EXp World Holdings, the parent company of eXp Realty, revealed Wednesday that its revenue shot up 183 percent in the second quarter of the year, while its total agent count climbed 87 percent.
Those figures come from the company’s latest earnings report, which showed that it hauled in a total of $1 billion in revenue — a record for eXp — between April and June. That’s 183 percent above what it did in the second quarter of 2020, and helped the company hit a total of $37 million in profit.
The firm’s earnings per share were $0.24, which blew away analyst expectations that the company would only bring in $0.05 per share. Those earnings also handily surpassed last year’s haul of $0.06 per share. Investment analytics firm Zacks described these results Wednesday as an “earnings surprise of 380 percent.”
Significantly — and unusually for a newer, high growth company — eXp also announced Wednesday that it is paying out its first ever cash dividend to shareholders. The dividend will total $0.04 per share, and will be paid out during the current quarter.
Glenn Sanford
In a call with investors, company founder and eXp World Holdings CEO Glenn Sanford pointed to the company’s equity program and said the goal has been to turn that program into an “additional potential stream of income” for agents and brokers.
“The dividend was a natural next step for us,” Sanford explained.
The report also showed that eXp now has 58,263 agents and brokers, a jump of 87 percent year over year, and that those agents completed 115,431 deals in the second quarter, an increase of 164 percent compared to the same period in 2020. In total, eXp did $40.1 billion in volume, a year-over-year jump of 210 percent.
In the report, Sanford said his company manages to attract top agents and brokers “by iterating and improving the overall value proposition for real estate professionals.”
“By extension, our substantial growth in agent count translated to exponential growth in transaction sides and volume closed,” Sanford continued. “We are also continuing to focus on creating a quality community for highly productive individuals and teams both online and in real-life events around the world. It is gratifying to see eXp’s brokerage model support the careers of so many and is highly rewarding for me personally as well as our overall management team.”
Jeff Whiteside
Jeff Whiteside, eXp World Holdings’ chief financial and operating officer, also appeared on Wednesday’s investor call and said that agent retention is up about 30 percent compared to the same time last year.
“The value proposition just keeps getting stronger and stronger,” Whiteside said.
EXp’s stock price spiked Tuesday as the company disclosed its earnings. At the close of the market Tuesday, shares were trading for less than $35. But by the middle of Wednesday, the price had climbed to more than $46. The jump was no doubt welcome news to eXp agents who get shares by hitting various sales and recruiting milestones.
Thanks to the jump in its stock price, eXp had a market cap of about $6.77 billion Wednesday.
Credit: Google
Wednesday’s earnings report comes more than a year after the coronavirus pandemic swept through the U.S. The outbreak means that year-over-year comparisons involve looking back at an unprecedented period when the crisis was just beginning. And that means it should be almost a given that companies will have done better during the second quarter of this year than during the same period last year.
Still, during Wednesday’s investor call, Sanford said that due to eXp’s unique tech orientation — eXp operates in a game-like virtual environment rather than in brick and mortar offices — the company is able to “moderate our expense level” in response to the market. And in the end the company’s growth during the second quarter of this year did outpace major rivals such as Keller Williams.
Other highlights from eXp’s report Wednesday include that the company expanded into two new countries during the second quarter, and that its cash and cash equivalents totaled $107.4 million at the end of June, up from $63.6 million last year.
Sanford added during the call that “our goal is to grow world wide.”
“We want to be able to launch five to 10 countries a year and to really grow internationally,” he noted.
Sanford and other company leaders held a call with investors Wednesday from within the company’s virtual world. Credit: eXp World Holdings
Sanford went on to say during the call that thanks to the coronavirus’s delta variant “COVID is not going away.”
“The fact that people got vaccinated isn’t fundamentally stopping COVID from being a backdrop to what’s going on,” Sanford added.
The result is that people, including agents, are likely to keep working remotely. And Sanford said that in turn raises questions about “why do offices really exist” — questions that presumably favors eXp’s virtual model.
“From a COVID perspective, I think we’re continuing to be well positioned to adapt,” Sanford concluded.
Overall, Sanford was also upbeat about the market generally. He explained that he expects interest rates to remain low, and that the current inventory shortage appears to be improving.
“We’re seeing some moderation of the housing market,” Sanford said. “But not to the extent that it’s slowing.”
Updated: This post was updated after publication with additional information from eXp’s earnings report and a call company leaders held with investors.
