At eXp Realty, one of the unique offerings to agents is the ability to earn eXp Realty stock. And to many agents who are already part of eXp Realty or thinking about joining eXp Realty, this is new to them. They don’t understand what this actually means to them. What value or significance does this provide and why should they care as an agent? And how can you earn eXp Realty stock?
In this blog post, I’m going to answer these questions and why I think it’s a great value add to agents. Let’s begin, eXp Realty is owned by its parent company eXp World Holdings Inc. This is a publicly traded stock on the NASDAQ exchange under the ticker symbol EXPI. The stock started out as low as ten cents a share and at its historical peak in 2021 reached nearly $78 a share. In 2022, it averaged roughly just under $12 a share.
What is the significance of eXp Realty having a publicly traded stock and the ability to purchase/own stock? Like any publicly traded company, this means that eXp Realty’s books, earnings, and losses are publicly available for all to see. So there is transparency in the company’s performance, anyone can see the company’s earnings, profits, and losses.
Next, the ability to own stocks of a company means you are an owner! So now you own a piece of the company you work for. So there is aligned interest, your performance at the company rewards you with stock and you have ownership of the company even after you decide to retire or leave. This could be a future source of retirement funding or you can choose to sell at any time and use the capital. So a source of additional income on top of your normal real estate agent income.
Awesome, so how do eXp Realty agents earn stock? Besides simply just purchasing it through the stock exchange like any other stock that you can buy. eXp Realty has a few different award milestones that agents can earn stock. They are as follows:
1. Upon your first sale as an eXp Realty agent, you earn $200 in stock cash award amount.
2. When you cap at eXp Realty, meaning that you have maxed out your 80/20 commission split payment to eXp Realty. This occurs when you’ve paid out $16,000 in commission to the company. You will earn $400 in stock awards.
3. Every time you sponsor a non-eXp Realty agent to join the brokerage, you will also receive a $400 in-stock award.
4. Choosing to join the eXp Realty Agent Equity Award program, where 5% of every one of your commissions is paid to you in the form of EXPI stock. This program is optional for agents to participate in and can be changed at any time. In addition, the stock is purchased at an additional 10% discount as an eXp Realty agent.
5. Reach ICON award status. This means after you’ve capped your commission split, then you will pay a $250/transaction fee. Once you cap on the transaction fees of $5,000 in total transaction fees then you are considered eligible for Icon award status. Once you’ve attained this status, you will be awarded back the $16,000 you paid in commission to eXp Realty, in the form of EXPI stock.
See the table below for a more detailed breakdown of each one of these as well as how many years are required to be vested depending on which type of stock award was earned. Below is just an example of how it can look like for agents to earn eXp Realty stock. As you can see it may not seem like a way to accumulate EXPI stock in one year. However, can you imagine if the stock price were to quadruple in the long term? Also, the table below is just a snapshot for one year. Can you imagine if everything was to stay the same and duplicate this type of performance over the next 4 years? And then of course, if the stock were to increase significantly or in the table’s case, 4X growth. That would be absolutely incredible to someone’s livelihood.
In conclusion, I hope you are now able to understand the value and significance of what eXp Realty is providing here. Sure some agents are in it for the short term and don’t see value for the long game. However, agents understand the importance of being able to earn a source of passive income, a future nest egg, or even just the ability to cash it out as an alternative source of funding. This is absolutely a game-changing opportunity that eXp Realty has provided to their agents. If you have any questions or comments about this topic, feel free to leave them in the comments below and I will get back to you.