After the real estate crash of 2007, broker Glenn Sanford set out to create a more sustainable enterprise—one where the real estate mantra “location, location, location” was set aside in favor of a more agile business model.
In true YouEconomy fashion, Sanford created a company that’s not only location-independent but also owned by the independent agents and brokers who make up the organization. Today, eXp Realty is a publicly traded real estate brokerage on the Nasdaq that crossed $1 billion market cap on the first trading day.
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eXp Realty’s exponential growth has resulted in surging stock prices and triple the number of agents from the beginning of 2018 to now, with a total of more than 13,000 agents across the United States and Canada as of July.
“When we set out to transform the real estate experience, I personally thought about what would it take for me, having been a real estate agent, to want to be at eXp over the long haul,” Sanford says. “It needed to be a place where entrepreneurial agents can voice their opinions and be heard, and a place where agents can plan for their families’ futures.”
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That kind of growth points to a company that’s doing things differently on several fronts. First, rather than a collection of small brokerages stationed in physical offices around the country, eXp Realty is entirely remote. All its agents work independently and aren’t subject to the often hefty office fees of traditional brokerages.
That doesn’t mean agents don’t network. In fact, eXp Realty has implemented virtual reality technology to allow its employees, contractors, and agents to meet, network, and continue their education in a virtual world. The eXp Realty virtual campus offers meeting spaces, an auditorium for training, and even a lake where you can take a boat ride while you meet.
For collaboration that usually takes place on paper or across a desk, eXp Realty uses cloud resources designed to perform the same functions as paperwork, white boards, and even email but for remote teams who need to collaborate down to the last detail. Remote agents, contractors and staff report to their digital offices from all over the U.S., Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, and India.
He’s doing something right. In June, Sanford was named a Top CEO in Glassdoor’s Employees’ Choice Awards.
This article originally appeared in the Winter 2018 issue of SUCCESS magazine.
