maria Barrios, 35
Executive director of operations and CFO, The National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals
The rate of Hispanic homeownership rose to a record 49.5% in 2023. Maria Barrios wants to make that statistic even higher.
As the executive director of operations and chief financial officer of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP), Barrios is central to the nonprofit's mission to promote homeownership and expand access to credit in the Hispanic community through education and advocacy. As of 2025, the organization has 85 chapters nationwide, with an additional 30 in development and nearly 58,000 active members.
"While our mission is to promote sustainable Hispanic homeownership, we're about much more than that," Barrios told Business Insider. "We understand that homeownership isn't the end goal for Hispanics; it's just the beginning of their financial journey."
Barrios has played a key role in expanding the organization's reach, assisting with the launch of the AVANCE Global Conference, a business and media platform, and expanding internationally with AVANCE España in January 2026. She also supported the launch of the National Hispanic Construction Alliance (NHCA) and AVANCE Sports.
Overall, Barrios has driven consistent 30% year-over-year revenue growth for the organization and helped launch an average of 10 new NAHREP chapters annually.
"The real estate industry faced a challenging market this year, but our biggest accomplishment was growing despite these difficulties," Barrios said.
Derek Fitzgerald, 33
Senior vice president of operations, McCarthy
Derek Fitzgerald is the poster child for company loyalty. He's been at McCarthy, a national commercial construction company, since he left college 12 years ago, climbing the ranks to become the senior vice president of operations for the builder's San Francisco office.
It's a career he came to after finding a passion for the "built environment" while studying civil and environmental engineering at UC Berkeley.
Since then, Fitzgerald has been part of a wide range of projects, from the renovation of a 350,000-square-foot naval hangar to the construction of a lab that produced the antiviral drug Remdesivir. The work is varied, and marries his varied set of skills.
"I didn't necessarily want to focus on the design part of it," Fitzgerald said. "But I found this commercial real estate and construction environment that allowed me to merge my technical background with this passion that I have for people and bringing people together."
Nick Friedman, 29
President of home equity, HomeLight
For most founders, selling their company marks the end of a journey. For Nick Friedman, it was the beginning of another chapter.
Friedman's first chapter began at 19, when he dropped out of Williams College and set out to start a company that would "change the world." After joining the famed Y Combinator program with Adam Pollack, the two launched lending startup Accept.inc in 2019. In 2022, they sold the company to the real estate technology company HomeLight.
A lot of founders would've ridden into the sunset. Friedman stayed on board.
"I think that I told the CEO of HomeLight, 'I'm probably going to be your worst employee of all time,'" Friedman told Business Insider. "I am not going to listen to you. I'm going to want to do my own thing. I'm going to want to figure out how to grow this thing on my own. That's just who I am. And I don't think I'm going to last very long."
Three years later, he's HomeLight's president of home equity, overseeing sales, operations, products, and compliance with everything associated with HomeLight's core lending product, Buy Before You Sell, which allows users to purchase their next home before selling their existing one.
Friedman describes himself as an old soul, and said his willingness to get out and talk to people — instead of relying on social media or sending emails — has helped him connect with the right people and grow his career.
"We're not shy," he said. "I think the reason a lot of younger founders today don't make it is because they are very shy."
Joey Gumataotao, 28
Cofounder and COO, Mogul Club
Real estate investment is often considered the easiest way to gain wealth in the US. But high barriers to entry prevent unseasoned investors or people with less capital from getting started.
Fractional real-estate investing, which allows people to invest in a portion of property instead of buying it outright, makes it easier for non-accredited investors to get started — a fact Mogul Club cofounder Joey Gumataotao recognized early on.
"My partner and I actually purchased our home right out of college with what very, very little savings we had from jobs that we worked in college and ended up renting out two of our bedrooms to two of my colleagues at Goldman," Gumataotao told BI. "This is a real way to build wealth that wasn't there before."
Gumataotao started Mogul Club in 2022 alongside his cofounder Alex Blackwood, who he met while they were both working at Goldman Sachs. Blackwood was on the investment banking side, and Gumataotao was in real-estate investing on the private equity side.
They both wanted to make real-estate investing more accessible to everyone.
"Even as someone who was working for a large institution, I actually didn't have a ton of opportunity to invest in these lucrative multifamily, large multimillion-dollar investments myself," Gumataotao said.
Mogul Club allows investors from all financial backgrounds to invest as little as $250 toward a property in markets like Mesa, Arizona, or Ramsey, New Jersey.
As COO, Gumataotao still handles people management and fundraising responsibilities — Mogul Club is still in its seed-extension round — but he also gets his hands dirty working on the acquisition and supply side of the business.
"No matter how much we grow, I'll always prefer to be hands-on," he said. "Real estate's my passion."
Zoe Heyman, 31
Vice president of investor relations, Basis
Zoe Heyman's role at Basis defies a simple job description. As vice president of investor relations at Basis, a commercial real estate investment firm, the 31-year-old oversees all marketing and investor communications, leads the publication of the company's annual Corporate Responsibility Report, and recently spearheaded the implementation of new technology to better track deals and streamline operations across the company.
Her efforts aren't solely focused on the company's bottom line. As a leader on the People, Planet, Policy Committee, Heyman also organizes environmental-justice fundraisers and community cleanup activities for the firm's employees. Through her involvement in Basis' Capital Connect Initiative, Heyman also works to promote minority-led institutions and direct capital to underserved communities.
"Zoe Heyman brings a fresh perspective, a modern approach, and an unparalleled level of resourcefulness and initiative to her leadership role," said Leigh Roumila, head of investor relations at Basis.
Jed Miciak, 35
Senior vice president, revenue & marketing, Landing
Only two-and-a-half years into working in residential real estate, Jed Miciak knows it's his calling.
Miciak is the senior vice president of marketing and revenue at Landing, a company that provides a collection of furnished apartments for shorter-term rentals. It's a job with some similarities to the decade he spent working at Hilton, where he helped grow the data analytics team and worked in global pricing.
This year, Miciak has helped grow Landing's portfolio of properties to about 500 nationally, up from 100 last year. He's also built AI models that use machine learning to identify potential problems, launched Landing's rebrand, and grown the company's online travel agency business while working with companies like Airbnb and Marriott.
Over the next year, Miciak hopes to continue to grow supply and drive marketing efficiency higher — in addition to working toward an IPO down the line. He's motivated by all he's learned from being in the room with longtime real estate pros.
"I was able to be in these rooms with executives who have been in the space for a long time," Miciak said. "I sat there and provided data at the time; it didn't really seem that valuable for my career. Now, looking back, seeing how these executives face the tough problems solves a lot of the issues running this global powerhouse. It's super helpful."
James Murray, 35
Director of design, Samara
James Murray is tackling one of architecture's most challenging tasks: designing small spaces that are functional and stylish.
Murray is the director of design at Samara, a modular startup spun out of Airbnb's research and development team. The California-based company's first product, Backyard, is an accessory dwelling unit, or ADU — a compact backyard home that can serve as an in-law suite, home office, or short-term rental.
Samara is growing at a pivotal moment in real estate, as high housing costs prompt many homeowners across the country to stay put and find creative ways to expand their living space.
"ADU is an acronym that's been spreading across the US for some time, but in California specifically, it's become a very common type of home, one that's now almost ubiquitous as a solution for many people," Murray told Business Insider.
Samara offers a suite of backyard ADUs, ranging from compact studios to XL models, measuring between 420 and 950 square feet. For each design, Murray applies a philosophy he calls "empathetic affordances" — the idea of creating spaces that respond to how people actually live and move through them.
"We're always aware of how we engage in a space," Murray said. "Think about the size of a dining table or a bed in a bedroom. It's also about the right balance of space in that perfect kitchen triangle, where you can cook a meal while staying close to the refrigerator, stovetop, and sink."
Murray's thoughtful designs have been integral to the company's success, helping Samara book more than $100 million in project value in California over the past year.
Griffin O'Brien, 31
CEO and cofounder, Estate Media
With the abundance of TikToks and Instagram Reels showcasing listings and giving homeownership advice, it's not hard to see the connection between real estate professionals and content creators today.
But when Griffin O'Brien launched his real-estate media company Estate Media in 2023, it took some time to convince others it was a good idea for a business.
"There was absolutely a challenge from day one," O'Brien told Business Insider of convincing major realtors and talent that being featured in Estate's content would be good for their brands and businesses.
O'Brien, whose background in media spans consulting for Snapchat and working in content acquisition at Roku and Amazon's Prime Video, founded Estate Media with Andrew Shanfeld and "Million Dollar Listing" star Josh Flagg as a consulting firm, talent agency, and content-creation machine with a talent-focused approach to creating original content for the real estate industry.
O'Brien said that Estate Media reaches close to 35 million people through its podcasts, newsletters, and shows on a number of social media platforms.
"We really did see an opportunity between the traditional publications — largely news-based publications — covering real estate and reality television to create content right around these leading voices," O'Brien said.
Michael O'Connor, 30
Cofounder of The Exclusive Group at Douglas Elliman
Michael O'Connor has worked nonstop in real estate since he was 21. He has no intentions of changing that.
O'Connor started in luxury real estate with Douglas Elliman, where he's been for nearly a decade. Now a sales associate for The Exclusive Group, a boutique real estate advisory group under Douglas Elliman, O'Connor specializes in South Florida luxury real estate, selling over $1 billion in properties alongside his business partner Nicholas Malinosky. The group was ranked number one in Florida and number two in the country for sales volume for medium-sized teams by The Wall Street Journal.
"That right there goes to show how hard we work for our clients and production," O'Connor said. "That's definitely the greatest accomplishment over any one particular sale."
One of O'Connor's proudest transactions was for two contiguous oceanfront lots in Delray Beach that sold for a combined $44 million. He and Malinosky have done about 30 transactions a year, though they prioritize sales volume.
Because many of the buyers and sellers O'Connor works with are "extremely sophisticated" and "typically the best at what they do," they want someone who will go above and beyond in guiding them through the process.
"The phone is always going and you're always getting emails, so it starts early and it goes late," O'Connor said.
Alexander Redfearn, 36
Founder, president, and CEO, Redfearn Capital
There was a time when Alex Redfearn thought things wouldn't work out.
In 2014, at the age of 25, he launched Redfearn Capital, a private equity firm specializing in commercial real estate, based in South Florida. At the time, he had no experience beyond a college case study he completed at his alma mater, the University of Miami.
Redfearn told Business Insider that during the early years of building his business, he often considered walking away and starting over.
"I almost quit after the third year," he said. "I tried to, but my wife wouldn't let me. I wanted to get a cabin and move to New York, but we stuck it out."
Turns out, his wife was right. Since founding the company, Redfearn has built a portfolio exceeding $800 million in assets under management, spanning industrial real estate including small-bay, manufacturing, and logistics warehouses. Despite challenging economic conditions, such as tighter lending standards and higher interest rates, his firm continues to grow. In 2024, the company acquired 13 properties, generating a total revenue of $125 million.
Reflecting on his career, Redfearn said his company's success comes down to persistence — a quality he believes is essential for every young real estate entrepreneur.
"Do what you say you're going to do," Redfearn said. "I think in my line of business, people often commit to something but don't always follow through. Success really comes down to doing what you said you were going to do."
Alexis Xavier Rivas, 32
Cofounder and CEO, Cover
Alexis Rivas believed traditional homebuilding methods were outdated and sought to build homes with the same precision, speed, and cost efficiency as vehicles.
So in 2014, while still in school, Rivas and his fellow Cooper Union classmate Jemuel Joseph co-founded Cover, a prefab homebuilding company. In 2018, they designed and constructed their first accessory dwelling unit (ADU) — a compact, 500-square-foot, customizable backyard home.
"There's a huge housing shortage in the United States, and the problem is getting worse," Rivas told Business Insider. "Our approach to solving this is by building homes in a factory with the same repeatability, quality, and scale as cars."
Los Angeles-based Cover handles the permitting, design, and engineering process for its customers. Like automobile manufacturing, the company produces every component — from framing to doors and windows — on automotive-style production lines in its factory before assembling the home on-site. The production and installation process of their steel homes, which range from 150 to 1,200 square feet, typically takes 1-2 months, depending on size.
In 2025, Cover expanded into full-size custom homes, and in October, it announced it was nearing completion of a rebuild of a house destroyed in the Pacific Palisades fires.
"Cover was always more than a backyard home company," Rivas said. "Expanding to full homes feels like our original ambition becoming visible."
JJ Rivers, 34
Principal studio director, Gensler
A rural farm town in Northwest New Jersey might not be where you'd expect to find the architect responsible for some of the most exciting projects on the East Coast. But in Gensler's case, that's where they found JJ Rivers.
Rivers, who has already notched 10 years at global architecture firm Gensler at age 34, had an early appreciation for how things are built.
"I come from a pretty blue-collar family, so I've got a lot of aunts and uncles in different trades," Rivers told Business Insider. "Growing up, I always had my hands on building things, whether it was at my childhood home or at my relative's home."
Today, he's a principal and studio director in Gensler's DC office, and he also runs mixed-use development for the Southeast region. He manages a team of about 60 people, so his fingerprints are all over a number of projects on the East Coast, like Under Armour's new global headquarters in Baltimore.
Because of the diverse differences in architecture up and down the coast, Rivers is always encountering new challenges. Not that he minds.
"It just provides you different opportunities," he said.
Luke Robinson, 34
North America regional president, WeWork
A lot has changed since Luke Robinson joined WeWork more than a decade ago, when the coworking firm was in startup mode and had only a handful of buildings.
Overseeing the firm's sales, Robinson helped launch and scale WeWork's enterprise business, a major component of its growth over the years. Later, when COVID-19 and the work-from-home trend upended the commercial real estate market, he also led the charge to help its businesses bounce back in New York.
Robinson told Business Insider that being as transparent as possible with clients during difficult times has been key.
"We saw all the extremes. We saw people come back immediately. We saw people fully go remote," he said of the pandemic. "We were able to, number one, hopefully provide solutions, but also provide some perspective."
Robinson, who is now WeWork's regional president of North America, said the firm's recent restructuring to slash its $4 billion debt has been challenging.
"Everything, to a degree, is challenging about that process. I really made a huge effort to be extremely transparent with our landlords and our members throughout the whole process."
Robinson said he expects the commercial real estate market to pick up steam next year as the RTO push continues, and he's focused on continuing the company's efforts to refresh its properties and widen its offerings to customers.
"We've talked about return to office for five years at this point," he said. "I feel very confident in saying that this phase over the past year has been by far the strongest."
Amy Rossetti, 32
Founder, R[AR]E Public Relations
Launching a small business at 27 during the pandemic would have been a risk for anyone, but Amy Rossetti was confident that the strong relationships she built wouldn't fail her. Now, after celebrating her company's fifth anniversary, she's planning for many more years of success.
Rossetti's company, R[AR]E Public Relations, is a boutique agency with a five-person staff that handles the public relations needs of 22 real estate clients. Since launching in Beverly Hills in 2020, the company has opened a New York office, and Rossetti plans to establish a bigger presence in South Florida and potentially international markets in 2026.
Though Rossetti's clientele is mainly focused around the luxury real estate market, R[AR]E has opened its services to all who need them — from architects to investors to startups.
"I'm really adamant that I think R[AR]E can be and will be, if it's not too bold to say, the No. 1 real estate PR firm in the country within the next five years," she said. "That's what I'm gunning for."
Erik Rutter, 33
Managing partner, Oak Row Equities
Erik Rutter cofounded the real estate development firm Oak Row Equities with every intention of dividing his efforts between Miami and his hometown of New York City. Almost eight years after the 2018 launch, though, he and his firm remain laser-focused on South Florida.
That choice has proven to be a winning strategy. With Rutter and his cofounder, David Weitz, at the helm, the company has amassed a $3.9 billion portfolio of office, retail, and multifamily space, luring big-name tenants such as Spotify and Amazon along the way.
Rutter, 33, started the company with the firm belief that South Florida's quality of life would eventually draw a wave of top employers, who in turn would demand top-tier office space and ample housing for their workers. The COVID-19 pandemic "certainly accelerated our thesis," Rutter said, but he still sees plenty of runway.
"We're continuing to see great firms take large swaths of space in the Miami market," Rutter said. "And that's not really slowing down."
Erica Sachse, 33
Cofounder, Powered by Development Marketing Team
Erica Sachse was on a founding spree early in her career.
After spending five years in Australia, Sachse noticed that the US real estate market was lagging in its adoption of technology. She set out to fix that.
"Australia is very far ahead in the utilization of technology and 21st-century marketing techniques for real estate," she said. "I learned how to harness the data being created in the digital space for high-quality lead generation, ultra-targeted campaigns, lead nurture, really strong automation, and data profiling for prospective buyers and renters."
She founded the property marketing company Snaplistings at the end of 2019, then started her own marketing and sales brokerage, Powered by DMT, in 2021.
Being ahead of the curve has its benefits.
"Our clients are just so happy to finally be able to make data-driven decisions," Sachse said. "That's really what our focus is and what my passion is."
Sofia Zavala, 31
Senior associate, Pickard Chilton
Raised in Paraguay, Sofia Zavala developed an early passion for art and design, as well as a clear sense of their socioecological impact on daily life. This perspective now guides her architectural work.
Zavala specializes in large-scale urban projects, and her portfolio encompasses a range of interior corporate work in New York, as well as mixed-use, corporate, and commercial developments across San Francisco and Texas.
"Large-scale projects have a big impact on the cities they're in," Zavala told Business Insider. "I'm involved in a couple of projects in San Francisco and in Texas, and they're all meant to make a meaningful difference in communities and create beautiful spaces for people to engage."
Zavala is currently a senior associate at Connecticut-based Pickard Chilton. She's the architectural firm's youngest employee at that rank and the youngest woman on its senior leadership team.
"I'm very proud of that and grateful for the confidence that the firm has placed in me," Zavala said. "Being in this role motivates me to keep raising the bar and to support younger designers as they grow into leadership roles and find their own voice."
Zavala has plenty to be proud of. In 2024, she was a project designer on 530 Howard, an 840-foot luxury residential tower in San Francisco — the city's largest residential building. In 2025, she will also serve as the design team leader for the recently announced Ritz-Carlton Houston, which is projected to be the downtown area's second-tallest building at more than 600 feet.
"The most rewarding part of my job is knowing that the projects we do at Pickard Chilton aren't just buildings — they're future landmarks that help shape the skyline," Zavala said. "That's the really exciting part of what I do here."
