Lonnie Bush took pride in the independence of his Virginia Beach real estate firm, but started seeing the writing on the wall.
Competition has ratcheted up in the real estate landscape over the past couple of decades — exacerbated by national online-based companies like Zillow and Redfin.
“The real estate industry is changing, so we’ve got to line ourselves up with somebody who sees the big picture,” the broker-owner of Lonnie Bush Real Estate said.
For four years, friends in the industry kept telling Bush about eXp Realty, a virtual real estate brokerage with a global reach as part of eXp World Holdings. He said he brushed it off — knowing that the company offers recruiting incentives — until he realized that joining eXp could not only help his firm expand but also help his agents build their own wealth.
Another consideration: The coronavirus pandemic didn’t slow down the hot real estate market in Hampton Roads and it validated remote working. So in March, Lonnie Bush Real Estate, with 27 producing agents, joined eXp Realty.
The team is one of the larger ones to join since eXp launched in Hampton Roads in 2016, said Christian “Turbo” Iturbe, an eXp expert care concierge who lives in Chesapeake. He said that when he joined the company in 2017, it had 33 agents in the region and now has 322. The publicly traded real estate tech company keeps growing, and reported 75% first quarter growth year over year in its number of agents to more than 50,000 agents globally by the end of March.
eXp offers a virtual campus, online training and tools, and help-desk support, for a fee, along with access to company health insurance plans, according to its website. Its agents can receive revenue share from the sales activity of agents they bring into the company and stock awards for production. Based in Bellingham, Washington, the company doesn’t open local offices, but agents can keep theirs or use Regus business lounges around the country for free through the company’s partnership, Iturbe said.
Bush’s firm maintains much of its independence, he said, and can continue using its own brand and signs with the website indicating that his business is “brokered by eXp Realty.”
“The eXp move was a no-brainer for me,” he said. “They understand what agents need and it’s really an agent-owned company, in my own opinion.”
He wants his agents, who work as independent contractors, to be debt-free and have real financial freedom to where they don’t feel stuck in the “rat-race hamster wheel.” He recalled a young agent who once told him she would like to go the store without checking if she had enough money in her account, and grew her business enough to maintain a balance of thousands of dollars.
“My passion has shifted and it’s really wanting to see them get the most out of this business, as I did,” he said.
Bush, 50, started in real estate in 1997 after 10 years in the Navy. He bought a Re/Max franchise in 2006 and eventually sold it and launched Lonnie Bush Real Estate in 2015. He, along with wife, Heather, who is a firm co-owner and president, have invested in rental properties and offer property management services through the firm.
A little less than three years ago, Bush also started instant offers, another trend taking off in real estate for sellers who don’t want to list their homes. He said he’s bought more than 50 homes over the past couple of years and kept about a third for the rental portfolio. He’s exploring how to get other colleagues involved with buying, flipping and holding homes as an investment.
eXp operates as one brokerage in every state, meaning Bush and the other agents can work wherever they get their real estate licenses. Lonnie Bush Real Estate is maintaining its Virginia Beach office, and Bush said he plans to expand with offices in Northern Virginia and Florida in the near future. He plans to add more agents, and is at the stage of his career where he feels called to mentor and develop the people he works with.
“I won’t ever retire,” he said. “I love what I do too much.”
Tara Bozick, 757-247-4741, tbozick@insidebiz.com
