Two-day event can be attended without leaving the comfort of home
The firm eXp Commercial – the commercial real estate division of the NASDAQ-traded eXp World Holdings – will stage its “Commercial Real Estate Symposium” next month, connecting thousands of business leaders with top innovators, thought leaders and brokers to explore developments and opportunities in the commercial real estate industry.
The free symposium is scheduled to take place in the proprietary eXp Commercial Campus metaverse from April 25-26. The event will focus on big data, the evolution of commercial real estate throughout the pandemic, international opportunities and cryptocurrency and NFTs.
Following welcoming remarks and a company overview by eXp World Holdings CEO and founder Glenn Sanford (pictured top), featured presenters include:
- KC Conway (pictured immediately above), founder and president of Red Shoe Economics, a recognized expert in commercial and investment real estate with deep knowledge of the capital markets and new regulatory environment, will offer industry research, data, analytics and economic insight on the complex and changing commercial real estate market.
- Kevin Harrington, inventor of the infomercial, an original shark on “Shark Tank,” Fortune 100 investor, philanthropist and author will speak on “How to Bait a Shark,” by using effective methods to find investors and scale your business.
- Craig Kaplan, chief customer officer of Virbela, an eXp World Holdings company, will discuss the pivotal role the enterprise metaverse plays in providing businesses like Stanford Graduate School of Business, Fujitsu, DXC Technology, PwC with solutions for hybrid- and remote-work options which have powered the eXp offices’ global expansion.
- Mike Miller, founder and chief operating officer of Enriched Data, an industry leader that provides nationwide property, ownership and sales data with state-of-the-art valuation, prediction and reporting applications for commercial real estate professionals, will lead a panel on ESG scoring for real estate properties.
Stephanie Gilezan, director of growth at eXp Commercial, spoke to Mortgage Professional America with more details about the upcoming symposium.
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“With eXp Commercial, because we operate in the metaverse, it’s very easy for us to bring valuable content to those in the real industry, especially in the commercial industry because that is our focus,” she said during a telephone interview. “And so we bring in specialists to speak to the state of commercial real estate where it comes to economically what is happening, what’s happening in additional markets. We’re a company that operates in all 50 states, so we want to speak to what’s happening in the economy – what’s hot; what agencies and commercial brokers should be focused on; what’s going to be the next big trend when it comes to investment fields and what they should be listing or focused on bringing to market; and things of that nature.”
In furthering that message, one of the scheduled speakers is Kevin Harrington – an entrepreneur and business executive who appeared on the television show “Shark Tank” and author of several motivational books. “He’s going to be speaking to the fact of how you bait a shark, meaning how you convince that client and land that client to work with you,” Gilezan said.
Such advice will abound at the symposium, she noted: “We’re going to be giving agents good advice as to how they can build client reputation and pick up business and secure new business, obviously.”
Figuring prominently in planned discussions will be the so-called ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) score, a rating that measures as company’s exposure to long-term environmental, social and governance risks. Such risks – involving factors that include board independence, energy efficiency and worker safety and board independence – yield financial implications, although not highlighted in traditional financial reviews.
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“We’re going to have a panel that’s going to speak about what the ESG score is and what that means when it comes to the value of a property in the future,” Gilezan explained. “Just like you and I have a credit score at which we are judged on the rate we borrow money, ESG is going to become that factor as well in the commercial space but also the residential space and where ESG scoring is going to determine whether a property gets a lower interest rate or not.”
That and other topical discussions are scheduled to take place with the luxury of the metaverse allowing messaging to a wide audience without having to set up in a physical venue, she added.
“All of what we want to talk about is what’s current, what’s up and coming, because we like to give our agents and anyone in the real estate industry an opportunity to come in and learn because operating in the metaverse,” she said. “We can speak to tens of thousands of people at one time without having to travel and going to an event space and putting this all together.”
The symposium is also slated to address industry challenges brought on by the pandemic.
“That’s where our economic advisor comes into play,” Gilezan said. “For those who have an industry that may have been slowed because of the pandemic, what can they pivot to? What can they learn about next? What can be that next product specialty that ramps up their career, so to speak? Every day, as you know, this industry is changing. There are different things coming to market. Now we’ve got digital real estate space which is becoming a topic. So we’re also going to be sharing how we operate a multibillion-dollar company that’s publicly traded in the metaverse by utilizing collaboration in 20-plus different countries. Real estate now is not just brick and mortar; it is also in that digital land.”
The free symposium is scheduled on Monday, April 25, and Tuesday, April 26, from 7am to 3pm PT.
According to its literature, eXp Realty is the fastest-growing real estate company in the world with more than 76,000 agents in the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, India, Mexico, Portugal, France, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Italy, Hong Kong, Colombia, Spain, Israel, Panama, Germany, Dominican Republic while continuing to scale.
