Daniel Zia

Daniel Zia is the Founder and Lead Broker-Associate of Zia Group at eXp Realty — the most reviewed and most active real estate team in Santa Barbara. Over 18 years, no agent or team in any brokerage has helped more buyers and sellers navigate the region’s most coveted addresses: Santa Barbara, Hope Ranch, and Montecito. The numbers tell part of the story — over $1.5 billion in closed real estate — but what they don’t capture is the depth of relationship, trust, and care that every one of those transactions represents.

A love of architecture and design is baked into Daniel’s DNA, and it shows in how he approaches the work. He comes from a family with deep roots in real estate and brings a practitioner’s fluency to every engagement — earned not in a classroom but on job sites, in investment partnerships, and across the full arc of the development process. His experience spans short-term rental acquisitions and operations, strategic fix-and-flip projects, and ground-up subdivision developments built on spec. He has guided more than 50 developments and remodels to completion, with annualized returns consistently exceeding 30% — each one informed by the same discerning eye he brings to client work.

That eye is one of Daniel’s most valuable assets in the field. He reads a property the way a builder does — identifying what others overlook, recognizing what’s possible, and advising with precision rather than polish. Whether evaluating the bones of a Hope Ranch estate, calibrating a pre-market renovation strategy in Montecito, or helping a buyer understand the architectural story behind a home on Santa Barbara’s Riviera, his instincts are grounded in real experience. Materials, massing, light, livability — these aren’t buzzwords to Daniel. They’re the vocabulary of a lifetime spent caring deeply about the built environment.

More than 1,000 negotiations have also made Daniel one of the most creative deal-makers in the market. He does not approach the table with a playbook — he approaches it with a problem-solving mindset, one shaped by years of creative real estate investing and an investor’s understanding of what makes a deal work for everyone in the room. He has a particular gift for finding a path forward when the conversation stalls, engineering structures that feel genuinely fair and opening doors that conventional thinking had closed. For clients, this means not just better outcomes, but the confidence of knowing someone is truly fighting for them.

Daniel practices what he calls a neutral advisor philosophy, and it is the foundation everything else is built on. He is not in the business of pressure or persuasion — he is in the business of clarity. His job is to give clients the most honest, complete picture possible, and then support whatever decision is right for them. That philosophy extends to the highest levels of the market: Daniel regularly advises family offices and clients from the sports and entertainment industries, and he is trusted precisely because of the discretion and confidentiality he brings to every relationship. Fiduciary matters, estate transactions, complex investment plays — whatever the situation, clients know they are working with someone whose judgment they can rely on and whose loyalty is entirely to them.

For those moving to Santa Barbara from elsewhere, Daniel’s role extends well beyond the transaction. He knows from experience that a city this special takes time to fully enter — and that the right connections, made early, can make all the difference. He takes a personal interest in helping relocating clients find their footing: in their neighborhood, in the community, and in the kinds of relationships that turn a beautiful place to live into a genuine home.

Daniel is a sought-after speaker and educator in the real estate industry, regularly training agents and teams on performance, strategy, and the systems required to compete at the top level. He is equally fluent in emerging technology and social media, deploying AI-driven marketing tools, sophisticated digital platforms, and data-informed strategy on behalf of every client. The same capacity for big-picture thinking and ground-level detail that defines his advisory work defines his marketing — and the results consistently reflect it.

Zia Group was built to do more than close deals. From the beginning, Daniel and his wife Sarah have committed 25% of their profits to organizations that support and equip vulnerable women and children — providing access to shelter, education, and health in Santa Barbara and across the world. It is not a program or a campaign. It is a conviction, one they made quietly and have honored every year since. Daniel serves on the boards of his local church and a worldwide organization focused on reaching high school students, and he remains deeply embedded in the community that has shaped his family. At home, he is a husband to Sarah and a father to Jadon and Eden — the best job in the world, by a wide margin. When he is not working, you will find him at a pinball machine or cuddled up with his family and Blue the Beagle. The career is something he is proud of. The giving is something he is committed to. But the life — the actual life — is built around the people he loves, the faith he lives by, and the community he is grateful to call home.