I’ve been a real estate agent for almost 6 years. Three of those years have been spent selling real estate at eXp Realty. eXp Realty is very different from the traditional brokerage model that most still follow today. I feel it’s imperative that I tell my story in a 5 to 6 part series explaining what eXp Realty has to offer agents and why I think eXp Realty’s business model will continue to disrupt the traditional brokerage model of “Having to have a physical office space.”

In the Beginning

I started my real estate career in June 2014. Not knowing where to hang my license, I reached out to a friend of mine that was a lender who suggested Wilkinson ERA. So I said, “what that hell, I hang my license there.”  Anyways, Wilkinson ERA is based out of Charlotte, North Carolina. My stint with that office lasted a little less than 2 years. Then in April 2016 I decided to make a move to Berkshire Hathaway C. Dan Joyner Realtors. I want to preface this by saying I don’t have anything bad to say about either brokerage. The brokers I worked under were fantastic! That being said, both brokerages had a physical office space. One brokerage touted their office space as the greatest thing ever. It almost came across as, “you can’t function as an agent without an office.” However, I kept noticing fewer and fewer agents coming into the office. At one point I told my wife that I was wasting gas going into the office when we have a perfectly good office at home, yet we were paying an office fee.

I stayed a BHHS for about 8 months before I did a real estate transaction with an eXp Realty agent. The transaction was smooth because we instantly clicked. During the transaction she asked me if I had ever heard of eXp Realty. Of course I said “no.” She began to tell me all about how it’s a cloud brokerage; there’s no physical office space; everyone has their own avatar; they login to an online platform called eXp World. I was thinking to myself, “this is crazy talk!” However, that’s not what made me decide to make the change. It was actually the commission split but we’re going to save that for part 5 of What Does eXp Realty have to offer.

Cloud Brokerage

On December 8, 2016 eXp World was my new office. eXp World is an online virtual platform that allows agents to create their own avatar similar to what they look like in person. Th avatar you create will look pretty similar to the real life you. This type of technology will come across as weird to begin with. I wasn’t completely sold on the idea at first but I absolutely love it now. This platform is almost identical to play a video game. Now you’re probably thinking there’s no way you can get used to the cloud office. However, it’s amazing. Think about it, how often do you truly go into the office to do work? Truly? You go into the office because you have to justify the monthly office fees, right?

I’ve learned early on in my real estate career that you DO NOT need a physical office to be a successful real estate agent. If you’re a new agent it may be something you need to get your feet wet, however it does not determine how successful you will become. I have nothing against having a physical office space, however I’m not going to remain at a brokerage that has to charge an office fee because of the massive overhead that comes with owning a physical office space. We have several large teams and independent brokerages that have switched to eXp Realty and still keep their physical office space. It is not a requirement to get rid of your office space if you do decide to make the switch to eXp Realty.

Everything is at your fingertips with the cloud based platform. Not only do you get to attend weekly training classes put on every week in eXp World but you also get to collaborate with agents across the country in real time. If you have questions about your commission checks, login to eXp World and go straight to accounting to talk with someone live. Any agent that joins eXp has instant access to real time people Monday – Friday 6 am – 5 pm pst/ 8 am – 7 pm cst/ 9 am – 8 pm est! The screen shot below shows all the departments that eXp agents have access to during hours of operations!