One of Real Estate's Most Influential Voices Just Made a Bold Move. Here's Why.
Vija Williams moved to eXp Realty in May 2025 from PLACE, where she was Head of Industry. She did not move to sell more houses. She moved to build a coaching and community platform called UPGRADE, in partnership with eXp team leader Spring Bengtzen.
The credentials and quote below are from eXp Realty's announcement of the move.
What eXp reported
- Head of Industry at PLACE
- Owner of Vija Real Estate in Seattle
- Coach with Cheplak Live, and co-founder of She Inc.
- Former co-host of the Empire Building podcast, which eXp put at 600,000+ downloads
- Training reaching a stated 250,000+ viewers since 2020
Those audience figures are eXp's, from a recruitment release. We have not verified them.
What UPGRADE is
"This is more than a move, it's a mission." — Vija Williams, quoted in eXp Realty's announcement.
UPGRADE is described as covering business, wealth, investing, health and leadership rather than transactional technique. Read plainly: it is a coaching community, built by two people with existing audiences, hosted inside a brokerage that gives them distribution.
That is not a criticism. It is a description, and it is the thing to be clear about before you sign up for anything.
The distinction worth making
Coaching programs built by individuals inside a brokerage are commercial products. They are not the same as the brokerage's own training, and they are usually not free. Both can be worth the money. But an agent evaluating a move should separate two questions that recruiters tend to merge:
- What training does the brokerage provide as part of what I already pay?
- What is sold on top of that, by whom, and at what price?
eXp University is the first category — included, on-demand, and covered on our eXp University page. Programs like UPGRADE are the second. Ask which one you are being offered.
If coaching is what you are actually shopping for
Then evaluate it as coaching, not as a brokerage. Ask what it costs, what the renewal terms are, and who it has worked for at your production level. And separately, evaluate the brokerage on its economics: an 80/20 split to a $16,000 annual cap at eXp, $4,000 on Bean Group's Mega Team, with a separate uncapped team split by ladder level, all on the plans page. The leadership tracks are on team growth.
If your understanding of eXp's compensation came from a blog post, refresh it at exptoolkit.com/revenueshare.