Well it appears the City of Greenville has once again decided to embrace the mask 🙂 Yesterday it was announced that effective today, there is a mask mandate for all City of Greenville offices and buildings. This is not a citywide mask mandate and appears to be much more limited than the new mask mandate for Columbia, SC. Here is the official statement from the City of Greenville regarding their new mask mandate for August 2021.
If I’m not mistaken, I believe the City of Greenville is limited now in what it can require in terms of mask mandates across the city so they have gone with the limited edition – city buildings only. I do expect we’ll see a pick up in some mask wearing particularly downtown. We might even see some businesses decide to once again require masks to enter their stores, buildings, and offices. However, there has been a lot of push back against the masks. It’s hard to imagine that this latest round of government overreach makes it very far with the populace. Lots of people are getting tired of government telling them what they have to do. The Greenville area is generally considered a conservative bastion and they aren’t too fond of the masks or the vaccines.
If you want to follow along with how well South Carolina is doing with Covid, you’ll have no shortage of Facebook posts to read through at the SC DHEC Facebook Page. According to SC DHEC, Covid-19 – or the Delta Variant – is raging out of control across the state. That said, it appears that the number of Covid-19 Delta positives has dropped by about 50% in the past few days. I believe we were around 3,200-3,500 per day last week. Today’s report shows 2,220.
eXp World Holdings, parent company of fast growing eXp Realty, just reported a record quarter this past week. (Disclosure, I am an agent with eXp Realty and shareholder in eXp World Holdings – EXPI on the Nasdaq).
Second Quarter 2021 Financial Highlights as Compared to the Same Year-ago Quarter:
- Revenue increased 183% to a record $1 billion.
- Gross profit increased 133% to $79.9 million.
- Net income increased 350% to $37.0 million, which included $20.6 million income tax provision benefit. Earnings per diluted share increased 300% to $0.24.
- Adjusted EBITDA (a non-GAAP financial measure) increased 98% to $27.0 million.
- Operating cash flow increased 210% to $88.5 million.
- As of June 30, 2021, cash and cash equivalents totaled $107.4 million, compared to $63.6 million as of June 30, 2020. The Company repurchased approximately $54.9 million of common stock during the second quarter of 2021.
- The Company declared a cash dividend for the third quarter of 2021 of $0.04 per share on the company’s common stock. The dividend is expected to be paid on Aug. 30, 2021 to shareholders of record on Aug. 16, 2021.
Here’s the link to the full press release on eXp World Holding’s Second Quarter Results. Here’s the latest stock price for EXPI.
I joined this company over 4 years ago when we had fewer than 3,700 agents. Now we have more than 60,000 across the U.S. and now in many countries throughout the world. It’s an innovative real estate brokerage model that has eliminated costs by being virtual and eXp compensates agents with stock as well as allowing agents to participate in the gross revenues generated by the company with its Revenue Share program. I’m not aware of any other brokerage that allows agents to participate both in the revenue and equity of the company.
If you’re an agent or thinking about becoming an agent and you’d like to learn more, please feel free to reach out to me directly or fill out an application here – Join eXp Realty.