- 21 hours ago
On this episode of the RealTrending Podcast, host Tracey Velt sits down with Felix Bravo, managing director, international for eXp Realty, to talk about growing up in real estate, building resilience through hard work, and helping scale one of the industry’s fastest-growing international brokerages. Bravo shares how watching his immigrant mother transition from lawyer to Realtor in Miami shaped his work ethic and perspective on the business.
The conversation dives into his early grind in real estate, including old-school cold calling, learning to earn opportunities instead of waiting for them, and the mindset that helped him rise from solo agent to leading eXp’s international operations before turning 30. Bravo also explains how eXp’s cloud-based model is resonating globally, especially in markets without MLS systems, and how the company’s cross-border platform “LYVVE” is helping agents and consumers collaborate internationally with more transparency.
The episode also explores leadership, international expansion, the future of global real estate collaboration, and why Bravo believes agents everywhere are looking for more independence and entrepreneurial freedom.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Felix Bravo credits his immigrant upbringing and his mother’s real estate journey for shaping his work ethic.
Early success came from persistence, cold calling and embracing uncomfortable work.
eXp’s international growth is fueled by its cloud-based, agent-first model.
Many global markets still operate without MLS systems, creating challenges and opportunities.
Bravo says leadership is less about personal achievement and more about helping others succeed.
Related to this episode:
Felix Bravo's LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/felixfbravo/
eXp Realty
https://www.exprealty.com/
LYVVE
https://lyvve.com/
Want more from Tracey? Don't forget to subscribe to Real Estate Daily.
https://www.housingwire.com/newsletter/
The RealTrending podcast features conversations with the brightest minds in real estate. Every Monday, brokerage leaders, top agents, team leaders, and industry experts join us to share their secrets to success, trends, and the lessons they’ve learned. Hosted by Tracey Velt and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.
The conversation dives into his early grind in real estate, including old-school cold calling, learning to earn opportunities instead of waiting for them, and the mindset that helped him rise from solo agent to leading eXp’s international operations before turning 30. Bravo also explains how eXp’s cloud-based model is resonating globally, especially in markets without MLS systems, and how the company’s cross-border platform “LYVVE” is helping agents and consumers collaborate internationally with more transparency.
The episode also explores leadership, international expansion, the future of global real estate collaboration, and why Bravo believes agents everywhere are looking for more independence and entrepreneurial freedom.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Felix Bravo credits his immigrant upbringing and his mother’s real estate journey for shaping his work ethic.
Early success came from persistence, cold calling and embracing uncomfortable work.
eXp’s international growth is fueled by its cloud-based, agent-first model.
Many global markets still operate without MLS systems, creating challenges and opportunities.
Bravo says leadership is less about personal achievement and more about helping others succeed.
Related to this episode:
Felix Bravo's LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/felixfbravo/
eXp Realty
https://www.exprealty.com/
LYVVE
https://lyvve.com/
Want more from Tracey? Don't forget to subscribe to Real Estate Daily.
https://www.housingwire.com/newsletter/
The RealTrending podcast features conversations with the brightest minds in real estate. Every Monday, brokerage leaders, top agents, team leaders, and industry experts join us to share their secrets to success, trends, and the lessons they’ve learned. Hosted by Tracey Velt and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.
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NewsTranscript
00:08taking a brokerage international is no easy feat and i spoke with felix bravo he's the managing
00:16director of international at exp he is been put in that position before he even turned 30 years old
00:24and he's got some great insights about international expansion um the the issues the
00:31challenges but also the opportunities out there and you will be surprised at the country that he
00:37says is the hottest um opportunity wise right now so enjoy the podcast felix thanks so much for
00:44joining the real trending podcast of course thank you so much for having me tracy yeah i want to talk
00:49first about um you kind of grew up in the business um you started as a teenager in miami i'm
00:54in florida
00:54too so we'll go florida um so um you had a mom in the business so tell me like growing
01:02up around
01:02real estate what did it teach you about like agents clients and just the grind of the business
01:09yeah that's a great question i um you know we we immigrated here from venezuela at a young age for
01:14me at a young age and my mom was a lawyer um in venezuela then when we moved here obviously
01:19she
01:19wasn't going to go back to law school so she did what uh what everyone does and she went and
01:23got a
01:23real estate license that was like the natural progression of things um and i got the experience
01:29really early on of seeing my mom go from like a pretty consistent job where she would show up to
01:35work every single day come home at the same exact time right to all of a sudden um working on
01:40the
01:40weekends and working on sundays and like picking up the phone when she's taking me to sports or whatever
01:44the case may be um and then i i upgraded to getting to go to open houses with my mom
01:49and uh you know
01:50hold out cookies and things like that so uh there was there was a fun kind of experience there for
01:55me
01:55but i think one of the things i realized seeing her transition from a lawyer into a real estate agent
02:00um was she worked significantly probably more hours as a as an agent sometimes than a lawyer but
02:06um i saw the progression of her career as she started taking things into her own hands and
02:12and building her business and i remember her struggles of um starting out and not selling
02:17anything at first and uh or even taking the test in um in english which is such a huge challenge
02:22for
02:22her like i got to see those steps and then slowly see the results start to come as as her
02:28career
02:28started to uh to build and and take off um and i think that instilled in me a lot of
02:34discipline and
02:34hard work ethic that's whether i knew it or not was slowly setting me up and forming me and
02:41shaping me into into who i am today yeah absolutely so um so yeah i mean it's it's hard uh
02:49you know being a successful real estate agent so and you had a mentor you had experience with a
02:55mentor who famously told you like i have nothing for you but you showed up anyway so what did that
03:01early experience teach you about earning an opportunity rather than being handed one yeah i got
03:07to see like i said um i got to see my mom be successful i also got to see her
03:11be not successful
03:12i saw the hard times we went through that like very typical immigrant family challenges um but
03:19i got to see her resilience um throughout that process and i think that ambition and and sort of
03:26that drive came into me when i started noticing okay wait a minute like i'm in miami this is one
03:32of the
03:33the biasly one of the most beautiful places in the world and and one of you know ups and downs
03:37in our
03:37markets but one of the hottest markets give or take at any given point um in the united states and
03:42i started seeing a lot of really successful real estate agents and as i grew up and started
03:46understanding the market uh i met a mentor of mine who came and told me i have absolutely nothing for
03:52you and i was like well but you have a lot for yourself and uh you seem like you're you're
03:56stretched
03:57pretty thin here and so i i decided that no matter what um and this came from uh just something
04:04i had
04:05learned growing up which was give it six months go all out for six months doesn't work like worst case
04:10scenario is i end up um just being a regular college student like everyone else like my worst case
04:16scenario is that i just end up doing what what everyone else is doing at the time anyways um and
04:21so i
04:21went all out on it and that experience was really grueling and tough and i've never cold called more in
04:26my
04:26life than the first six months of my real estate career it was very old school real estate um i
04:31i
04:31wish i had grown up during this like hyper social media age i had a mentor who was you know
04:36um here's
04:38a list of phone numbers give them a call some of these people haven't uh haven't talked to in 15
04:43years
04:43but see if they're interested in buying a house today and so that was the experience i had and it
04:47taught
04:47me a lot about um myself uh failures and um you know i i think the fact that if you
04:54can put the work in
04:56for long enough of a time and continue to improve for long enough of a time it eventually becomes
05:02unreasonable that you won't hit a certain level of of success or or goals etc achievements so
05:09that's um that was that yeah yeah that's great and so you went from a solo agent to managing director
05:15of exp's international operation by 30 years old so congratulations i got two more months i'm 29
05:21so it's not over yet not over yet younger than my son is what you're telling me um so what
05:28were the
05:29biggest inflection points in that journey uh that's a big one um in miami it's a very international
05:34market i had a and i came up in the new development space and so i got the experience really
05:38early on
05:39of traveling to um some parts of mostly latin america sometimes canada and a little bit of europe
05:45um to present our projects and i i got an early understanding of how real estate functioned
05:50uh in a lot of these international markets whether it's lack of mls's lack of real estate licensing
05:55um as well as just like 60 to 75 percent of all of my buyers in the new development space
06:01here were
06:01always international buyers obviously for me i'm hispanic and so i i kind of had that edge and
06:07um which i don't know how much of an edge it is in miami because we have such a strong
06:10land community
06:11here but um yeah i got to see that growing up and so i always had a passion for international
06:15real
06:15estate when i first looked at exp for me it was a um global back-end platform that i could
06:22expand my
06:22business internationally there's there was uh something that it fixed for me is that there's
06:26this really big fear we've all as agents gotten the experience of handing off a referral to uh an agent
06:32that you don't necessarily know that fear is like 10 times um and anxiety is 10 times more amplified
06:38when you're doing it to a whole nother country where there's no like governing body that you're
06:42going through or anything like that um and i think during even during the franchise through the
06:46franchise model um that can be really challenging like you could call even be a part of the same
06:51brand and call a franchise that's 10 miles away and they get treated completely differently they're
06:54not connected and so that's how um that's how i was introduced into into exp was i saw that solution
07:00and um i thought it was fantastic and then obviously i got to meet the leadership team uh leadership team
07:04through glenn sanford and leo pareja our ceo who's also based out of here in miami uh and things
07:11started falling into place and it's been uh two two years now or almost three years on the
07:15international side and it's been quite a journey but um i think the thing i loved about exp as an
07:22agent stepping into it was that it was built by agents that like i could see everyone in the
07:27leadership team and go oh you've you've been in my shoes and as an agent and i think that's super
07:32important and something that i see missing quite a lot uh throughout the real estate industry
07:36and i think that's what we've now what i've been able to give back as we build out exp international
07:41we have over 6 000 agents uh internationally and um you know i think they appreciate the fact that i
07:48i i understand the positions they're in most of the time right and uh one of the things whether
07:54you're a real estate agent in dubai or columbia or or the united states wherever you are we might
07:59have totally different laws languages cultures our jobs are like 95 the same it's just different
08:05forms a lot of the time we face a lot of the same challenges and so that level level of
08:09relatability
08:09um i think is uh is really important yeah definitely and um leo is going to be on my podcast
08:15next week
08:16so um yes so he talked about leo talked about exp's evolution from a scrappy startup to a global
08:23brokerage um from from your seat what does that look like from an international perspective
08:30yeah it's funny i feel like we're we're the uh we still are the scrappy startup on the international
08:34side right we're we're the youngest sector of the of the business um and i mean that in um in
08:40just the
08:40most positive way ever because we're every single country that we enter it's like going back in time
08:46to 2009 and restarting exp all over again um one of my favorite stories uh from glenn sanford our founder
08:52was that he rented out an rv for a year lived in it and then just drove around the country
08:57building
08:58exp uh and i that's just like the just the coolest like founder story that you'll ever hear um because
09:05it all paid off obviously and so uh that's what we get to redo every single time we enter a
09:10new market
09:10right so yes there is this level of as we continue to expand um people will hear who exp is
09:16in different
09:16countries and they'll look us up and they'll see that we're this large brand but at the end of the
09:20day
09:20when we're going into a new market we're the we're the new kids on the block all over again
09:24every single time um and so there is that startup mode of like okay we're who are our first um
09:30entrepreneurs we're going to take a chance on a brand that's coming in and a model more importantly
09:33a model that's coming in that's totally new and most markets were highly disruptive based on model
09:39because there doesn't exist these virtual cloud-based revenue share models out there and so
09:44that evolution has turned into a mixture of having a platform that is stretched around the world that
09:50gives our agents the opportunity um to build their business not just cross state borders but now cross
09:55country borders and build teams worldwide um and i it's it's this incredible world um i think someone
10:02from from one of the other brands who joined us recently uh described it as like the international
10:08communities and other places are um highly unaccessible for the everyday agent because it's
10:14just really challenging and there's a lot of barriers behind it um but at exp because we are just
10:20one office regardless of what country you're in right or where you are in the world um any agent from
10:26the most the least international market in the u.s and the least amount of international exposure
10:30uh can now tap into this referral platform and agent platform and collaborative model
10:35um and so it's a it's a really incredible thing to see and i think it's a testament to why
10:39we've
10:40we've seen so much growth on the international side yeah absolutely so you led the rollout of
10:44live it's exp's cross-border listing platform um so what problem is live designed to solve
10:51and um how does it change the way uh real estate agents collaborate globally yeah that's a great um
10:59great question live is a passion project that came from us uh and what i realized even
11:05for myself as i was expanding exp internationally and going into these new countries every single
11:11country outside of us and north america for the most part uh doesn't have an mls and certainly if
11:18they even if they do have some mls they're not regulated by any sort of governing body and so
11:22the portals um don't have one main center feed right so in each country you're go to you'll go to
11:29there will actually be two or three major portals uh sometimes even four and each portal will have
11:34different listings than the other one so one house might be all of them one house might only be on
11:38one that creates a really challenging process if you are um a someone in england who's looking to
11:45purchase a second home in mallorca for example uh in spain because you might have to go through two
11:50three four portals and um you have to then go and google like what is the number one portal in
11:56spain
11:56and where can i find houses for sale and where can i find apartments um and then what you'll see
12:01is
12:01that all portals interact and look very differently um you know here in the u.s i think we're very
12:05used
12:05to to zillow and and homes and realtor uh and while they have their own spices to them they they
12:11kind
12:12of interact the same you can jump from one to one and you'll be able to do the same things
12:15and so
12:16uh with live what i wanted to do was solution for the fact that there wasn't really one global real
12:22estate portal where i could go from searching in dubai to searching in colombia to searching in spain
12:27that was start number one uh and so it's a cumulative of over 200 000 listings and growing
12:32at the moment of every single exp agents listing around the world for consumers it looks and feels
12:39like in like a real estate portal you're not not being pushed any brand or anything like that
12:43but more importantly i'm not selling anybody their anyone's data right like our agents have there's
12:49a whatsapp integration to live the listing agent gets every single um lead that comes through it
12:55you can literally if i'm looking for homes in spain from my house in miami and i'm interested
12:59in taking a look at houses in madrid and i find one i can click the big green button that
13:03just says
13:04whatsapp on the listing and it opens up whatsapp on my phone or on my computer and next thing you
13:08know
13:08i'm in a conversation with with the agent directly there is no um i hit a button that requested more
13:13information on a listing and now i'm getting called 75 different times from 75 different people that
13:17process doesn't happen so we've created a platform where you can go from country to country looking
13:21for properties it creates a lot of clear transparency um which is something that's
13:25really challenging internationally with no mls's and you know public information on on housing past
13:30sales things like that are hard so we're putting out all of our data out there um and just creating
13:35a seamless way for uh consumers to to find homes around the world but then for our agents um just
13:43uh another opportunity of how they can help their sellers uh sell their their houses great um so
13:50obviously lots of consolidation happening in the real estate industry and exp is no stranger to
13:55that either with the purchase of next home um so how does international expansion fit into the larger
14:02kind of race for scale talent platform power yeah in some ways it almost like doesn't have much to do
14:09with us and and i always make the joke that like at this point in my life i know far
14:14more about like
14:15interest rates in france sometimes that i do that i do back home because i spend i spend so much
14:20more
14:20time focused on that um but i think for us there's um you know there's a reason no one there
14:27is no
14:27independent real estate brokerage that's ever expanded to the amount of countries that we have
14:30um one just on a huge shout out to our agents and our team it's really hard this is not
14:37easy what
14:37we're doing but two more importantly i think it's a testament to our model and like even in the united
14:41states if you look at our model there's um you know however you you want to slice it up at
14:47the
14:47end of the day we we're the only company that doesn't have debt and has nice cash balance and
14:51produces cash and always been profitable sustainable and provable and we've been able to now replicate
14:56that and expand that internationally and so i think um a lot of what's happening in the u.s um
15:02for us
15:03it doesn't always uh really play a part even though the consolidation that has happened has made it so
15:08that some of the larger brands have bought brands that exist internationally um i i think um you
15:14know we get questions all the time uh during some of the big acquisitions i get questions from my agents
15:19who are like who bought who like who is that like why would i know that and it's the reality
15:24it's not
15:25throwing shade at anyone the reality is like why would you know that if you're in dubai and like that's
15:29never affected you and so um we're hyper focused on what we're doing and um we're continuing to build
15:34the largest uh real estate independent real estate brokerage around the world and we're excited for
15:40for more markets to come and and as we continue to expand internationally i think our brand is
15:44beginning to to to be known in more places we are now the largest independent estate agency in all of
15:49the united kingdom um which is is incredible only five years on we're the largest independent real
15:54estate brokerage in south africa and new zealand and we're starting to really pick up momentum and
15:59in other places like latin america and so i think for us let them have the the consolidation in the
16:06u.s we're going to continue doing what we're doing um and just continuing to build on and expanding the
16:10model so how many countries are you in and and what are where are you looking to expand next we're
16:15currently in 28 countries as a whole um in terms of expansion that's that's probably the number one
16:20question i get all the time and for me it's it's far less like there's there's obviously macroeconomic
16:26um things that come into our decision on what countries we go into there's also regulatory
16:30decisions that you have to take a look at um you know are there foreign ownership laws we're an
16:34independent company things like that but at the end of the day whether what we've seen from the last
16:40just take a look at the last 12 months we opened up in um ecuador for example uh where we
16:45now have
16:45over 350 agents just nine months on in peru these are very different markets too if you look towards
16:52the end of the year we're opening up in netherlands uh and luxembourg like just significantly different
16:56markets different models different price points and um what we've realized is regardless of average
17:03price point regardless of currencies regardless of rules and regulations the most important thing is
17:07can we build a uh can we grab the exp model and translate that into a model that in that
17:13market
17:13creates enough value for the agents who have never been exposed to something like a virtual brokerage
17:20an opportunity for them to build their own brand internationally it's so dominated by legacy
17:25franchise models for so long and i think agents haven't really realized that they're entrepreneurs
17:32for a long time because they're so used to being held and independent by a brand and we've seen that
17:37breakage now in the international communities um which has happened where agents are going no now
17:43actually i i'm i'm not just dependent on this brand i want to build my own business and they're finding
17:48a platform whether they want to sell 10 homes a year because that's the lifestyle they want and
17:52that's that's incredible for them and their families or they want to become the next mega
17:55team that has 300 agents across five different countries exp offers them the opportunity to do
18:01that so uh we're always looking at what markets are are building demand i'm less so looking at which
18:07markets have um you know higher price points or whatever like this the normal questions i get is like
18:12how many agents do i need to to open up bxp you're like what does the currency have to be
18:17and i'm like
18:17none of that matters if we have a strong base of agents who believe in our in our uh mission
18:22and what
18:22we're doing and more importantly if we can find the right leaders in those markets um who can come
18:28together with us then i know that we've done this 28 times and i i we can replicate our our
18:33playbook
18:34uh in a way that creates a really valuable proposition for the agents in those markets well congratulations
18:39you were named a housing wire rising star so what does leadership look like to you at this stage
18:45in your career i think uh for me things have started transitioning from me trying to accomplish
18:52things and more so help others around me uh accomplish things which is a i think a natural progression of
18:58of leadership and as i look now like even my you know my role as head of international my job
19:05really
19:05is just to support the regions and markets that we're in and um break down as many walls as i
19:10possibly can for them for them to go out and hit the goals that um that we've set out right
19:15so whether
19:15that's uh continuing to and and the things that we're really focused on is continuing to increase
19:19productivity for agent transaction count things like that um and so my main focus and goal at the
19:26moment is just to continue to to support our country leaders and our agents and help them achieve
19:32um that because it if you look back at exp when we started in 2009 there's this really interesting
19:38period of the people who took such a huge risk on being a part of a brand like this early
19:42on
19:42um like at the time those are the ones that get called crazy or insane or whatever the case may
19:48be
19:48um we we're now replicating that in so many markets and there are these incredible leaders that we have
19:53who are taking a chance on seeing an opportunity helping us build seeing the future of real estate wanting
19:58to be a part of that and my goal is just to pour into them um absolutely as much as
20:02i can and i think
20:03if i can help them be successful that that will in turn make me successful and make the the brand
20:08successful and that's way more what i'm focused on at the moment okay great all right i have a
20:13lightning round for you so this is kind of first thing that comes to your mind um most underrated
20:18international real estate market right now oh um ecuador okay yeah we are we are moving so fast in
20:27ecuador um we're at 350 agents they're they're doing um they've smashed every record in terms of
20:33transaction count there's a ton of investment going into it um and a lot of development happening
20:38there so it's a it's a bit of a toss-up for me right now in between um yeah probably
20:43ecuador
20:44between ecuador and a couple european markets but let's go with them give them a shout out okay great
20:48um one mistake u.s agents make when trying to work with international buyers or sellers and vice versa
20:56not doing it at a in a secure platform like exp where everything happens under one ecosystem one
21:01bank account and you have the security of knowing that you're working with whether it's our staff in
21:05dubai or staff wherever it is it's exp staff you're treated like an exp agent all of our platforms
21:10happen under one ecosystem i have made the mistake of uh trusting an agent i met through whatsapp
21:16finding referrals etc going into another country handing off my clients three months later getting a
21:21call from my my clients being like oh my god we love it we bought our second home here in
21:24mexico
21:25and then i hit up the agent and they're gone the commission never can't so uh not doing it under
21:30a secure platform for sure okay best leadership advice you've ever received um don't mess it up
21:36probably it's just uh that's one of the easiest simplest advices i've gotten no um i think that the
21:41best leadership related advice that i that i've ever gotten has always been um focus significantly more
21:48on how you can help the people around you and focus a lot less on what you can personally do
21:54um and that that changes the entire way of how you lead how you manage and and that's something that
22:01um has really helped me into this this this period of my life yeah it's such a mindset shift in
22:07it it
22:07makes such a big difference in in a career and and the success of what you're trying to do so
22:13thank you felix for joining the real trending podcast it was great having you on absolutely
22:18thank you for having me tracy it was a pleasure
22:21you
22:26you
22:26you
22:26you
22:26you
22:26you
22:26you
22:28you
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