by Joe Rosengarten

Embracing innovation is the key to success: it’s a mantra that AJ Lamba of Whitehill Real Estate Team runs his business by. Lamba is keen to continue growing and evolving and gives the example of the world’s latest surprise in the real estate industry: eXp Realty, the world's most valuable and fastest growing real estate company.

eXp’s growth in the past five years has been nothing short of stratospheric. The company is currently growing at a pace of around 200 agents per day and earlier this month the firm announced it had surpassed 12,000 real estate agents across North America. The company’s agent base has grown by more than 85% since the beginning of the year and was recently valued as $1 billion. Economists are calling the company the Amazon of real estate.

“They have created a company owned by agents; it is something I have always thought of doing it but never had the guts, but now I am going to do it,” Lamba says. “I am going to train people to not only become good farmers but also give them stock in the company for every deal they do so they can ultimately not only build a solid farm for themselves but also have a solid investment in a company they help build.”

“We have now begun a program that no one has ever done before, to offer sub-market specialization to our agents So, for example, if a city like Mississauga is divided into 22 districts, our brokerage will give each district to one agent and will not allow any other agents to farm in that area. Other bigger brokerages simply cannot afford to do that as they have become too big to change. Many have 300+ agents in their offices and they know they will lose hundreds of agents if they ever attempt to do sub-market specialization.”

As well as teaching agents how to ‘farm’, Lamba is keen to instill the power of his mantra FDC: focus, discipline and consistency. “If you have those three things, as well as a mentor who is guiding you to improve, you will make it in this industry,” he says. “You need to have focus and a proven plan and then stick to it.”

“Rather than hiring traditional broker managers, we are hiring directors of sales that will personally practice what they preach and walk the talk themselves. Each director will have a farm of his or her own. We are carefully selecting very talented agents. We will not only help them build a successful and sustainable real estate business from scratch, but give them the benefit of working in a company that they actually own. Remember, eXp started the same way and today the company has been valued at over $1 billion. You must be able to see an opportunity when it presents itself.”

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