If you’re in the real estate industry and haven’t heard of eXp Realty then you may be living under a rock. eXp Realty, The Real Estate Cloud Brokerage™, is the worlds largest cloud brokerage in the world. eXp Realty was ranked No. 3 top brokerage by agent count at the end of 2018. eXp Realty is also ranked No. 4 for closed transaction sides and No. 5 for closed sales volume in 2018 on the 2018 REAL Trends 500, which ranks the 500 largest brokers in the United States; No. 4 for transaction sides and No. 6 for sales volume in 2018 on the 2018 Swanepoel Mega 1000, which ranks the top 1,000 U.S. residential real estate brokerages. When I joined eXp Realty in December of 2016, we had 2500 agents across the entire USA. We’re now adding 480 agents a week and just surpassed 21,000 agents. That’s a 740% increase in agent count since I’ve joined.

When did eXp Realty Begin?

eXp Realty was created by a gentleman named Glenn Sanford. Glenn Sanford had important roles at Internet start-ups before launching a real estate career in 2002 and joined Keller Williams 2004. Glenn you can say was a very tech savvy individual. Before starting in real estate, Glenn sold Kirby Vacuums door to door, then became a stock broker (contract employee for AOL) where he learned the power of internet marketing. After that he went on to start several businesses including the largest online service in Canada called Internet Cafe. It was in 2001 when Glenn was launching a couple websites in his local market that he came upon a real estate agents website where the agents email kept bouncing back. Glenn reached out to this individual to inform him of the bad email address. Glenn began fixing his website for $60/hr. This agent got sick of paying Glenn $60/hr and asked Glenn why he didn’t have his real estate license? Glenn informed the agent that he gets paid $60/hr for website development. Hue told Glenn he’d pay him $60/hr to get his real estate license, so Glenn got his real estate license.

When he joined KW in 2004, he launched 5 teams across the country along with his initial team for a total of 6. After his 4th year in the business he was ranked in the top 50 nationally with Keller Williams. Glenn had the expansion concept front line before it was even popular to do so. Even though his teams were selling tens of millions of dollars worth of real estate, he was struggling to show a profit. In 2007 Glenn decided to go independent doing $73 million in production across 3 offices. In 2008 they were on track to do $100 million in sales volume until the housing market crashed. It was during this time that Glenn realized how big the expenses were for running a brokerage in a down market. He quickly closed 2 offices and skeleton crewed the third. Then in April 2009, while having a meeting with his agents and staff at his only office left open an agent asked, “when will we get our offices back?” Glenn stated, “we’re not going to get our offices back cause we don’t know how long the market is going to suck!” That’s when came upon the idea of creating a real estate model that’s not dependent on brick and mortar offices. Offices is the single biggest cost when it comes to running a brokerage. Glenn believed that agents and brokers do the heavy lifting in real estate and deserve benefits of being a shareholder and income based on the level of their contribution. In 2009, Glenn founded the first cloud-based brokerage — eXp Realty. Watch Glenn’s full speech below.

What is a Cloud Brokerage?

A cloud brokerage is a brokerage that does not have physical offices and conducts business entirely on the Internet. eXp Realty is the Netflix & Amazon of real estate. Think of Amazon. They are a cloud company. They have no physical stores yet they sell a heck of a lot of merchandise! We have no brick & mortar offices. They only individuals that need a physical office space are the state brokers. However, if you currently have office space, eXp Realty does not require you to move out of that office space. This is a common misconception. We’ve had several large teams and independent brokerages join eXp Realty. So it’s possible you might be able to use their space or work something out with them for nominal fee. Other than that, every agent and broker works from home or a remote office space. The company realizes a tremendous savings and is able to pass on the savings to agents in lowered costs.

What if I Need an Occasional Office Space?

We’ve got you covered there also. eXp Realty is partnered Regus Business Lounges Worldwide. eXp Realty agents have free access to Business Lounges in more than 1200 locations across the globe — including most US states, 95 countries and such exotic vacation spots as Cape Town, Dubai and Monte Carlo.Regus Locations include fully-equipped offices and professional administrative support from center teams as well as access to Wi-Fi. meeting rooms, day offices and video communications. The Regus Business Lounges are free to all eXp Agents with a Regus Card or copy of their Temporary ID #.

Where Does eXp Realty Operate?

eXp Realty currently operates in all 50 states & Canada! It was announced earlier this year that we’re expanding into 4 provinces in Canada along with the United Kingdom and Australia!

What is eXp Realty’s Mission & Core Values?

eXp Realty is a global community designed and powered by our agents and partners, transforming the real estate experience. At the heart of eXp Realty lies our core values. Created together with agents and staff, our nine core values are beliefs that support our vision and shape our culture — both professionally and personally.