They say they "disrupt" the real estate industry and that they're a "tech startup." I never saw anything supporting those things.
They treat their employees really bad. There isn't unlimited time off, etc., because you'll still have to work - no matter what the circumstances. Sick? Stressed? Family vacation? Funerals? You'll be expected to work anyway - even DURING doctor appointments, you'll get harassed during and after if you don't "answer in 10 minutes." This includes calls, hanging up, calling right back - over and over again for an hour - by your "manager!" Ridiculous.
The interviews? You'll speak to people who don't even know why they are talking to you and who just found out they were supposed to interview you for a job outside of their knowledge and department. You'll have at least 4, and probably 6 all-told (a recruiter, someone from your department, and 4 from anywhere in the company in unrelated fields just to see if these people "like you." Then you'll probably talk to your possible manager and the recruiter again - complete time suck here).
If you like working with bullies and micromanagers, you'll love it here. If you enjoy being ridiculed in front of the team and/or the company as a whole, you'll fit right in. And if you find unsmiling, unhappy coworkers super refreshing and motivating, you'll find success here.
The disruption?? It's the same as every other real estate office I've worked in. Commissions are ALWAYS negotiable. Rex says "If you list with our broker, we charge x% commission. If the buyer has a different broker, we split the commission with that broker for bringing that buyer. If that broker wants x%, and we really only want to split x% with them, we'll just increase the sales price on your house to make up the difference." This is not really "disruption" in the real estate business.
They say "list with us and do everything in one place, and pay less." They don't include, "but you'll get subpar service because we don't hire people who know real estate or anything about aspects of real estate; and we don't really train anyone for their job, and we really light people up with sales metrics and high-pressure sales tactics." They also don't reveal that "all in one place," comes at a cost - slower service, surprisingly little knowledge about the job or industry, and that speed comes above everything else - the customers' needs, doing things right based on state requirements, etc. They literally brag during meetings about making these "new companies" within REX so fast and then working for months down the road to undo the "wrong things" and try and make them "right." This means management and executives know they are doing something "wrong" for the consumers, but don't care because they just want to tell their private investors, "we met your deadlines for creating these extra businesses, now we need that next load of cash."
About the tech thing: they do have engineers that work on grabbing business through the internet. They DO NOT invest in tech for any of the other staff members to do their jobs, and they don't invest in IT support for the company (only two people are the IT dept). You will use at least 10 apps to get anything done, when you could be using 1-2 programs total if they would pay for anything worth using. They want your "resources" to be free so they can keep the "funding investment money" for themselves. Almost every person is told they should be happy to work with "the best of the best," and not try to get more money because "the opportunity here exceeds any paycheck you get now," (except the great friends of the owner and the great friends those people know - which are people they grew up with, who have NO experience!). Do you thing spreadsheets for everything and using email only are good things? Then you'll probably enjoy working in this non-tech "tech startup," which has been around for YEARS.
Vastly underpaid - work somewhere that values you from the start.
Do not travel to the CA office! It is not welcoming, they don't try to help you, and you get stuck at an open-office space, with a laptop and no one to help you, sitting alone with all the noise of a call-center. Because that's what it is, really. Dinners out with potential colleagues or teammates? Nope. Lunch with them? Nope. Maybe short trips to see what's in the city nearby, etc.? Nope. You will go to that office, sit around trying to figure out what to do, then go back to your hotel. Do they reimburse you for the food you have to buy? Nope - they say the will, but then you never get the check and never get responses other than, "oh, someone's looking into that for you."
