# eXp's founder hands over: what the model looks like in Queensland
Glenn Sanford has passed the chief executive role at eXp's parent, AGNT, to Leo Pareja. Here is what was announced, and how the group is set up in Queensland.
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The founder of eXp Realty has handed over the top job. On 8 October 2026 the group's parent company, AGNT, announced from Bellingham in Washington State that Leo Pareja had been named chief executive, effective immediately, and that founder Glenn Sanford would stay on as chairman of the board.
The group trades in Queensland as eXp Australia, from an office in Surfers Paradise and under a single Queensland licence number. Neither the company's announcement nor its filing with the United States securities regulator mentions Australia, and the trade publication Elite Agent, which reported the handover on 9 October, noted that the announcement did not identify any immediate changes to the Australian operations. What follows sets out what was announced, then how the group is organised in this state.
87,338agents and brokers worldwide at 30 June 2026
6state offices listed by eXp Australia
38agents shown on its Queensland portal profile
AGNT second-quarter results, 4 August 2026; eXp Australia's website; a national property portal's agency profile, viewed October 2026.
## What the company announced
The announcement came as a press release dated 8 October 2026, lodged the same day with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission as an exhibit to a current report. The report gives the sequence. On 2 October, Mr Sanford, then both chairman and chief executive, told the board he recommended Mr Pareja for the chief executive role. On 6 October the board appointed Mr Pareja unanimously. The appointment took effect on 8 October.
Mr Sanford founded the company in 2009. According to the filing, he has left the chief executive role and all other employment with the company and its subsidiaries, and remains chairman. The filing adds that the company expects to enter a consulting services agreement with him, the terms of which were not disclosed.
Mr Pareja, 44, has been chief executive of eXp Realty, the group's brokerage arm, since April 2024. The filing records that he joined in July 2022 as president of affiliated services and became chief strategy officer in November of that year. Before that he co-founded Remine, a technology supplier to multiple listing services in North America, and ran it until it was acquired in 2021.
His new employment agreement runs for five years and renews a year at a time after that. The filing puts his base salary at US$1.8 million and says he reports to the board.
"Leo has earned this moment," Mr Sanford said in the release.
## From eXp World Holdings to AGNT
The name on the announcement is itself new. Until June the listed parent was called eXp World Holdings. On 11 June 2026 it announced it had completed a change of name to AGNT, along with a move of its place of incorporation from Delaware to Texas, both approved by stockholders at the annual meeting on 8 May. Its shares trade on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker AGNT, which the company said it adopted in May.
The company gave its reason in that June release: the legal identity was being brought into line with a group that now runs several brands under one holding company. It lists four of them: eXp Realty, the brokerage; NextHome, a real estate franchise network in the United States; a virtual collaboration platform; and the personal development and media brand SUCCESS Enterprises.
The steps below place the handover in that sequence.
How the group reached this week's handover
December 2019eXp Realty opens for business in Australia, according to a company release of 9 December 2019.
April 2024Leo Pareja becomes chief executive of eXp Realty, the brokerage arm.
May 2026The group acquires NextHome, its first move into franchising, and adopts the AGNT ticker.
11 June 2026The parent announces its new name, AGNT, and its move to Texas.
8 October 2026Mr Pareja becomes chief executive of AGNT. Glenn Sanford remains chairman.
At 30 June 2026 the group counted 87,338 agents and brokers on its platform, 6 per cent more than a year earlier, according to its second-quarter results published on 4 August. Revenue for the quarter was US$1.4 billion, up 11 per cent, and the group recorded 132,497 sales transactions. The results do not break out Australia, or any other single country outside the United States.
## Franchising and AI in the announcement
Two themes run through the company's statements: franchising and artificial intelligence.
The franchising step is the acquisition of NextHome in May 2026. The 8 October release says Mr Pareja led that deal and calls it the company's first expansion into franchising. NextHome is described in the release as a national franchise in the United States. Nothing in the release, the filing or the August results says the franchise brand will be offered in Australia, and this article does not assume it will.
It matters as a matter of structure because eXp Realty itself is not a franchise. Its Australian website states the point in three short phrases: no desk fees, no royalty fees, no franchise fees. The group now describes itself as a "multi-model" platform, meaning that a franchise network and a brokerage without franchisees sit under the same parent.
On artificial intelligence, the release calls the company "AI-native" and has Mr Sanford crediting his successor with moving the model into that era. Mr Pareja's own line was about tools for agents. "We're not just adapting to where the industry is headed, we're building the infrastructure for it," he said in the release. The announcement names no specific AI product, and no Australian rollout of any tool.
## Where eXp sits in Queensland
eXp Australia's website lists one office in each of six states: Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania. Each is shown with its own state licence number, because real estate licensing in Australia is a state matter. The Queensland entry gives an office on Cavill Avenue in Surfers Paradise and a Queensland licence number.
That is the whole of the group's listed Queensland footprint: one office address on the Gold Coast and one licence number, with no network of branded shopfronts. The company describes itself on the same site as cloud-based, with agents working through online tools and a shared platform.
The company does not publish a count of its Queensland agents. The nearest public indication is its agency profile on a national property portal, which in October 2026 showed 38 agents under the name eXp Australia QLD, 93 properties for sale and 218 sold in the 12 months to 22 September 2026. Those are the portal's figures for listings advertised there, not an official headcount, and they may not capture every agent or every sale.
National leadership sits outside the state. In a release dated 16 February 2026, eXp Realty named Mindy Powell-Hodges as country leader for Australia, based in Sydney. In that release the group's managing director for international business, Félix Bravo, called Australia "a strategically important market for eXp". The release gave a worldwide agent figure and no Australian one.
## How the model fits Queensland licensing
A brokerage with a single office and agents spread across a state has to fit the same law as any other agency. In Queensland that law is the Property Occupations Act 2014, administered by the Office of Fair Trading.
The Act lets a corporation hold a real estate agent licence, on a condition set out in section 45: a person in charge of the corporation's real estate agency business must be a licensed real estate agent. Section 55 adds that a corporation may perform the activities of a licensee only through a licensed person who is in charge of its business. Section 19 defines being in charge of a business at a place as personally supervising, managing or controlling the conduct of the business there. An applicant operating from more than one place must nominate a principal place of business, under section 31.
The people who list and sell usually hold a different authority. The Australian Government's business licence information service describes Queensland's real estate salesperson registration as allowing its holder to sell, negotiate, show and advertise property as an employee of a licensed real estate agent. The same page says a salesperson cannot conduct auctions or operate trust accounts, and that someone working as a contractor must hold a full licence.
Who holds what in a Queensland agencyProperty Occupations Act 2014
Authority
Who holds it
What it carries
Corporation licence
The company that runs the agency.
The agency acts only through a licensed person in charge.
Real estate agent licence
An individual, including the person in charge.
May act alone, with others or as an employee.
Salesperson registration
An individual employed by a licensed agent.
Sells, negotiates and advertises. No auctions, no trust accounts.
Sections 26, 45 and 55 of the Act; the Australian Government business licence information service for the salesperson registration.
For a reader, the practical consequence is on the paperwork. An agent working under eXp's name in Queensland is appointed under the corporate licence shown on the company's site, whichever suburb the agent works in. How the company engages each of its Queensland agents, and which authority each one holds, is not something it publishes, and this article does not guess at it.
## What agents keep under the eXp model
The commercial side of the model is described on eXp Australia's website, in the company's own words. Agents keep between 75 and 100 per cent of their commissions. The upper figure applies once an agent reaches a yearly cap, after which the agent keeps the whole commission for the rest of that year. The site does not state the amount of the cap.
Two further elements set the model apart from a salaried or franchise arrangement. The first is revenue share: an agent who introduces another productive agent to the company can receive a share of revenue from that agent's sales, which the site says is paid by the company and not taken from the other agent's commission. The second is equity: the site says agents can earn awards of shares in the parent company for certain milestones, such as a first transaction.
That second element is where a change of leadership in the United States touches an agent on the Gold Coast or in Cairns most directly. Shares earned through the programme are shares in AGNT, the Nasdaq-listed parent that changed chief executive this week. Mr Pareja referred to it in the release, describing the company he inherits as one "owned by the agents who power it".
## What has not been announced
The handover is a change at the top of a listed company in the United States. As of 11 October 2026, the published record contains no statement from eXp Australia or its country leader about the appointment, and none of the documents reviewed for this article announces a change to the Queensland office, the Queensland licence, the commission model or the fees charged to agents here.
Worth knowing
No local change has been announced for Queensland
The company's release and its regulatory filing do not mention Australia. Elite Agent reported on 9 October 2026 that no immediate change to Australian operations was identified.
Some items are flagged as still to come. The filing says any consulting agreement with Mr Sanford would be disclosed in a later report if it is signed, and that Mr Pareja's full employment agreement will be filed with the annual report for the year ending 31 December 2026. The company's next quarterly results will be the first published under the new chief executive.