October is Luxury Month at Inman. All month, we’ll be talking to top producers from across the country, offering advice on how to join their ranks, and more. That all leads up to Luxury Connect at the Aria Hotel (Oct. 25-26, 2021, join us) and a live presentation of the Inman Golden I Club honorees.
Real estate marketing company Luxury Presence is launching a joint referral network for its top-grossing agents.
The Santa Monica-based luxury marketing startup, which raised $5.4 million in a Series A funding round in 2020, offers agents websites and marketing software designed to draw in luxury clients. Its latest offering will be known as Global Collective and work as a referral network of agents and teams who brought in more than $1 billion throughout the course of their careers — members will cross-promote their properties, share referrals and market to targeted luxury buyers.
“There are obviously a lot of people moving to new cities and referral partnerships are getting more and more important,” Malte Kramer, Luxury Presence’s founder and CEO, told Inman. “We’re excited about what this will enable for our customers and for our members.”
Malte said the network is primarily a way to increase exposure — many of these agents work with ultra-luxury properties worth over $20 million and, as a result, find that the available buyer pool is often quite small. He said that it is helpful to have both a cross-country and international network of agents who work with these types of buyers since, quite often, people who can afford properties in this price range move through different cities. Agents will be able to select a listing of theirs to be shared with the wider network, which makes it appear on the websites of the other members.
“A big part of it is about increasing exposure for those listings and cross-marketing those things with other agents,” Kramer said. “We provide our members with technology to do that very easily. They can showcase their listings on the website of those other members and, in so doing, increase exposure beyond their own market.”
The initial launch includes 30 agents out of the company’s 3,500 clients. Those include, among others, Barry Cohen ($6 billion in career sales), Jade Mills ($6 billion in career sales), Dawn McKenna ($2.5 billion in career sales), Matthew Breitenbach ($2 billion in career sales) and Ginger Martin ($2 billion in career sales).
To join, agents can go to the Global Collective’s “Become A Member” page and submit an application. Agents who have not yet reached the $1 billion threshold can use Luxury Presence’s regular resources to help grow their business.
“It goes beyond the market that a member is in and toward the partnerships that one has domestically and internationally,” Kramer said. “In the high-end market, the buyers are often second-home buyers and high-net-worth individuals who are looking in different markets. These partnerships, then, become critical to finding buyers for one’s homes.”
The goal is to bring in over 100 members by the end of next year, with a focus on international market. It will also host an annual meet-up; the first one is scheduled for January 2022 in Los Angeles.