Real CEO Tamir Poleg Admits To Agent Relationship After Lawsuit

Real Brokerage Chief Executive Officer Tamir Poleg admitted to a romantic relationship with an agent that sparked a lawsuit.

In a company-wide message sent Friday afternoon, the chief executive said he was publicly responding after Michael Steckling, alleged in a lawsuit that Poleg offered his wife, agent Paige Steckling, hundreds of thousands of dollars and a multimillion-dollar house in Park City, Utah, in exchange for ending their marriage.

Poleg in a response to the complaint denied that he offered Paige, who joined Real in January 2024, money or a home in exchange for ending the relationship. However, he admitted to offering her $1.5 million in an email three days before she filed for divorce on Feb. 6, 2025.

In the message to agents, Poleg said the “brief relationship” began after he separated from his wife, and ended almost a year ago.

“These claims lack merit and are filled with inaccuracies,” Poleg wrote. “I view this lawsuit as a clear attempt to exploit my public standing for personal reasons and I have rejected and continue to reject any suggestion of wrongdoing.”

“The claims made in this lawsuit do not reflect the reality of those circumstances,” Paige said in a text message to The Real Deal. “I’m confident the legal process will address any inaccuracies.”

Michael also claimed in the lawsuit that Poleg sold stock to fund the money that would go to his then-wife, which Poleg denied in his response in court. The suit claims Poleg organized at least three meetings with Paige, beginning in October 2024, and she told her then-husband about Poleg’s offer in January 2025.

Poleg claimed those meetings were all work-related in his response.

The suit was initially filed in Provo County District Court last October, before the case was moved to U.S District Court of Utah in November.

Michael Steckling did not respond to a request for comment.

Poleg was previously a subject of a lawsuit by the brokerage’s former Chief Financial Officer. Michelle Ressler accused Poleg in June of scaling back her role after she returned from maternity leave and firing her for pushing back against the alleged discrimination.

Ressler’s lawsuit also took aim at the company’s business practices, with the former executive claiming she was “seriously concerned about the Company’s future, including compliance and legal exposure stemming from CEO Poleg’s decisions to prematurely launch products that, put simply, did not work.”

Real and Ressler settled in November. Ressler agreed to pay back Real for “personal charges” made on her corporate card, while Real did not make any payments to Ressler, according to a press release from the company.

“These isolated cases are completely unrelated to our culture,” a spokesperson for Real said in response to questions about the two lawsuits. “We take great pride in that culture, which is reflected in our growth. People want to work with us.”

Real has been one of the fastest-growing brokerages in the country. From 2023 to 2024, it added over $23 billion in transaction volume, more than any other brokerage in the country except Compass, according to RealTrends. In the third quarter of last year, Real’s agent count rose almost 40 percent annually to over 30,000.

Despite the rapid growth, Real’s stock has fallen by more than 22 percent in the last year. Poleg has sold millions of dollars in stock and the firm’s largest investor, Insight Partners, sold 10 percent of its holdings in the company in May, two months earlier than it had initially planned.