Hilton & Hyland Exodus to Keller Williams?

Hilton & Hyland’s days as an independent brokerage may be over.

In The Real Deal’s review of the Lori Hyland-led firm’s 17-member associate team, 16 changed their licenses over to Forward Sunset Inc., also known as Keller Williams Hollywood Hills, between June 10 and June 28, based on filings from the California Department of Real Estate. That includes Felix Pena, Hilton & Hyland’s managing broker — a position he’s held for about five months.

Records also show Hilton & Hyland is listed as a “DBA” (doing business as) under Forward Sunset — indicating the Keller Williams affiliate has absorbed Hilton & Hyland through some sort of an agreement, rather than an unofficial mass exodus. Still, current business filings with the California Secretary of State show Hilton & Hyland’s status as still active as of Wednesday.

Hilton & Hyland did not respond to TRD’s request for comment, and Keller Williams Hollywood Hills declined.

Keller Williams Hollywood Hills started operations in 2003, based on records from the Department of Real Estate. The team — which focuses on Brentwood, Beverly Hills, Century City, West Hollywood and Beverly Grove, among other L.A. residential markets — is helmed by Josh Spitzen. The roughly 225-agent team inked $2.3 billion worth of sales in the last year, according to the firm’s website.

Lori Hyland said as recently as December that she was not interested in selling Hilton & Hyland and was still “very much running the company and very much [wanting] to bring it into the future.”

Hilton & Hyland has been unraveling since the death of Jeff Hyland, the firm’s co-founder and Lori’s husband, in early 2022. Through the course of that year, the brokerage was hit with many exits.

Hilton & Hyland’s former star broker Drew Fenton, along with Linda May, Bjorn Farrugia, Jonah Wilson and Ed Leyson, broke off to start Carolwood in November 2022. The next month, the firm’s other co-founder, Rick Hilton, sold his interest in the company to Lori Hyland, leaving Hyland & Hilton solely in her hands. Then in 2023, Hilton, his son Barron and wife Tessa launched Hilton & Hilton Real Estate.

The 17 agents still listed on the firm’s website — despite 16 of them now having their licenses with Keller Williams — represent a nearly 89 percent decline in personnel from the firm’s highwater mark just four years ago.

“Lori, as nice as she may be, she’s not Jeff. She’s not in the business,” Stephen Shapiro of Westside Estate Agency told TRD in a 2025 interview.

The Agency co-founder and CEO Mauricio Umansky, an alum of Hilton & Hyland, echoed the sentiment, also in 2025, noting that Jeff Hyland and Rick Hilton were the glue holding the firm together and without that partnership, the brokerage fell into a “slow and steady demise.”