How does your cap structure work today, and do you feel like it’s actually optimized for the business you’re trying to build?
Most agents can tell you what their split is. Fewer can explain what happens if they decide to grow beyond the office they’re in today.
When I was evaluating brokerages, I wasn’t just looking at where my business was at that moment. I was thinking about where I wanted it to be five or ten years down the road. I knew I wanted to build relationships with agents in other markets. I wanted the flexibility to expand into new cities if opportunities came along. I didn’t want my brokerage model to become more expensive every time my business grew.
Unfortunately, that’s exactly how many traditional brokerage models work.
If you join another office, expand into another city, or partner with agents in a different market, you’re often starting over with another cap. Instead of one business operating under one brokerage relationship, you end up paying multiple caps simply because your business has expanded geographically.
That never made much sense to me.
Growth should create more opportunity, not more overhead.
One of the things that stood out to me about eXp Realty was the simplicity of the national cap. Whether you’re working in your hometown, relocating across the country, or building relationships with agents in multiple states, you’re operating under one company and one cap. You aren’t penalized because your business has outgrown a single market.
That may not seem like a significant advantage when you’re focused on selling homes in one city. But businesses have a way of evolving. People move. Families relocate. Teams expand. Referral networks grow. Opportunities show up where you least expect them.
When that happens, your brokerage should make it easier to grow, not require you to start paying all over again.
I’ve learned over the years that the best business decisions aren’t always the ones that save you the most money today. They’re the ones that remove obstacles for the future.
That’s why I encourage agents to look beyond commission splits and ask bigger questions about the model they’re building inside of.
Is your brokerage designed for the business you have today?
Or is it designed for the business you hope to have five years from now?
Those are two very different questions, and they often lead to two very different answers.
If you’ve never taken the time to think about how your cap structure affects your long-term growth, it may be worth asking whether your current model is helping you scale—or simply charging you more as you do.
If you’d like to compare models or have a conversation about how the national cap works at eXp, I’d be happy to help. You can always reach me at hello@richtomasini.com.