Arizona's Top 1% Agent Just Made His Move. His Mentor Showed Him the Way.
Scott Kumler had built The Kumler Group into a 53-person operation in the Phoenix Valley. In May 2025 he moved it to eXp Realty, sponsored by Joshua Smith — a longtime mentor who had already made the move himself.
The figures and quote below are from eXp Realty's announcement of the signing.
What eXp reported
- $80 million in 2024 sales volume
- 192 transactions closed
- 53 team members across the Phoenix Valley
- A top-five team at his previous brokerage, and top 1% of Arizona Realtors
Who he asked
"My goal is to give unparalleled value and support to our agents. After months of research, it was clear that eXp was the best place to deliver that." — Scott Kumler, quoted in eXp Realty's announcement of the move.
The framing there is about his agents rather than himself, which is what you would expect a team leader to say in a press release. The more useful detail is buried in the mechanics: he came in under someone he already knew and trusted.
The sponsor decision is the one nobody explains
This is the part of joining eXp that most agents get wrong, and it is the part with the least room to fix later. Your sponsor is named on your application. It determines who is above you in the revenue share structure and, more practically, who actually answers the phone when a deal goes sideways at 7pm.
The choice is effectively permanent. It is worth spending real time on, and it is worth choosing someone whose support you have already tested rather than whoever ran the best webinar.
How the revenue share underneath it actually works
Revenue share at eXp is a pool-share model. eXp funds a pool from company dollar and each of seven tiers draws a defined maximum percentage of that pool. It is not a percentage of the sponsored agent's gross commission, which is how most third-party sites describe it and why their numbers do not reconcile.
Tiers 1 through 3 open automatically. Tier 4 requires 5 front-line qualifying agents, tier 5 requires 10, tier 6 requires 15, and tier 7 requires 30. The full structure, including the first-year bonus of up to $4,000 on a directly sponsored agent, is on our revenue share page.
And the counterweight, which we publish because leaving it out would be dishonest: eXp's own income disclosure states the median revenue share for a typical Tier 1 agent is $0. Most sponsors build nothing. It compounds only for people who work at it for years.
If you are choosing a sponsor in New England
The advantage of a local sponsor is that "support" means a specific building with specific people in it — for us, the eXp Culture Center at 1150 Sagamore Avenue in Portsmouth, described on the culture center page. What that support consists of, and how the leadership tracks work, is on team growth.
Revenue share and cap terms are documented by eXp at exptoolkit.com/revenueshare. Read that alongside anything you have been told verbally, including by us.