Peter and Tara Levinson grew their Levinson Real Estate Team into a dynasty in Oklahoma, ranking No. 1 in the state and ninth in the nation by RealTrends. But a couple of incidents motivated them to move their 52-person team to eXp Realty in November 2022.
First, when COVID hit and slowed down their business, the Levinsons could easily have kicked back and retired into a huge life. Instead, they couldn’t leave their hard-working agents behind without a future or a plan to grow.
“Everything shut down. The whole world shut down,” said Peter. “Tara and I said to each other, ‘We’ll be OK. We are debt-free including our house, we have money in the bank and the market has been great.’ But, we also wondered how many people on our team and in our world will be OK? We knew people were freaking out. If an agent is out of commission, they are out of commission.”
Shortly after, when a family member’s medical treatment landed them all in Tijuana, Mexico for three weeks, Peter realized their brokerage was still firing on all cylinders.
“Our numbers were still going strong. We hadn’t missed a beat. Then it just hit me. I’m one of very few people who could leave and not work for 3 weeks straight, totally disconnect and keep on going and nothing would change. It struck me that we have to start finding something to help our people out, our world out. We need to help them create some kind of passive, residual income because we are the only ones who can do that right now.”
Peter and Tara knew about the eXp Realty model through their good friends, eXp Realty agents Micah and Hamudi Mruwat and started to see the potential.
“I attended an eXp event with Hamudi and met an eXp agent who couldn’t work for 2 months. She was sick, but told me it was OK because she was benefitting from eXp’s revenue share program. Tara and I were very happy with our independent brokerage, but again, it just kind of hit,” said Peter.
> See why revenue share is better than profit share
The Levinsons’ daughters run the day-to-day operations of the business. Tasha Simons is the operations manager and Tiara Levinson Bohlman is the sales manager and the sons-in-law are onboard as well.
Peter Writing a Book for New Agents
Prior to real estate, Peter was a regional marketing manager for Best Buy, leaving on a Monday and returning on a Friday. Meanwhile, Tara was killing it in real estate, making 3X more. Peter joined forces with Tara in 2007.
Peter is now in the final stages of writing a real estate book, “Practical Real Estate Practices” designed for new agents who don’t know what to do. It was inspired by his own process of learning the real estate ropes, quickly realizing no book like that existed.
“Most books are ‘how to be a real estate millionaire in 100 days,’ but not many talk about the very basics,” Peter said.
Key Stats About Peter and Tara Levinson and The Levinson Real Estate Team:
- Joined eXp Realty in November 2022
- Based in Oklahoma City, with expansion into Florida
- 52 on team, including 10 admins (all licensed)
- 2021: $187,190,200 in volume, with 763 units
- 2022: $231 million in volume, with 831 units
- Ranked No. 1 in Oklahoma, 9th in U.S. (RealTrends, 2021 Mega Teams)
- Focuses on residential, but handles all types of real estate (luxury, new development, commercial)
- Tara – Keller Williams Platinum winner (2010, 2011, 2012)
- Tara – Keller Williams Triple Platinum winner (2013)
- Peter was a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps (1994-1999)
“By joining eXp, it’s an opportunity to expand our business into all 50 states faster than our original plan. Leveraging eXp’s one company model – nationally and globally – will help our agents succeed bigger and faster,” said Peter.
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