Why I Joined eXp Realty

Where it all started

I began my career in 2010 after moving to Newport News, Virginia from Boston, Massachusetts, and started off at a company called Rose & Womble Realty. It was a local, traditional firm that seemed like the best fit at the time. Five years later I made the move to Keller Williams. At that time, I felt like I needed to be around more agents who acted like business owners, instead of individuals who acted as agents for a firm. I hope that makes sense. I spent another five years at Keller Williams, but around the four year mark I really felt like I wasn’t getting any value out of KW. It’s a great firm, but I wasn’t using any of their systems, and their two biggest training programs, BOLD and Ignite, just weren’t what I needed any more. I was paying a $25,000 cap along with a $3000 franchise fee and wasn’t really getting anything in return. I started questioning what I wanted the next stage of my career to be, and was really leaning towards getting my broker’s license and starting my own little independent brokerage. A friend of mine had done just that, and he seemed really happy with the decision. I figured I could run my small team as an independent brokerage and if anyone wanted to join under me, I’d give them a great deal as an absolutely no-frills brokerage. But that felt very uninspiring. It was around this time when I was first introduced to eXp by a friend working in Richmond, VA.

Seeing the eXp Model Explained

I had sent him a referral and when it closed he sent me The Model Explained video. I watched it, and it sounded neat, but it didn’t really speak to me and I didn’t understand what was so special about the model. Fast forward a year later and same scenario occurs. I send him a referral, he closes it, and asks if I had thought any more about eXp. Not really, was my answer. I had pretty much forgotten about it. So I went back and watched the video again and started doing some other research. Turns out some other friends were looking at eXp too. Then my friend calls me and tells me that he used his eXp stock to buy a lakehouse with cash! You can read more about that here. That was when I realized that there was something going on here and I needed to look into it. I drove up to Richmond and met with him and his business partner and they really walked me through everything. By the end of that meeting I saw it. I knew it was where I needed to be for my career’s future and for my family’s future.

eXp Stock and my big why

Everyone is looking for different things from their brokerage, but what got me more than anything was seeing what I could do with the stock. If I had been at eXp for the 5 years I was at KW, I’d have stock worth in the millions. That’s absolutely crazy to me to think about. And the longer I’m at this company the more I’m confident I may have missed the first big opportunity, but I’m definitely going to be there for the next one, and the one after that. The stock is a really, really big deal. I think it gets downplayed too much, but I hear story after story of agents who have been at eXp a little while and now have company stock portfolios that are allowing them to live the lives of their dreams. So that was the big hook for me. Honestly, at that moment, Revenue Share wasn’t the big selling point. I figured that may be a little part of my business, but I told myself what so many people tell me now, “I’m not a recruiter”. Little did I realize that a support system would be in place to make Revenue Share a possibility, and that it turns out I enjoy sharing eXp with other agents more than anything else that I do now, but I digress. Back to why I made the move – I saw something that could help secure my family’s financial future, provide me with the tools and training to grow my business in ways I never thought possible, and to be part of a culture that truly puts the agents before anyone else. No broker-owners, no market center ownership group, none of that. The agent truly comes first at eXp, and that means more than you could ever imagine. I finally found a home where my brokerage gives me more than I give it.