From Independent Brokerage to Global Real Estate Team With Jim Lowenstern

James Lowenstern (00:00)

No one helped me. It was a complete s-show. My entire business blew up. I lost agents in droves. Lost teams. I lost everything. And then I started realizing that I had to do something different. So I tried one thing, and I grew a luxury group there to about 2,300 agents within a year or two, published their magazine. I mean, eXp really doesn’t have a magazine. I have two, and our magazines have developed past eXp.

Q Edmonds (02:15)

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I’m excited to be here today. I have another fantastic guest, and I’m excited because we get to peek through his lens, glean from his experience. And so I’m excited. We have the founder and team leader of Castles Unlimited, brokered by eXp Realty. This gentleman has years of experience. And so I know we’re gonna glean some really, really good years of experience from him. I’m excited about what he does. I’m excited about how he has himself positioned. And so I am so excited to introduce you all to Mr. Jim Lowenstern. Mr. Jim, how you doing today, sir?

James Lowenstern (03:03)

Great. Thanks for inviting me, Q.

Q Edmonds (03:05)

Absolutely, absolutely. Excited that you’re here. I am the type—I like to dive right in. So I would love for you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days. If you don’t mind, give us a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got into the place where you are, and then tell us what market you’re operating in. And so, Mr. Jim, sir, you got the floor, man.

James Lowenstern (03:28)

I’ll work backwards from the three questions. Worldwide.

That’s how I sort of found myself at eXp in the first place, because I had a little real estate company called Castles Unlimited, and we were based in the Boston, Massachusetts area since 1985. Prior to that, I was selling real estate in Palm Beach, Florida, 33480, right on the ocean.

I was there when John Lennon was alive and Yoko Ono was walking up and down Worth Avenue. Bumped into her a number of times. Donald Trump bought Mar-a-Lago. I was there for all that. So, back to Boston, grew that company to seven offices, and we started growing into multiple states.

And it just got to a point between licensing, board dues, continuing education, all the stuff that you need to do to have a broker’s license and MLS affiliation. And my agents loved it because they got to expand, and they had licenses in other states. But I just said, okay, I’ve got Florida, I’ve got Massachusetts, I’ve got Rhode Island, I’ve got New Hampshire. And I just looked at the map, and I said, we got nothing. We got this, and the world is this. And eXp sort of had that worldwide, one-brokerage platform for the entire world. So now my team is in about a dozen countries, not states. Thirty-plus states, coast to coast, yada yada.

Q Edmonds (05:31)

Yeah.

James Lowenstern (06:19)

You know, some of it is just failing up. A lot of it just has to do with my, I guess, entrepreneurial spirit and creativity and how one thing just sort of evolves into another. A little fix-and-flip, five condos in Newton Centre, Massachusetts, turned into, okay, what are we going to do with a sign in front of it? It was almost like, what’s the sign going to say? And I went through mansions. I went through estate. It kind of landed on castles. And it just eventually evolved into a federally registered trademark and logos.

And then at one point, I had a competitor that was doing a magazine locally. And I thought to myself, let me do a magazine and have it called *Castles*. And I spoke to my attorney in Washington about the trademark, and he says, well, what do you want, the trademark Castles or Castles Magazine? And I said, well, let’s go for Castles. And the Patent and Trademark Office came back and said, no, somebody else has that for real estate. My attorney said, well, who’s that? And they said, well, it’s Castles Unlimited International, Inc.

And it’s like, hello, that’s us. And they said, well, if that’s you, then we’ll give it to you, which I thought was a mistake. I mean, you think of all the companies that call themselves Castles and Cottages or Castles and Condos or whatever. I had the right to send cease-and-desist letters after that, which I did for a year or two. And now I don’t care. I mean, we stand on our own. If people put the word castles into any AI or search right now, they’re going to find us.

Q Edmonds (08:22)

Yeah, I love it. I love it. Well, thank you, sir. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for taking us through the journey. I, I, I appreciate it. So you got years of experience at what you do. I often say destiny has no wasted moments. We are building to the people we are today from each leg of the journey, right? We’re borrowing, refining the people that we are. We know our why. So I would love to know, throughout the journey, what has it taught you about yourself?

Has it taught you discipline? Has it made—has it made you humble? Has it increased your tenacity? What has the journey taught you about you, sir?

James Lowenstern (08:57)

Well, it’s taught me that I am definitely human, that I have my limitations, and the biggest dreams and aspirations meet up against walls often. And sometimes you just can’t get through those walls, and you can’t get over them, but you have to just keep trying.

Q Edmonds (09:23)

I appreciate that reflective answer. You know, I, I’ll ask that question because at the center of our business is us, right? The business owner. And so one of my mentors told me, when you know who you are, you know what to do. So sometimes reflecting on your why, reflecting on who you are, your processes, it kind of reinforces you to power forward. And so I appreciate your answer. What’s one operational thing you’ve put in place, let’s say the last two years, that’s made the biggest difference in how you run your deals?

James Lowenstern (10:29)

Operationally.

Hmm. I almost think it goes beyond operationally. I think it’s the change in the platform. I used to be an independent operator, and I have some really good administrators, really, really talented, with licenses. And some of them have been in the business literally for decades. All of them never worked for anybody except me. So we formed a really tight bond, and I relied on them for everything from graphics to suggestions for growth and training and just dealing with the day-to-day problems with the agents.

eXp, not to oversell it, has a very interesting philosophy. But more important than the philosophy was the business model that basically allowed my dream to plug into something real. Whereas before, it was just my dream. Yeah, we’re going to be the biggest real estate company. Yeah, we’re going to be worldwide. We’re going to do this. We’re going to do that. How are you going to do it, Jim? Well, we’re just going to get up each day, and we’re going to work hard, and it’s going to happen. You know what? That did not happen. I plugged into this eXp platform, and literally for, like, the first year or two—

Q Edmonds (12:03)

Yeah. Yeah.

James Lowenstern (12:12)

No one helped me. It was a complete s-show. My entire business blew up. I lost agents in droves. Lost teams. I lost everything. And then I started realizing that I had to do something different. So I tried one thing, and I grew a luxury group there to about 2,300 agents within a year or two, published their magazine. I mean, eXp really doesn’t have a magazine. I have two, and our magazines have developed past eXp.

Now it’s open to all agents, all brands. And then I realized, nope, that’s not it. I mean, even before that, I started with, well, I got to have my MLS roster. That’s important. I’ve got to be manager of that office because I pay the rent. I’ve got to have all these people because I had all these people before. All of these things were wrong.

Like I said, fail upward. But I didn’t throw the towel. I said, no matter what, I’m going to give this three years. I’m not going to be independent again unless, after three years, it really continues to be this disaster. And so now we have the team. It was as soon as we started the team and we said no fees, and people were scratching their heads. How are you going to make money, Jim?

Q Edmonds (13:24)

Yeah.

James Lowenstern (13:51)

I’ll figure that out. That should be the biggest problem I have in the world, is how am I going to make money? Because I’ve been making money since I was a teenager. So that’s going to maybe change in shape, but I’ll figure that one out. And so now we’ve got agents all over the world. We sold Mark Wahlberg’s Beverly Hills mansion to Paris Hilton last year. I’ve got an agent that’s about—well, he’ll be way over six figures this year in his pocket. And the eXp model creates a situation where he basically doesn’t pay any percentage at all to the company, and everyone’s happy.

Q Edmonds (14:44)

Love it. Love it. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing. Like you said, it goes well beyond operations. And I hear it in your process and the way you just delivered. Now, you talked about your dream. So I’m interested to know, what’s your next real goal? Like, what are you looking to solve at scale next?

James Lowenstern (15:43)

Ten B for the team. Ten-billion-dollar team. The first ten-billion-dollar team. There are teams out there. So RealTrends is sort of like the accountant for the industry, you know, top agent in production, top agent in sides, transaction count, top team, blah, blah, blah.

So eXp had all these different teams. They had domestic teams. It was like married couples. They had self-organized teams. That’s like anything goes. You just kind of wing it. They have standard teams. Standard teams is where we started. Actually, no, I go back. We started with self-organized. And then one of my sponsors said, hey, you know, Jim, we have this eXp Luxury now with LUXVT, which is this great tool.

Yeah, you’re on the luxury already. Okay, so, you know, you know, I go, yeah. She says, you know, if you’re a standard team, everyone on your team gets a huge discount on the luxury. No one told me that. She was the first. She said, but you have to be a standard team. Well, immediately we became a standard team. Then everyone who’s at eXp wanted to get a discount with the luxury. Could do it because I’m not charging any fees. They just get the benefits of the discount. But then they started realizing, hey, this team is actually doing something. And now they’re plugged into that too. But the goal is to be the first ten-billion-dollar team.

Q Edmonds (17:22)

Love it. I love it, sir. So you got teams all around the world. You’ve been agent—I’m, I’m—one team, agents all around the world. Obviously, I believe it sounds like you’re very good at relationship building, and so I would love to hear your philosophy when it comes to building healthy business relationships.

James Lowenstern (17:30)

Agents all around, one, one team.

Q Edmonds (17:48)

How has it served you well? Who are some of the people that’s in your corner that continue to help you, or people that you actually help? So talk to me a little bit about relationships, Jim.

James Lowenstern (17:58)

Yeah, just being available. Picking up the phone, calling people back, not just relying on emails and texts. I think that’s really important. I think Zoom is a nice tool because it’s a little bit better than the phone call. Yeah.

It’s not always easy to schedule those things, and not everyone’s tech savvy. So sometimes it’s got to be the phone call, but just making an effort to keeping in touch with as many people as you can. As a team grows or as an agent CRM grows, it’s not easy always because, as agents, we’re always running to the next listing, the next showing, whatever. I mean, there’s life in there, family and entertainment and working out, whatever. We have to fit it all into a 24-hour day, which also is not a 24-hour day because you have to sleep too. So it’s almost impossible.

Q Edmonds (19:19)

That part.

James Lowenstern (19:22)

Yeah. But yet somehow, as real estate agents, we like the challenge. It’s like, how do you do this? It’s impossible, but somehow I’m going to figure it out. Right.

Q Edmonds (19:34)

Yes, sir. Yeah, yes, sir. Jim, I appreciate you, sir. Listen, is there anything that I have not brought up that you would like to talk about? Anything, like, on your mind, and did you want to stick any—land any message? Just kind of wanna open up the floor, if that’s something.

James Lowenstern (19:52)

So I know it’s going to be kind of fuzzy. So when I, when—so I’ve—write books. My first book was *Your Million Dollar Year in Real Estate*, which kind of predicted everything that’s happened now. The book was written, I don’t know, maybe 10 years or more ago. And I wrote about how the franchise brands are painting themselves into a corner, and clearly they are.

Here’s a company. It’s like an eXp wannabe. I’m not even going to name their name. I’m not going to promote them. And they bought another company, which is a franchise company. It’s one with that gaudy balloon. And it’s not about how great this merger is. It’s all about how the heck is this going to work? Because one has this business model. One has this business model.

And what I always said is, franchising, what you’re doing is you’re taking money from people. Because I franchised once. Castles Unlimited actually sold franchises at one point before actually buying a franchise, which was a real disaster. But that’s what inspired the book. And I realized that franchising is just taking money from people that don’t know how to run a business, hoping that you can teach them how to run a business. It’s almost an impossible task.

That’s why some companies bought up all their franchises or told their stronger franchisees to buy up the weaker ones that were just gonna fail anyway. You know? Yeah, buy this office for a buck. Yeah, how do you feel about that? You’ll get these agents who get these desks and copying machines and stuff like that.

Q Edmonds (21:28)

Yeah.

James Lowenstern (21:52)

eXp comes in and says all of this is—agents don’t need a desk. They’ve got one at home now. They don’t need a computer at the office. They’ve got one. You know, they basically have a supercomputer in their pocket. Or, yes, I’ve got two super-supercomputers that I use.

So the first book was *Your Million Dollar Year in Real Estate*. Second book was *Your Million Dollar Month in Real Estate*, which was inspired by my joining eXp. That book just poured out of me and was published in 60 days. This third book is a little longer in actual creation because I’ve now been in the business for about 44 years. I started when I was—

Q Edmonds (22:32)

Wow. No.

James Lowenstern (22:48)

I don’t want to date myself. I’m old. But it’s *How to Retire from Real Estate: A Real Estate Agent’s Blueprint of Freedom, Passive Income and Legacy*. And then it’s the ocean and the house and the swimming pool and the books. And there’s a little, like, notebook here. It says, “Build freedom, create legacy, live life.” And then the coffee mug—

Q Edmonds (22:54)

Yeah.

James Lowenstern (23:17)

“Freedom, time, choice, legacy.” Okay. So it’s kind of tongue-in-cheek, the title. There’s no way—you know, how does a real estate agent leave the business? I mean, if they’re a real producing real estate agent with their contacts and people basically throwing listings at them or whatever, there’s no way. Yeah. But the book—

Q Edmonds (23:19)

Yeah.

James Lowenstern (23:44)

—sort of gives them a blueprint on how to structure life so they can have both a retirement and the career. I do a podcast called *The eXponential Files*. Of course, there’s *Castles Magazine*, and we also do *Castles Commercial Magazine*. We just started printing that. That covers a lot.

Q Edmonds (24:08)

Sir, I love it. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing. Listen, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you, sir?

James Lowenstern (24:20)

617-733-8280. [email protected]. Pretty simple.

Q Edmonds (24:30)

It is. Well, listen, Mr. Jim, let me say three things to you. One, thank you for your time. I think time is our most precious commodity. So thank you for your time. Thank you for your stories. Thank you for showing up as your authentic self. I believe stories plant seeds for people, leave breadcrumbs. And I know you came and planted some seeds, left some breadcrumbs. And so I appreciate you. And lastly, thank you for your mindset. Thank you for the way you think and bringing your mind—that mindset—to this platform. Mr. Jim, I appreciate you coming on today.

James Lowenstern (24:58)

Thank you, Q. Appreciate it.

Q Edmonds (25:00)

Absolutely. Well, listen, y’all heard Mr. Jim. His information is in the show notes. Please get in contact with him. But definitely make sure you’re subscribed here because I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people, just like Mr. Jim. So, sir, thank you again. And everyone else, y’all have a fantastic day.