Crowds began gathering at 5 p.m. in the movie-perfect backyard of the 1920s Spanish-style Los Angeles mansion once owned by Madonna. The air was so soft that I could almost feel the scent of eucalyptus. My glasses clinked. The pool was glistening in the bright sun. Overhead, in the Santa Monica Mountains, the Hollywood sign shone like a row of perfectly fitted teeth.
Into that golden light stepped Mauricio Umansky, who had just made his debut on “Dancing with the Stars” the night before. He made his way to the crystal podium and began cracking jokes to the assembled audience at the star-studded ceremony.
Unlike the Oscars and Golden Globes, these awards were not given to actors, directors, or screenwriters. They visited real estate agents with accolades in categories such as “Stratosphere Sale of the Year.” (The recipient of the award was Kurt Rappaport, who represented Beyoncé and Jay-Z when they closed on their $190 million Malibu estate last May.) I experienced 2 seasons of “Buy” and 13 seasons of real drama. Mr. Umanski, who appeared as her husband on “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” was the masterful host of the night's Power Broker Awards.
Celebrities are nailing the real estate industry. Agents in markets like Los Angeles and New York chase stardom as passionately as they chase deals.
They've risen to glamorous heights during the pandemic, appearing in living rooms on shows like “Million Dollar Listing,” “Million Dollar Beach House” and “Buying Beverly Hills.” Captive viewers watched as agents raked in six-figure commissions and wrangled personal dramas as they listed, bought and sold some of America's most spectacular properties. “Selling Sunset,” which features his cast in ensembles in which agents in couture bicker and compete in six-inch heels, premiered in 2019 and quickly became one of Netflix's most popular films. It became one of his on the show.
Viewers' insatiable appetite for reality TV content and the escapism of looking at properties they could never afford to own have now given agents real staying power.
Home prices in the United States remain overwhelmingly low due to soaring prices, rising mortgage rates, and a lack of inventory available to low- and moderate-income households. For Americans, the dream of homeownership is more elusive than it has been in recent decades. According to Daniel J. Lindemann, a sociology professor at Lehigh University and author of True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us, disconnection increases the show's appeal and makes it easier to package it as premium content. He says Zillow has expanded his surfing fantasies. .
“Paradoxically, these programs allow us as viewers to form so-called parasocial relationships, such as friendships and personal relationships with the characters on TV,” Lindemann said. Told. “We want to see this wealth. We can live vicariously through it. You can exist in this hyperreality and feel like you're part of it. You can feel like.”
The most recent season of “Selling Sunset” brought in approximately 3.2 million streaming viewers per episode, according to Nielsen Media Research. Season 1 of “Buying Beverly Hills” attracted 1.7 million viewers per episode, and viewership for season 2, which premiered on March 22, increased by about 5 percent.
For comparison, “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” (on which Mr. Umanski's estranged wife Kyle Richards regularly discusses their relationship) reached a peak of 2.5 million views in its latest season.
“Catapult my real estate career”
“Today, every agent is trying to make their own show happen,” said Alexander Ali, founder of Society Group, a Los Angeles-based public relations firm that exclusively markets celebrity agents and their properties. To tell. “You'd be hard-pressed to find an agent who doesn't have social media and his PR strategy.”
His firm represents agents who have worked with the Kardashians, Ariana Grande and Justin Timberlake, and Ali calls it the “CAA of real estate,” referring to Hollywood talent agencies. Three years ago, he decided to create his Power Broker Awards.
The Hollywood Reporter, which has invested heavily in real estate coverage since 2017, has been a co-sponsor of the award since its inception. The magazine annually publishes a list of the top agents in Los Angeles and New York based on sales volume, homes sold to Hollywood clients and media visibility.
Three times a year, in Los Angeles, Miami and New York, Mr. Ali hosts an event called “Upfront” in partnership with the Wall Street Journal. This is a preview of properties that top agents plan to put on the market at the end of the year. Year. It is held in a movie screening room and is modeled after the presentations that TV networks give each year to attract advertisers to their upcoming shows.
Many luxury goods agents now say appearing on television is one of the most effective ways to stay ahead of the competition in a market that is more crowded than ever. Long gone are the days when an agent's options for luring customers were limited to splashing their face on a bus stop bench or placing an ad on the back page of PennySaver.
Similar to the housing market, in the real estate brokerage industry, the median home price is currently six times the median income of Americans, and the majority of American renters spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities. However, there is a gap between the two. The haves and the have-nots. According to the National Association of Realtors, the average agent makes $46,014 a year. According to reports, Umansky's net worth is $100 million.
“When I decided to go on TV, I said I was going to do it for business and to develop my name,” Umansky, 53, said in an interview. .
He began his real estate career at Hilton & Hyland, a company founded and then co-owned by his brother-in-law, Richard Hilton (of the Hilton hotel dynasty). ” Umanski first appeared on “Real Housewives” in 2010 and then used his exposure to launch his own real estate company, The Agency, in 2011. “Buying Beverly Hills” is set to premiere in 2022. The agency generated $12.4 billion in revenue — more than $1 billion more than in 2021.
Some young agents who have joined the TV show say they see celebrity as one of the quickest ways to build their personal brand. New York-based Nest He Calabrese, an agent with Seekers International, had only been a real estate agent for two years when he joined her Discovery+ series “Selling the Hamptons” in 2021. No time has passed.
“This was an opportunity to jumpstart my career in real estate,” said Calabrese, 32. “With the platform of being on TV, you can touch so many different customers and so many different markets. That's a selling point for sellers. It will get more attention than the list.”
How it all started
Luxury real estate voyeurism has become a common sight on television since “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” The show, which aired from 1984 to his 1995 run, made host Robin Leach's name widely known and became a household name. However, it wasn't until 2012, when “Million Dollar Listing,” which was already well-established in Los Angeles, was aired in New York that TV real estate agents really came into the limelight.
Initially, its spotlight was limited. Home renovation shows that began around the same time provided a faster path to fame for leading characters like Chip and Joanna Gaines and Drew and Jonathan Scott (a.k.a. the Property Brothers), and offered short-term deals for average properties. It showed Americans how to flip things in between. Only a few weeks (often with questionable results off-camera).
John Gomez and Fredrik Eklund, who lead the 90-person superteam at Douglas Elliman Real Estate, were already successful brokers when Eklund joined the first season of Million Dollar Listing New York. .
Becoming a TV star was “very intentional,” Eklund said.
Eklund was already well-known in his native Sweden when he came to New York in the early 2000s. This was partly due to his previous career as an adult film star with a porn tag named Erickson. But it was also because he understood the invisible currency of influence that his fame brought. He comes from a prominent family with ties to the Prime Minister and film director Ingmar Bergman.
Eklund believed that if he could build the right persona on screen, his off-screen business as a real estate agent would benefit.
“I quickly realized that the more vulnerable, authentic and open I was with the audience and the camera, the more of a brand I could be in the real estate industry,” he said.
Gomez and Eklund will sell $3.7 billion worth of real estate in 2023, and their clients include Gigi Hadid, Sarah Jessica Parker, Jennifer Lopez and Daniel Craig.
Many agents who work with megastars say the key to success is fiercely protecting their clients' privacy and becoming more of a sounding board than the traditional salesperson role.
Tomer Fridman, the Kardashian family's personal representative, remains tight-lipped about the celebrities he works with. But he admits his role in their lives goes far beyond real estate. Mr. Fridman is serving as a financial advisor to a growing trend of Hollywood's super-wealthy people becoming real estate moguls.
“For these clients, you have to be a trendsetter,” he said. “You have to look at the market trends and where to invest.”
Mr. Fridman, a real estate agent with Compass' Jones Fridman Group, resisted appearing on TV for more than a decade, despite his prestigious clientele. But he's also currently looking for a pilot for an as-yet-untitled reality show.
After the Power Broker Awards concluded, attendees piled into Ubers and headed to the afterparty at Californication House in the Hollywood Hills. Californication House is a custom-built $38 million James Bond-inspired mansion with an infinity pool and built-in fire pit. The house was built to spec by Branden and Raini Williams, with no particular buyer in mind. The real estate power couple's client list includes Jennifer Lopez, Bruce Willis and Jane Fonda, just like in a series of breaking news stories from TMZ. Please list a few.
The Williamses designed the 13,000-square-foot home and oversaw the architecture and design, including a secret nightclub hidden on the lower level and a custom $40,000 swivel bed. The afterparty, which was attended by Los Angeles real estate professionals, also served as an open house for the property.
Among the guests was “Selling Sunset” star Jason Oppenheim. He runs the luxury brokerage firm Oppenheim Group with his twin brother Brett, and his romantic life is regularly featured on the show. Mr. Oppenheim stood on one of Californication House's many glass balconies as Los Angeles shone above him and said that Americans of average fame could use real estate as a way to increase their income. He said he hopes it will help people think about this.
“I’m proud to have helped attract people to real estate,” he said. “To me, real estate is the most exciting thing in the world and the best way to create wealth for people.”
out of the spotlight
Some agents who appeared on TV said the bright lights created an unpleasant glare.
Aaron Carman was a regular on CNBC's “Secrets of the Super Rich” when the network offered him his own show, “Listing Impossible.” The show aired in 2020 during the height of the pandemic and was not renewed after the first season.
Carman, CEO of Christie's International Real Estate California, said that while he would love to be the star of his own series, from a financial standpoint, it's not worth it.
“I fought to be on TV because I really wanted it,” he said. “But it made us unable to do business, and as a result, we lost millions of dollars going public.”
Carman said he is open to appearing on other shows in the future, but has no intention of pursuing the idea. He focuses on his own properties, including his $126 million listing of an eight-bed, 20-bathroom estate in Beverly Hills.
Josh Altman has been appearing on Million Dollar Listing since 2011, often co-starring with his brother Matthew. He said he considers the time he spends filming a wise investment in his career.
“We keep doing the show because it's another promotional tool for us, just like we pay to be featured in certain magazines,” he said. “It opened a lot of doors for us.”
But he doesn't attribute his success to his TV appearances. Quite the opposite, he says. Altman Brothers, the real estate group of Douglas Elliman Brothers, sells more than $1 billion in real estate each year, Altman said.
“The show didn't make us,” he said. “We created the show.”
