Ibrahim Hussein, the founder of Affinity Real Estate, is bringing his 25-person team to eXp Canada.
“For our team members, it means the playing field has been leveled,” said Ibrahim. “Everybody has the same opportunity to grow their business. We were thinking, ‘what kind of platform, what kind of place is there, where we can all work together and support each other? Where there is not competition, but collaboration, and people grow exponentially together, other than eXp?’”
Affinity Real Estate left Keller Williams at the end of March 2022 as the No. 1 Keller Williams team in all of Canada based on GCI and sales volume, and the No. 1 team in the Waterloo Region for all brokerages. In 2021, the Affinity team closed 389 transactions for $280 million (Canadian dollars) in sales volume between Ontario and Alberta.
Hussein Always Had a Passion for Business
Ibrahim came to Canada from Egypt 10 years ago with a bachelor’s degree in law. While he practiced as a lawyer in Egypt, he chose to start fresh in Canada, and focus on his passion for business. With his extensive knowledge in sales and negotiation, Ibrahim immersed himself in a variety of work: trading, importing and exporting, and telecommunications.
He grew his network and surrounded himself with like-minded individuals, eventually segueing into real estate. On November 1, 2018, shortly after joining one of the top teams at Keller Williams, Ibrahim founded his own team, with two of his current partners. In only three years, he grew the team to 25 agents, and the No. 1 team for all of Keller Williams in Canada. He did so without a single agent leaving the team — an unprecedented metric in the industry, which Ibrahim credits to his focus on relationship-building and the organization’s culture.
“While we are a sales-focused team that produces at a high level, we keep things simple and focus on one thing — our people. ‘Relationships over transactions’ is the motto. We don’t refer to our team members as ‘agents’ – they are ‘business partners.’ This is the belief we embody,” said Ibrahim.
Ibrahaim says Affinity is not just a team of Realtors, it’s a real estate community that cares, honors, and supports one another and it can be felt throughout every team interaction.
“eXp is the fastest-growing real estate brokerage in history, giving our Realtors greater access with no geographic restrictions,” said Ibrahim. “We need to keep growing, and with the same speed that we have been growing for the past three years. It took a lot of time and a lot of research to come to this decision. It took almost two years of investigating, two years of analysis, and two years of conversations. We had to make sure that if we made this move, it would match, maintain, and support the speed of growth that we had.”
MillTown Joins Forces With Affinity to Create a Team of 37 Agents
Following the arrival of Affinity Real Estate to eXp Realty, another meaningful business partnership was born. MillTown Property Group, an existing 12-agent eXp team, founded by Brandon Town and Greg DeMeuleneare, joined forces with Affinity. At a combined 37 agents, this partnership grew Affinity to an impressively large team.
“Deciding to join Affinity Real Estate was an absolute no-brainer,” said Brandon. “Combining resources, leadership, and culture under one roof created one, big, amazing family in this real estate industry,” said Brandon.
Brandon joined eXp Canada in June 2019 as a solo agent, starting his business from the ground up. He was previously a partner at a small independent brokerage, but after seeing what eXp offered – not just for business owners, but every agent – he knew he had to make the move.
> See why independent brokerages are flocking to eXp Realty
“I had to restart my business from scratch,” said Brandon after departing from the indie brokerage. “I was trying to make impactful changes for a sustainable business and was getting nowhere. I watched eXp for 18 months and knew I could build what I wanted there. It’s an incredible platform. It was scary because no one had really heard of eXp Realty then, but I knew with time, it would take serious market share.”
Brandon, a two-time eXp ICON agent, started MillTown Property Group in March 2021 with his business partner Greg. He knew if he focused on production, he would attract a lot of great agents, meeting and building his relationship with Ibrahim in the process.
MillTown Property Group closed 150 transactions in 2021 for $110 million (Canadian dollars) in sales volume.
Both Ibrahim and Brandon know that over time, their Realtor partners will be looking for the same opportunities to expand their own businesses, and eXp offers just that. They believe everyone deserves access to the same success, and eXp provides an ideal platform to grow the company and share in the revenue, as a business owner.
The principal focus of this new mega team is to turn the traditional team hierarchy model on its head. Affinity Real Estate is excited to disrupt the market and create a win-win model for both agents and consumers.
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