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EXp CEO envisions surpassing 100K agents in ‘next few years’

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EXp World Holdings CEO Glenn Sanford hasn’t been shy about his ambitious goals for eXp Realty, the real estate brokerage subsidiary of eXp World Holdings.

Glenn Sanford | Photo credit: eXp World Holdings

During a call with investors Thursday he said he can envision the company hitting the “multi hundreds of thousands” in terms of agent count in the next 5 to 10 years.

“We think that 100,000 [agents in the United States] is almost a fait accompli in the next few years,” Sanford said.

An agent count north of 100,000 would make eXp Realty the biggest brokerage in the United States, by nearly double its leading competitor. Realogy Brokerage Group, the own-brokerage arm of Realogy, has slightly more than 50,000 agents.

Agent count in the multi-hundreds of thousands would rival even the countries largest holding companies like Realogy and Keller Williams.

As of the end of the quarter, the company boasted an agent count of more than 32,000 across its total footprint, while just five years ago it was celebrating a milestone of crossing 1,000 agents.

Sanford said the biggest question for eXp Realty isn’t whether it can handle hundreds of thousands of agents — its more a matter of “how many agents this will appeal to?”

“The numbers are pretty large,” Sanford said. “We now start to think about the multi hundreds of thousands of agents that eXp will appeal to over time.”

The company’s virtual investors meeting. | Photo credit: eXp World Holdings

EXp Realty is targeting five new international markets by the end of 2020, the company announced Thursday. The company plans to expand real estate operations to France, India, Mexico, Portugal and South Africa by the end of the year, joining Canada, Australia and the U.K. as the company’s international markets.

“We’ve seen the eXp model received with such enthusiasm globally and we are excited to announce that we plan to have these five countries open before year end,” Michael Valdes, eXp Realty’s executive vice president of international expansion, said in a statement. “These countries were selected for their vibrant real estate market and geographic locations, creating a strategic foothold that will serve as an anchor for our continued growth next year and beyond.”

EXp Realty is also planning to invest more in commercial real estate, so there will be agent growth opportunities on the commercial side as well, the company revealed in second-quarter earnings.

Email Patrick Kearns