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>I once worked for a luxury real estate brokerage and had opportunity to talk to real estate brokers who dealt in ultra-high-end real estate (the kind of proper

>I once worked for a luxury real estate brokerage and had opportunity to talk to real estate brokers who dealt in ultra-high-end real estate (the kind of properties that people make YouTube videos about). One conversation stood out to me that's relevant here Do you happen to have more sharable anecdotes / thoughts around this? I realize its off topic, however I think it still has value to warrant that. I'd be interested in anything you can share about it. I'm curious how the 'day to day' folks see things vs how its sold and told to the rest of us via news magazines or books.

potatolicious 1y ago
It's a super interesting scene, and was a great eye-opener into how the mega-wealthy side of the world goes. A few things that pop into my brain in no particular order: - At the high end, everyone's got a gimmick. You can't just be personable and charming, you have to be so memorable as to feel like some fictional character. Your clientele are expecting more than mere representation, but something/someone who makes their life actively more interesting. - Part of this may have been the market (NYC), but I got the distinct feeling that a lot of this was that buyers wanted a NYC fairy tale. If you're wealthy enough, it's not enough to have an agent, your agent has to spring forth and become a side character in the adventure story of their life. - There's a lot of spilled ink about the mega-wealthy buyers (Middle Eastern oil barons, Russian oligarchs, Chinese billionaires, etc.) but they are a vanishingly small portion of the population of very wealthy people. In general I think most people have a poor appreciation of how little of the ultra-high-end consists of foreigners and high-profile business people that they've heard of. - Related, there are way more wealthy Americans than most people appreciate, and the sources of their wealth are way more mundane than most people suspect. There are more 8-figure luxury condos being sold to families that own car dealerships and trucking companies than tech wunderkinds or petro-oligarchs. By multiple orders of magnitude.

potatolicious 1y ago

It's a super interesting scene, and was a great eye-opener into how the mega-wealthy side of the world goes. A few things that pop into my brain in no particular order: - At the high end, everyone's got a gimmick. You can't just be personable and charming, you have to be so memorable as to feel like some fictional character. Your clientele are expecting more than mere representation, but something/someone who makes their life actively more interesting. - Part of this may have been the market (NYC), but I got the distinct feeling that a lot of this was that buyers wanted a NYC fairy tale. If you're wealthy enough, it's not enough to have an agent, your agent has to spring forth and become a side character in the adventure story of their life. - There's a lot of spilled ink about the mega-wealthy buyers (Middle Eastern oil barons, Russian oligarchs, Chinese billionaires, etc.) but they are a vanishingly small portion of the population of very wealthy people. In general I think most people have a poor appreciation of how little of the ultra-high-end consists of foreigners and high-profile business people that they've heard of. - Related, there are way more wealthy Americans than most people appreciate, and the sources of their wealth are way more mundane than most people suspect. There are more 8-figure luxury condos being sold to families that own car dealerships and trucking companies than tech wunderkinds or petro-oligarchs. By multiple orders of magnitude.