Since moving his well-established real estate brand from Re/Max to eXp Realty last fall, Calgary realtor Justin Havre has been an ambassador for the relatively new, independent company trying to upend the status quo across North America.
At the time, Havre had a team consisting of 60 agents and 18 staff.
New model, different fit
Havre’s team has been very successful, selling almost 9,000 homes in Calgary since 2016. For five consecutive years, they were named Re/Max’s #1 Large Team in Canada in Closed Transactions. They left Re/Max First with $4 billion in sales volume in Calgary and surrounding areas.
Today, his team at eXp, the Justin Havre Real Estate Team, has 90 agents.
In Canada, eXp continues to grow with the recent addition of Toronto’s Polsinello Team, which Havre helped recruit to the brand. With 25 agents, last year they achieved 218 closed transactions totaling $213 million in volume.
“Finding a brokerage that offered more in terms of commissions and benefits was our top priority and eXp Realty fit the bill perfectly,” says founder and team lead Frank Polsinello in a news release. “We are very conscious of what’s best for our agents. The idea of a retirement fund and revenue share made a huge difference in our decision.”
Likewise, Havre notes that other teams choose to partner with eXp because they see the business model is for them and their agents who go on to become partners.
Future plans: ‘The sky’s the limit’
Havre explains his future plans are to continue to impact the people he chooses to partner with.
Goals for the Justin Havre Real Estate Team also include creating a great client experience and delivering results that both buyers and sellers are seeking in the marketplace while continuing to evolve and adapt to the constantly changing real estate environment, “whether that comes with utilizing technologies, different brokerage models and/or marketing tools to ensure that we are top of mind in the marketplace but at the same time creating the (right) client experience.”
Havre’s mission is to provide the tools, resources and development for all agents so they have what they need to navigate the ever-changing real estate landscape.
“One thing we do quite well is training and developing our agents, whether they’re experienced or new to the industry,” he explains. “I’ll continue to grow as long as we find the right people. I’m never going to say no to aligning myself with people who have the skills, the talent and the ambition to grow a successful real estate business. How many agents is that going to be? The sky’s the limit, really.”
Super or ‘mega’ teams with 200+ agents to come
Havre thinks the industry will see the formation of super, or mega, teams in the future with 200 to 300 agents.
“I do believe that a lot of brokerages are recognizing it’s incredibly challenging to run a profitable business but at the same time provide all the tools and resources to support their agents,” he points out.
“Because the margins are so small and tight in that brokerage model, this is where the so-called ‘disruptors’ like eXp come into play, (to) actually provide better support, better tools, better technologies and resources that will help agents’ businesses for a lot less.”
Another benefit he cites is the fact that all agents partnered with eXp have ownership in the company.
Havre could have gone the route of creating a brokerage, but he says eXp made more sense for being able to grow his business and attract people to a model.
‘It‘s a business that’s here to stay. It’s a business that more and more agents are looking to’
Being a large independent real estate company with more than 87,000 agents in over 20 countries, eXp continues to scale internationally. It gives realtors the unique opportunity to earn equity awards for production goals and contributions to overall company growth.
“There are a lot of misconceptions, a lot of fear-mongering from the traditional brokerages, which is unfortunate. I may have been one of those people myself because I wasn’t informed,” Havre admits.
He feels that as more people get educated and begin to understand this model — a model that he stresses isn’t going anywhere — one of the things he’ll look at is publicly traded companies.
“I would say that people on Wall Street are pretty smart. And when you can look at a Re/Max with 140,000 agents with a market cap of around $250 million compared with, for instance, a company like eXp with 87,000 agents having a market cap of nearly $2 billion, that has to say something about what kind of a business model it is.
And it’s not going to be gone tomorrow — it‘s a business that’s here to stay. It’s a business that more and more agents are looking to.”
Havre explains that if people open their eyes to study the model without judgment and once they start to see and understand how it works, “The…
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