Educating Agents Is at the Heart and Mind of Virginia’s Michael Straley

Virginia’s Michael Straley bristles at the upside-down world of real estate in which people become real estate agents without really knowing what they are doing. He even wrote his master’s thesis on it. 

That’s why he is deeply enamored with eXp Realty’s structure, which has a “built-in support system unlike any other on the market,” says Straley. He also cites eXp’s stock ownership, revenue sharing rewards, progressive technology, collaborative global channels, immersive training environment, and cost-effective agent operations as other reasons why he and his wife, Rebecca joined back in January 2016.

Straley says he had an atypical year in 2019, completing “just 28 sales for $9.2 million,” but that’s because he and his wife had a non-stop year of teaching, including classes for NAR (National Association of Realtors), their GoStraley Seminar series, and classes in eXp World. Most importantly, Straley just completed his master’s degree at Realtor University, a curriculum of higher real estate learning which was conceived and launched in 2012 by the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Straley is one of 75 people who have that level of knowledge in the U.S.  

“Real estate is way more complex than people think,” Straley said, adding that he lives by Einstein’s motto, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” 

Straley Left the IT Field to Do Real Estate Full-time in 2008

Straley went to work understanding real estate after an intense career in the information technology field in the Washington, D.C. area where he worked and consulted for Accenture, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, writing a million lines of computer software code along the way. But Michael and Rebecca’s world of commuting and traveling for business left them “two ships passing in the night.” It began to take a toll and the duo decided to commit to real estate full time where Rebecca was already a seasoned agent/broker of over a decade. 

Perhaps their timing of going all-in on real estate wasn’t ideal — it was during the 2008 housing crash — but Straley says he fell in love with it, despite cutting his teeth in the worst environment possible.

The Straleys joined a couple of brokerages for just a few years before starting their own, Capitol Premier Realty, which they eventually merged with upstart Fathom Realty. The Straleys started Fathom’s Northeast presence and remain shareholders.

eXp’s Virtual Platform for Education Also Appealed to Straley

While with Fathom for three years, the Straleys learned about eXp and found eXp’s platform for growth, expansion, technology and revenue share were more conducive to their goals.

“An added attraction was the vision of providing an educational channel on the virtual platform,” said Straley. “We felt the cumbersome logistics of quality real estate education should be disrupted with a convenient, cost-effective, quality offering and eXp was building the platform to enable that vision.”

Straley finds great satisfaction in facilitating education and empowering agents with the foundation to fully understand real estate principles so they become competent, confident and strategic.

“Nobody likes to feel inexperienced, fearful, unqualified or incompetent,” said Straley. “Unfortunately, our industry has a high-frequency model of ‘start the business first, get educated second and hope you survive,’ which leads to high attrition in the industry. It is so satisfying to help others learn by the successes of others rather than unnecessarily struggling and failing.”

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